Chapter 8 - Reasoning And Decision Making

Question 1

What is a symbolic representation, and what is an analogical representation?

Answer 1

Symbolic representation: an arbitrary string of letters that represents an item, however they are abstract and do not have relationships to the objects, only the meaning has a relationship.

Analogical representation: This is a visual representation of some information, representing the meaning of the word.

Question 2

Can an analogical representation construct many different symbolic representations?

Can a symbolic representation construct many different analogical representations?

Provide examples of each…

Answer 2

An analogical representation can construct many differently worded symbolic representations, however the overall general meaning is the same, it is just written in different ways.
Ex: if you are given an image of someone throwing a ball, you can write it as: Ben throws the ball, or the ball is thrown by Ben. Overall it has the same meaning but it can be written in different ways.
ONLY ONE MEANING CAN COME OUT OF AN ANALOGICAL REPRESENTATION.

Symbolic representations if written ambiguously can provide many different analogical representations, based on where the emphasis in the sentence is placed.
Ex: “The spy saw the man with the binoculars”, could either be drawn as a man seeing someone who is wearing binoculars, or a man looking at someone through binoculars.
MULTIPLE ANALOGICAL MEANINGS CAN COME OUT OF ONE AMBIGUOUS SYMBOLIC REPRESENATION.

Question 3

If symbolic representations can have multiple analogical representations, what does this mean for interpretation of stories and hence encoding of the information in those stories?

Answer 3

Because of this, stories can be interpreted many different ways, and based on the context in which the story was listened to people may encode it with different information being highlighted.

Question 4

How do writing and reading go through the stages of reality, symbolic and analogical representations?

Answer 4

For writing, ones ability is based on how they can encode information from reality into an analogical representation that they can then write about symbolically (through words).

For reading, ones ability is how well they can interpret what is going on accurately and produce a strong analogical representation that they can understand and relate to reality.

Question 5

What makes someone a better problem solver?

Answer 5

Ones ability to represent something analogically and make a picture/plan in your head will determine how well you can simplify the problem by eliminating irrelevant information.

Question 6

What are the definitions of problem solving and decision making?

Answer 6

Problem solving: Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal, and the first step in this is building a strong analogical representation of the problem.

Decision making: A cognitive process that results in the selection of a course of action or belief from several options. Sometimes mental shortcuts can be used, but sometimes they can be misleading.

Question 7

What is the Buddhist monk problem and what is a productive and unproductive representation of it?

Answer 7

One morning, a Buddhist monk sets out at sunrise to climb a path of the mountain to reach the temple at the Summit hero arrives at the temple just before sunset. A few days later, he leaves the temple of sunrise to descend down the mountain travelling faster since it is downhill. Is there a spot along the path of the Uncle occupy at precisely the same time of day on both trips?

Unproductive representation: Naturally you would try to think of this in terms of mathematics, but it is not that complicated.

Productive representation: the two monks start at sunrise on the same path going opposite directions, they must meet at a spot at the same time, even if it is not the directly in the middle fo the descent.

Question 8

How does background knowledge on a subject affect the ease with which a problem can be solved? What is an example of this?

Answer 8

The more background knowledge someone has, the more effectively they can perceptually chunk the problem and decide how to solve it based on previous patterns. An example of this would be the grouping of some problems. The novice would group based on appearance, but this is not effective because they may not be able to be solved in the same way. The expert would group based on the approach taken to solve the problem, (based on previous knowledge and chunked information in memory) and hence will not group based on similar experience.

This is because experts have specific knowledge in certain problem domains, and hence can connect certain problems together based on the schema they have in their mind. So they can quickly establish connections between certain information and hence present accurate models of the information which novices cannot do.

Because the experts were sorting problems based on their meaning and the way in which to solve them, they took a lot longer to sort the problems, however overall they were able to solve them much faster. This is because they tried to understand the problems before solving them.

Question 9

What could be a disadvantage of being an expert in a certain specialty?

Answer 9

Experts have specific information encoded in their brain and so they may not be able to think outside of the box because they are constantly trying to relate information back to what they previously knew.

Question 10

How you _______ a problem effects how _______ you solve a problem.

Answer 10

How you represent a problem affects how quickly you solve a problem. The more effectively you organize it, the more quickly you can solve it.

Question 11

What does it mean for a conclusion to be valid?

Answer 11

This means that the conclusion can only be represented in one way by the premises and hence it must always follow from the premises. Don’t attach real world meaning to it because empirical truth does not always match validity.

Question 12

What are three recurring themes when trying to use logic and reasoning?

Answer 12

1. We are often influenced by general world knowledge stored in our memories when trying to make judgements. So previous context will influence how we interpret something, and hence it may not be valid but we think it is due to empirical truth.
2. We are more capable of thinking in concrete ways then abstract ways, which is why we often try to attach an example. But again empirical truth will interfere so instead draw out venn diagrams to model and understand the problem.
3. We tend to search for evidence that confirms our decisions, beliefs and hypotheses. So if you are skeptical, you will be more likely to search for negative evidence, or evidence that refutes that rule.

Question 13

When problems are presented in an abstract form, people are:

Answer 13

Generally poor at solving problems. They will be much better at solving them when seen as real life concepts or solutions.

Therefore, world knowledge often prevents us from seeing pure logic, and sometimes allows us to see it.

Question 14

What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 14

Begins with some specific premises that are assumed to be true and based on those premises a conclusion is drawn. A conclusion is valid if it follows the principles of logic. And deductive reasoning is used to determine if the conclusion is valid. So based on a general rule that is assumed, can you draw a valid conclusion?

Question 15

What is a syllogism? What type of reasoning does it use to solve?

Answer 15

An instance of a form of reasoning where a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises) each of which shares a term with a conclusion, and shares a common middle term that is not present in the conclusion. This is just an argument from philosophy.

This uses DEDUCTIVE reasoning, where a general rule is taken and is used to create a more specific example, or you can draw conclusions from previous known facts and definitions.

In summary:
A three statement logical form where the first two are premisdes that are assumed to be true, and the third part is a conclusion based on those premises.

An argument will be valid if the conclusion is a consequence of the premises. It’s invalid if it has a counterexample, and so the premises don’t necessarily prove the conclusion.

Question 16

How to solve a syllogism since real life examples can be misleading?

Answer 16

You use Venn diagrams!

All A’s are B’s — then all A’s must fit inside the B circle.
This doesn’t mean that all B’s are A’s necessarily, because there could be some B’s that the A circle doesn’t cross.

No A’s are B’s — Two separate circles, and this is the universal negative.

Some A’s are B’s — put the circles partially overlapping but not completely.

Then, once you have done this for the premises, see how you can combine them into a bigger Venn diagram. Create all the possibilities. Then, evaluate the conclusion taking the Venn diagrams that are relevant. If they represent the same situation, then that is the conclusion that follows every time. If there are multiple Venn diagrams that can be made, then we cannot assume that conclusion every time and hence it is invalid.

Question 17

A ________ conclusion does not always mean it has _________ _______.

Answer 17

A valid conclusion does not always mean it has empirical truth. The truths of the facts interfere with the actual logic, which is determined by how the statements follow from each other.

If the premises can never be true while the conclusion is false (only one possible Venn diagram can be drawn which represents that conclusion), then it is valid. You can’t get any other conclusions from those premises.

Question 18

What is conditional reasoning?

Answer 18

Conditional reasoning is an if then statement, where there is an antecedent (if this is true) and a conclusion (then that is true).

Question 19

Conditional reasoning involves a logical determination of a conclusion or no conclusion if one part of the if/then statement is assumed to be true or not true. If we use a statement that says if A then B, we are saying if A is true so is B. How do we prove that this is valid (what are the two things we would need to check?)

Answer 19

To prove this is valid, we would need to check that when the antecedent is true, the consequent is true, and when the consequent is false, the antecedent is false.

If the consequent is true, then this doesn’t tell us anything because the conditional only says if the antecedent is true then the consequent must be. But if the consequent is true, that doesn’t meant the antecedent must be. It could have come from some other factor.

If the antecedent is false, there is no reason to check the consequent because the rule doesn’t say what the consequent is when the antecedent is false.

Therefore, only if the antecedent is true must we check the consequent, because the rule says that both must be true in that case.

If the antecedent is true then we must check the consequent, because it says if it’s true the consequent must be, but if the consequent is false whilst the antecedent is true then this wouldn’t work out.

Question 20

If the rule says “If P is true, then Q is true,” what can we say about the following four possible conclusions?

1. P is true
2. P is not true
3. Q is true
4. Q is not true

Answer 20

1. AFFIRMING THE ANTECEDENT: If P is true, then based on this rule we can assume that Q is true (as long as this argument is always valid). This is an outcome we can determine easily.
2. DENYING THE ANTECEDENT: If P is not true, the rule doesn’t say anything about the consequent. It could be true or not true, and so no definite solution can be drawn from this.
3. AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT: If Q is true, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that P is true. It’s only saying if P is true then Q must be, but Q could also be true when P is not.
4. DENYING THE CONSEQUENT: Here, it says that if P is true, then Q is true. So if Q is not true, it cannot be the case that P is true because Q must be true when P is true. Therefore, this can be determined with certainty as long as the rule is valid — that P must be false if Q is false.

Question 21

What is modus ponens? What is modus tollens?

Answer 21

Modus ponens: This is affirming the antecedent, and this draws a constant conclusion that the consequent must be also affirmed every time.

Modus tollens: This is denying the consequent, meaning that if the consequent is false so must be the antecedent or else it isn’t valid.

These are the two conclusions that can be drawn with certainty once affirmed or denied.

Question 22

When you are given that the antecedent is true, what do people normally say about the consequent and how good are they at inferring the truth?

Answer 22

When given that the antecedent is true, almost everyone was accurate in concluding that the consequent must also be true. So modus ponens was very easy to understand for people, no matter if in concrete or abstract form.

Question 23

For modus tollens, how accurate were people in making inferences based on the conditional?

Answer 23

Denying the consequent is harder for people to understand and think about, because people may say that the antecedent doesn’t have to be false is the consequent is, when in fact it does.

So when presented in abstract form, people only made correct inferences 57-77% of the time. However, when presented in everyday experience form, people were accurate 87.5% of the time, because we tend to think in terms of concrete evidence.

Question 24

What is the Wason selection task? What is the most common response and what is the correct response?

Answer 24

The Wason selection task has 4 cards placed in front of someone, and people are told that a card with a vowel on it will have an even number on the other side.
One card has a vowel, one has a consonant, one has an even number, and one has an odd number.

*Note: A very important thing here is that this DOES NOT mean that if a card has an even number on one side, it has to have a vowel on the other side. It only means that if it doesn’t have an even number on one side, that it must not have a vowel on the other side. This is modus tollens (denying the consequent)!

When asked which two cards to turn over to ensure that the rule is valid (always followed), what two cards would you turn over?

Most people would say you would turn over the card with the vowel and the card with the even number. Because you want to check both directions — if there is a vowel then there is an even number, and if there is an even number then there is a vowel. But that is NOT what this rule is saying! It doesn’t say anything about what type of letter must be on the other side if there is an even number. So this is incorrect, we will not be able to draw any valid conclusions from that second card (though the first one would be correct).

The correct two cards to chose would be the vowel and the odd number. If there is an odd number, you want to confirm that there is no vowel on the other side, because this rule says if there is a vowel on one side, then there must be an even number on the other side. So if you don’t find this, the rule would be invalid.
In addition, you want to prove that if there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side, which is what most people got right.

So the correct two cards to chose would be:
1. Modus ponens: affirming the antecedent
2. Modus tollens: denying the consequent

Only 4% turned over E and 7, and 46% turned over E and 4. Clearly people were optimistic and wanted to turn over the affirming statements.

Question 25

What is it called when people wanted to turn over mainly the affirming statements?

Answer 25

This is called a confirmation bias, they tried to confirm or support the hypothesis rather then falsify it, which caused them to look past the logic.

Question 26

What real life example causes people to more strongly choose modus ponens and modus tollens, rather then the two confirming statements?

Answer 26

This real life example would be the rule: If someone is drinking beer, then the person must be over 20 years of age. Because this is a real life example with dangerous or illegal outcomes if the rule is not being followed, people are more likely to adopt a skeptical attitude. Therefore, for real life examples people were more likely to check the modus tollens case rather then just trying to affirm everything. Ex: There are 4 cards, one with a beer, one with Coca Cola, one with age 22 and one with age 19. Because people are skeptical and are trying to catch people being illegal, they are more likely to chose the beer card and the 19 card, because they want to ensure that the person is drinking at a legal age. The other two don’t really matter and this makes sense. In this case, 73% of participants selected the correct cards, because it motivates people to adopt a skeptical attitude! This is another confirmation bias, because we tend to believe people are cheating and this leads us to find evidence to prove that, causing us to look at modus tollens.

Question 27

What are two main errors that people make related to conditional reasoning?

Answer 27

1. FORM ERROR: If P then Q = If Q then P. But this is not the case, it is only saying that if P is true Q must be, but if Q is true it could have come from other outcomes and it doesn’t mean that P had to be true. Instead, the correct statement would be: If P then Q = If not Q then P. Because if Q is false, this rule says that P cannot be true. This is modus tollens. Proving antecedent and falsifying consequent both prove the rule. 2. SEARCH ERROR: People tend to search for positive evidence only, due to a confirmation bias. If skeptical, people tend to search for negative evidence. Due to these biases, people tend to ignore the rules of logics. 2.

Question 28

What are the two types of cognitive processing? How does this relate to dual process theory?

Answer 28

Type 1: Fast and automatic due to the drawing of exogenous attention, requires little conscious attention. Some examples are stereotyping, and the use of heuristics, (we process something based on previous knowledge about it). Type 2: Slow and controlled, requires focused attention, and hence endogenous attention. This would be trying to think of exceptions to a general rule, such as using venn diagrams as before. These two types of processing can be done at once because they require two differnt processing types and hence the first is easy and the second is hard, allowing them to occur at the same time.

Question 29

What is inductive reasoning? What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 29

Inductive reasoning: This is when you use specific examples and bring them together to make a general rule. So you induce something from some examples that seem to follow it. This is not always accurate and may not always be true or follow this pattern, as many similar instances must support a certain rule. So we often make incorrect inductions from a small amount of examples. Ex: every quiz has been easy. Therefore the test will be easy. Ex: The teacher used PowerPoint in the last few classes, therefore the teacher will use PowerPoint tomorrow. Ex: Every fall there have been hurricanes in the tropics. Therefore there will be hurricanes in the tropics this coming fall. PREDICTING BASED ON PREVIOUS EVIDENCE. Deductive reasoning: this is when you take a general rule and use it to make more specific examples, which should usually be true. This is also known as drawing conclusions from previously known facts and definitions. Ex: All students eat pizza. Claire is a student, therefore Claire eats pizza. Ex: All athletes work out in the gym. Barry is an athlete, therefore Barry works out in the gym. DEDUCING BASED ON A RULE THAT WAS MADE.

Question 30

What are heuristics? What are two types?

Answer 30

Heuristics are a rule of thumb that provides a best guess solution to a problem. It is a general rule solving strategy that usually produces a correct solution, but it cannot always be relied upon because it sometimes produces errors. Type 1: The representatives heuristic: How likely does this event belong to a category? If it does, then you can group it in with the conclusions that follow from that category. Type 2: The availability heuristic: Whatever information is most easily accessible will be what one chooses to believe.

Question 31

What is an example of a representative heuristic?

Answer 31

Tossing a coin 6 times in a row, people would think that getting: HHHHHH is less likely then HHTHTT. This is because the representatives heuristic for all the possible outcomes is made of many combinations of H’s and T’s, whereas all H’s is just one possible solution that appears much more unlikely. But each time you toss a coin the results are independent of what happened before, and hence for those specific combos they are both equally as likely to happen.

Question 32

What is a representatives heuristic?

Answer 32

This is a judgement rule where an estimate of the probability or likelihood of an event is determined by one of two features: 1. How similar the event is to the population that came before it. 2. Whether the event seems similar to the process that produced it. Ex: a random process should produce random patterns of results. The definition in the textbook is: Placing a person or an object in a category if that person or object is similar to ones prototype for that category.

Question 33

What is the gamblers fallacy and what heuristic does it relate to?

Answer 33

The gamblers fallacy is the belief that if an event hasn’t happened for a long time, it is more likely to happen soon. Or if something has happened repeatedly, it is less likely to occur on the next turn. So gamblers think that even thought they have lost the last few rounds they will win the next one. Therefore, they are assuming that past independent events have an effect on future outcomes. In reality, they are independent events and so what has already happened should not affect what happens next. THIS IS ONLY FOR RANDOM OUTCOMES. If you have aced previous exams, then you ARE loikely to ace the next one because it is not a random event, they are related.

Question 34

What is a base rate?

Answer 34

A base rate is essentially the general prevalence or likelihood of an event occurring within a population. So this is like the control when you are looking at heuristics, and you have to take this into account. Is something more likely simply because it is more likely overall in the population?

Question 35

What are some examples of how base rates affect the probability of certain events? (3)

Answer 35

1. More graduate students are first-born then second born because there are more first born students overall! Because anyone who is second born must have a first born before them! 2. More hotel fires start on the first ten floors of a building rather then the second ten floors, not because it is more likely the lower in the building, but simply because not all hotels have more then 10 floors! And any hotels that have 20 floors must have a first 10 floors so therefore the total likelihood is larger even though individually they’re the same. 3. In baseball, more runners are thrown out on first base because there are more runners on first base in general! So for all of these, you have to pay attention to the base rates of the events to determine if the increased likelihood is simply due to the normal population or if it is due to something else. Ignoring the base rates of events, these questions become very difficult to answer!

Question 36

What is another example for base rates (smokers)?

Answer 36

The percent distribution of smokers and non-smokers who have developed lung cancer is 75% for non-smokers, and 25% for smokers. However, this does not take into account base rates! Overall, there are more non-smokers then smokers, so this is showing based on their prevalence in the population overall! You have to look at the percent of those developing lung cancer WITHIN each group, to account for the fact that those who smoke make up a smaller proportion of the population. In addition, there are other confounding factors the can effect predisposition for lung cancer!

Question 37

How can you account for base rates to look at the percent appearance of certain things in the population?

Answer 37

You just have to create more tables, and then look at how the percents change between the same groups in those tables! So for the smoking example, another table is created that shows the percentage of smokers in the general population compared to non-smokers. This is 5% to 95%, and then it jumps to 25% to 75%. Clearly the PROPORTION of the smokers groups getting lung cancer is MUCH LARGER then the PROPORTION of the non-smoking group getting lung cancer. So because this percent increased, we can say that in general smokers are more likely to acquire lung cancer! A further example includes young and old smokers and non-smokers. But again the same thing you have to do is just compare the percentages in the base rates to the percentages in the other rates. If they increase then that means that likelihood has increased for that group!

Question 38

Compare base rates and representatives:

Answer 38

Base rates: The general prevalence of something occurring in the population. Representatives: These are groups that generally are related, and so a certain group of people is most often portrayed in a certain way. In other words, this is a stereotype, and so this is the proportion of something in the overall past population and hence what you believe should follow for a similar group.

Question 39

If a description of Tom is given and then people are asked to place what faculty he likely is in, how do they choose? If no description is given, then how do they choose?

Answer 39

If a description is given, they will be more likely to compare to a past representative of that group, and based on the general pattern for the group of people in that group, they will assume that he also follows this pattern and hence is in this specialty. This is an example of a representative heuristic, also known as a stereotype. If no information is given, then they are more likely to chose based on base rates, meaning whatever faculty has the largest amount of people in it will be the one he is most likely in. In reality, he is most likely to be in ANY on (if all were prevalent in equal numbers). It’s just because some are more prevelant then others that some will be chosen as more likely that he is in them.

Question 40

A guess based on a stereotype has….

Answer 40

A better chance of being right than a blind guess. However it is not always true!! However it can be better than base rates estimates in a lot of cases.

Question 41

What is an availability heuristic? What effects (3) influence this?

Answer 41

Availability indicates ease of retrieval, so this is saying that when people have to make their estimates of likelihood or frequency, it is likely that they are influenced by the ease that relevant examples can be remembered. So whatever is most quickly retrieved to be compared to will be the more likely examples that one will compare what they are looking at to. 1. Primacy effect 2. Recency effect 3. Salient effect Will all influence how quickly they recall that information, and hence what they make their decision on.

Question 42

What are four examples of an availability heuristic?

Answer 42

1. You are asked how reliable a Japanese car is, and you have a friend who has a Toyota that needs to be repaired frequently. Because this is recent in your mind, you draw upon that knowledge rather then looking back in your mind or doing some reasearch. This may not be what the general population of Korean cars represents, but it is what you recently have seen and so you make your decision based on what is readily available to you. 2. What is the ratio of Chevrolets sold to Cadillacs sold? Most people will estimate very low Cadillacs compared to Chevrolets, however this is a large underestimate due to what they are used to seeing recently on the roads. They don’t have an example present in their minds of seeing a Cadillac because it’s very unlikely that expensive cars will be out driving. This estimate was just based on how often they saw Cadillacs on the street, as this was what was readily retrievable in their brain. 3. Is it safer to travel by airplane or car? Most people will think that it is less safe to travel by airplane, but that is just because airplane crashes are more dangerous when they do occur and are less common, so when they occur they are presented on the news and this is what people can easily access in their memory. In reality, there are way more car crashes (they are just not reported), and so travelling by car is actually much more dangerous. Based on the vividness or salience of special events! So salience or vividness overrides the frequency of occurrence, and hence base rates are ignored. Therefore, right after a crash peoples confidence in airplanes drops drastically, due to this availability heuristic. 4. If you currently have a bad prof, you are more likely to overestimate the number of bad profs at the university, based on the pool of knowledge you are drawing from.

Question 43

What is a confirmation bias?

Answer 43

A confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret or recall information that supports your beliefs or the things that you are motivated to prove. And it is also the loss of attention to things that would disprove that view. For example, a boss that sees someone as always late, even if they are only late part of the time. But the boss will look for times when they are late and that will be prevalent in their mind, overriding the evidence for when they were not late. So when asked to look at the big picture it will be very hard to do, and so you will only see it as a few different incidents based on the things you are trying to look for.

Question 44

What are two examples of confirmation bias?

Answer 44

Ex 1: A table showing gay and straight people and the proportion having psychological problems or not proves that they occur in the same proportion (taking into account base rates — gay people occur in smaller proportion then straight people). Maybe this is because those who are gay a lot of the time have more salient personalities than others and so you can more strongly remember those who are gay, and this is what you draw from when making this assumption. Ex 2: You have a migraine and you want that to be all it is, you don’t want it to be anything worse. Therefore, you will focus more strongly on evidence that supports your desired belief, and will ignore symptoms that support what else it could be. The patient and doctor will both have confirmation biases but in different ways, the doctor will be more skeptical because they don’t want to risk a diagnosis so they are okay with high false alarm rates. But the patient will be optimistic and hence will have high miss rates.

Question 45

What is an experiment that demonstrates a confirmation bias in making a diagnosis?

Answer 45

Medical students and psychiatrists read a case about a 65 year old man, and they gave a preliminary diagnosis. Then they were able to ask for some additional information. 25% of medical students selected only information that was consistent with their original diagnosis because this was the salient evidence prevalent in their brain due to the availability heuristic, and hence it blinded them from looking at the big picture and other possibilities. This is very dangerous because they could miss other possibilities! Stick with what they originally believed and will fail to consider the likelihood of an alternative explanation. Overall though, most people will ask for evidence supporting the rest, because they have a skeptical attitude and this will cause them to look for evidence falsifying their current viewpoint. This is why they will have high false alarm rates.

Question 46

What are the three things that affect one’s estimate of the frequency of something?

Answer 46

1. Recency of events 2. Familiarity with events 3. Salience of events These will often override other evidence and lead to inaccurate assumptions.

Question 47

Compare availability and representative heuristics…

Answer 47

Representatives: Given an example you will judge the likelihood of that example based on its membership in a general category and what other things look like in that category. This will be based on the degree of similarity between that case and the general category, and hence how well that stereotype can be applied. Availability heuristic: given a general category, judge the request of occurrence in that category. This judgement will often be based on the ease of coming up with an example, which is based on the recency of similar examples, familiarity with that example, and salience of that event.

Question 48

What is an anchoring bias?

Answer 48

This is the tendency to grab and anchor onto the first piece of information encountered when making a judgement or decision (similar to a confirmation bias in making that diagnosis in the previous example, because medical students would make an original diagnosis and hold on to that piece of evidence).

Question 49

Give an example of an anchoring bias…

Answer 49

Two groups were given the question of when the telephone was invented, but both were given a different anchor, meaning they were asked was it invented before or after a certain date. People correctly answered this question, but then when asked the date it was invented, their answer was closer to their anchor that was originally provided. So the initial year provided served as a reference point.

Question 50

What is the framing/highlighting effect? What are two examples of it?

Answer 50

This effect is talking about how the way in which you present information influences how people see it. This doesn’t change the actual content of what is being presented, instead it changes how people see it! For example, saying frozen yoghurt has 20% fat or is 80% fat free. They mean that same thing, but they draw different attention and hence a specific one has to be used for effective marketing. Another example is the sidewalk sale, this draws peoples attention from the street, even though nothing is different about those clothing items.