Cognition

Question 1

What are Heuristics

Answer 1

• Rules of thumb that produce quick solutions at the cost of possible errors
• usually gives the correct answer

Question 2

What are algorithms?

Answer 2

Procedure that always produces a correct solution

Question 3

What is inductive reasoning?

Answer 3

Specific → general

Question 4

What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 4

• General → specific

Question 5

What is a syllogism?

Answer 5

• Specific to deductive reasoning
• a deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion

Question 6

What are base rates? How are they ignored?

Answer 6

• indicate probability based on the absence of other information
• people tend to ignore base rates in favor of information that is irrelevant to the outcome

Question 7

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 7

estimating the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype that already exists in our minds

Question 8

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 8

you make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is that readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision

Question 9

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 9

the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories

Question 10

What is a normative approach?

Answer 10

• focuses on what people ought to do
• specific to inductive reasoning

Question 11

What is a descriptive approach?

Answer 11

• Focuses on what people actually do/how we reason
• specific to inductive reasoning

Question 12

In problem-solving, what is the initial state, the goal state, and the current state?

Answer 12

• Initial state = where the problem starts
• The goal state = Where you are trying to get to
• the current state = At the beginning of the problem the initial state and the current state are the same, but you want to create a situation where the current state is the goal state

Question 13

What is a weak method of problem-solving?

Answer 13

Methods you can bring to bear when you don’t have expertise or a lot of information available

Question 14

What is the means-ends-analysis?

Answer 14

Always keeping your current state and goal state in short-term memory and trying to connect them

Question 15

What is forward chaining?

Answer 15

Moving the current state toward the goal state

Question 16

What is backward chaining?

Answer 16

Moving the goal state toward the current state by creating a sub-goal

Question 17

What is the difference between experts and novices in problem-solving?

Answer 17

• Experts and novices do not differ in the use of weak methods
• Experts and novices do differ in domain knowledge

Question 18

What is the paradox of expertise?

Answer 18

The better you get at doing something, the less conscious awareness you have of how you do it

Question 19

How can analogies be helpful?

Answer 19

• Can help better understand a complex problem
• Puts complex problems into simpler terms/understandable terms

Question 20

What is functional fixedness?

Answer 20

• the conclusion of duncker’s candle problem
• Because something is already serving one function, it cognitively blocks us from using it for another purpose

Question 21

Do labels help or hurt memory for pictures?

Answer 21

• labels help if they help us make sense of it
• if the label is not consistent with the use, then it harms us
• The way we talk about pictures, exerts an influence on how we remember them

Question 22

What is linguistic relativity?

Answer 22

• also called linguistic determinism
• The language that you speak determines how you perceive, think about, and remember the world around you

Question 23

What are the conditions for a proper test of linguistic relativity?

Answer 23

• Need to test more than one language (multiple languages)
• Linguistic differences
• independent demonstration of cognitive differences

Question 24

Why was so much research done with colors?

Answer 24

• Different languages treat colors very differently
• Color vocabulary vary a lot between languages
• English has a lot of color terms compared to other languages

Question 25

Describe the research done with the Tarahumara and what its findings tell us about linguistic relativity?

Answer 25

• Green, Blue, and another Blue circle with those labels
• Ask non-english and english speakers to say which colors are more similar to each other
• English speakers choose the two titled blue because of the label
• non english speakers choose the green and blue middle one because of their looks

Question 26

Does language affect how we reason and remember about the world?

Answer 26

• Language can clearly influence our ability to perceive, remember and solve problems
• The ability of language to determine how we perceive remember and solve problem is limited

Question 27

What are mental sets?

Answer 27

a tendency to only see solutions that have worked in the past

Question 28

What is the difference between automatic and controlled systems?

Answer 28

• Automatic = quick, parallel, requires little effort, is not easily controlled, and is not sensitive to stressors
• Controlled = slow, serial, requires attention and effort, is easily controlled, and is sensitive to stressors

Question 29

What is belief perseverance and confirmation bias?

Answer 29

• Belief perseverance = the tendency to maintain one’s beliefs even in the face of evidence that contradicts them
• confirmation bias = the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs

Question 30

What is framing?

Answer 30

people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations

Question 31

What is loss aversion?

Answer 31

the tendency to avoid losses over achieving equivalent gains

Question 32

What are overconfidence and hindsight biases?

Answer 32

• Overconfidence bias = the tendency for a person to overestimate their abilities
• Hindsight bias = one becomes convinced they accurately predicted an event before it occurred (after the event occurred)

Question 33

Define language and identify the following features of language: phonemes, morphemes, and syntax.

Answer 33

-Phonemes: the smallest unit of sound
- Morphemes: the smallest unit of sound that has meaning
- Syntax: word order