PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Availability Heuristic, Belief Perseverance, Divergent Thinking
18 Jun 2018
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Chapter 9 thinking and language
●Cognition involves the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering and communicating
○All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering
and communicating
●Concepts help to simplify thinking through mental grouping of similar objects,
events, ideas, and people
○Mental grouping of similar objects events ideas and people
○New items matched to prototypes for sorting into categories
●After placing an item in a category, memory gradually shifts it toward a category
prototype
○Prototype is mental image or best example of a category.
●Category boundaries begin to blue as movement from prototypes occur
●Problem solving strategies
○An algorithm is a methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees a
solution to a problem
○A heuristic is a simpler strategy that is more speedy than an algorithm but
is also more error prone
○Insight is not a strategy based solution, but rather a sudden flash of
inspiration that solves a problem
●QUESTION: a methodological rule or procedure that guarantees solving a
problem is called: algorithm
●Pigeons can reliably discriminate pictures of cars from pictures of chairs. This
illustrates the capacity to develop
○Concepts
●Problem solving obstacles
○Confirmation bias: predisposes us to verify rather than challenge our
hypotheses
○Fixation: such as mental set, may prevent us from taking the fresh
perspective that would lead to a solution
●QUESTION: mikayla wants to break up with her boyfriend. She seems to only
notice instances of her relationship not working out, and forgets the good times.
This would be an example of
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○Confirmation bias
●The Aha moment
○A burst of right temporal lobe eeg activity accompanied insight solutions
word problems
○The red dots show placement of EEG electrodes. The light grey lines
●Forming good and bad decisions and judgements
○Intuition is an effortless immediate automatic feeling or thought, as
contrasted with explicit conscious reasoning
○Available heuristic can distor judgement by estimating event likelihood
based on memory availability
○Overconfidence: can impact decisions when confidence outweighs
correctness
○Belief perseverance: occurs when we cling to beliefs and ignore evidence
that proves these are wrong
○Framing: sways decisions and judgements by influencing the way an issue
is posed. It can also influence beneficial decisions
■90 vs 10 percent
■10 of every 10 million people cs .0000001 probability
●QUESTION: when judys professor failed to recognize several times that judy had
her hand raised to answer a question. She began to think he was unfriendly.
Despite learning later that the professor
○Belief perseverance
●QUESTION: when we estimate the likelihood of events occurring based on their
availability in our memory, we presume that such events are common. This is
called.
○Availability heuristic
●The perils and powers of intuition
○Intuition is analysis frozen into habit
■Implicit knowledge
○Intuition is usually adaptive, enabling quick reactions
■Learned associations surface as gut feelings
○Intuition is huge
■Critical thinkers are often guided by intuition
●QUESTION: which of the following is true regarding intuition
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○Intuition is adaptive
●Smart and critical thinking listens to the unseen mind. And then evaluates
evidence tests conclusion and plans for the future.
●Thinking creatively
○Creativity is the ability to produce new and valuable ideas
■It is supported by
■Aptitude or the ability to learn
■Intelligence
■Working memory
○Divergent thinking: expands the number of possible problem solutions
(creative thinking that diverges in diff direct)
○Convergent thinking: narrows the available problem solutions to determine
the single best solution
●QUESTION: divergent thinking involves
○Expanding the number of possible solutions to a problem
●Robert sternberg and his colleagues propose five ingredients of creativity
○Expertise: chance favors only the prepared mind
○Imaginative thinking skills: novel pattern connections
○Venturesome personality: tolerates ambiguity and risk
○Intrinsic motivation: interest rather than deadline
○Creative environment
●QUESTION: which of the following creativity components emphasizes the role of
well developed knowledge:
○Expertise
●QUESTION: the factors associated with creativity include
○Expertise and venturesome personality
●Do do other species share our cognitive skills
○Researchers make inferences about other species consciousness and
intelligence based on behavior
■Other animals use concepts, numbers, and tools and they transmit
learning from one generation to the next
■Other species also show insight, self awareness, altruism,
cooperation and grief
○Using concepts and numbers
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Document Summary
Cognition involves the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating. All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating. Concepts help to simplify thinking through mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people. Mental grouping of similar objects events ideas and people. New items matched to prototypes for sorting into categories. After placing an item in a category, memory gradually shifts it toward a category prototype. Prototype is mental image or best example of a category. Category boundaries begin to blue as movement from prototypes occur. An algorithm is a methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees a solution to a problem. A heuristic is a simpler strategy that is more speedy than an algorithm but is also more error prone. Insight is not a strategy based solution, but rather a sudden flash of inspiration that solves a problem. Question: a methodological rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem is called: algorithm.
