PSYC-105 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Major Depressive Disorder, Dopamine, Anxiety
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSYC-105
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Thinking, Reasoning, & Language.
Thinking.
• Any mental activity or processing of info.
• The world is complex so our brains try to be efficient in processing it.
(Cognitive misers)
.
Heuristics.
• A mental shortcut, or rule of thumb.
• Helps us to quickly categorize and understand all of the information and make
decisions.
• Judgements based on limited information are often correct.
•
Instructor behaviour study: Who is the better prof based on silent
actions/movement?
•
College dorm rooms study: Walking around a decorated room and guessing
personalities.
•
Couples who divorce study: Couples interact for 15 minutes and it is predicted
who would be divorced within 15 years; contempt was the best predictor.
Representative Heuristic.
• Guessing how like
X
is based upon how superficially similar it is to
Y.
•
(Example:) Melissa is in her late 30s and has a PhD in psychology. She loves to
do research on people. Is she more likely to become a university professor or a
politician?
• Base Rates: How common a behaviour is based on a characteristic.
Availability Heuristic.
• Guessing how likely
X
is based upon how easily you can think of an instance
where
X
occurred.
•
(Example:) Are there more homeless men or women?
Cognitive Biases.
• Systematic errors in thinking. By definition, they are incorrect.
Hindsight Bias.
• Overestimating your ability to have predicted known outcomes.
• The answer is obvious once we know it.
(“Oh I totally knew that was gonna
happen!”).
Confirmation Bias.
• Tendency to seek out info. That aligns with our beliefs.
• Neglecting, discounting, or distorting conflicting evidence.
•
(Example:) Women are better psychology students OR marijuana as a gateway
drug.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Top-Down Processing.
• Filling in gaps of info. Based on our predicting knowledge.
• Concepts are knowledge of particular “sets” which share core properties.
• Schemes are knowledge of how particular actions, objects, and ideas are
related.
Decision Making.
• Process of making a selection between a set of possible options.
• Made in subconscious, to reserve cognitive economy.
• Over-analyzing decisions can be problematic.
• Framing of facts and info. Can significantly influence our decisions
•
Choosing a poster study: Female students choose 1 of 5 posters where 2 of the
posters are famous paintings and the other 2 are cats. Will they quickly pick or
wait to make a decision? Those who went with their gut were much happier
than those who thought deeply.)
.
Problem Solving.
• Often we follow algorithms.
• Step by step guide that doesn’t change
(example:) buttoning up a shirt or
making a sandwich.
• When algorithms are disrupted or not available, we break down the process
into sub-problems
(example:) trying to buy a house or shower with a broken
foot.
• Draw an analogy between past and current events.
Obstacles to Problem Solving.
• Salience: Focus on superficial/surface-level similarities between problems.
• Functional fixedness.
•
(Example:) Young children and dogs. Children approach their dog with open
arms and may approach other, stranger dogs they same because they use the
same problem solving tactic with a similar/same situation.
Models of the Mind.
How can we explain how the mind works?
Rules of thinking as programmed software on the hardware of our brain?
Embodied Model.
• Knowledge is organized/accessed in a way that allows simulation of the
experience.
• Thinking about stimuli activate the brain areas associated with those stimuli.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Thinking: any mental activity or processing of info, the world is complex so our brains try to be efficient in processing it. (cognitive misers). Representative heuristic: guessing how like x is based upon how superficially similar it is to y, (example:) melissa is in her late 30s and has a phd in psychology. Is she more likely to become a university professor or a politician: base rates: how common a behaviour is based on a characteristic. Hindsight bias: overestimating your ability to have predicted known outcomes, the answer is obvious once we know it. ( oh i totally knew that was gonna happen! ). Confirmation bias: tendency to seek out info. That aligns with our beliefs: neglecting, discounting, or distorting conflicting evidence, (example:) women are better psychology students or marijuana as a gateway drug. Top-down processing: filling in gaps of info.
