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Psychology 1B > Thinking > Flashcards

Thinking Flashcards

0
Q

Learning Theory - Thorndike

A
  • Behaviourism
  • learn through trial and error about the outcomes
  • eg puzzle boxes with cats - had to press a lever to get out
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1
Q

What does “thinking” represent?

A

The abilities to: reason, judge, reflect, solve a problem, make a decision etc

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2
Q

Issues with Learning Theories - Thorndike

A
  • didn’t explain much
  • is it really learning by trial and error?
  • or are they learning that there is a relationship between the two (pressing the lever and getting out) - this means there is a cognitive element present
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3
Q

Learning Theories - Köhler

A
  • challenged radical behaviourism
  • chimpanzee study
  • given a task where they had to reach suspended food
  • no opportunity for trial and error
  • learned to stack boxes high enough to reach the food
  • solved the problem after reflection, not by learning that one thing produced something else
  • gained insight into the problem and realised what worked and what didn’t work - COGNITIVE ELEMENT
  • rarely made mistakes after successful completion of the task
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4
Q

Name the 2 classes of mental representations

A

Analogue and Symbolic

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5
Q

What are analogue representations?

A

Resemble what they represent

Eg a picture / drawing of a shark

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6
Q

What are symbolic representations?

A

Arbitrary representations of the thing it represents
Doesn’t resemble the actual object

Eg the word ‘shark’

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7
Q

Briefly explain examples of analogue representations

A

Mental imagery:
a representation of a stimulus that originates in the brain
snapshot picture essentially
(younger children better at this)

Visual Scanning:

  • eg memorise a map with different landmarks, close your eyes and focus on a mental image of the map
  • given tasks where you have to imagine moving from one landmark to another
  • Kosslyn (1978) found that the greater the distance between the two locations on the mental image of the map, the longer it took P’s to scan and find the second location
  • this shows that mental images involve a degree of spatial representation
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8
Q

Briefly explain examples of symbolic representations

Network Models and Spreading Activation Model

A

Network model:

  • see if people look at the world in these hierarchical terms
  • eg animal splits into bird and fish which further divide and so on
  • usually things in higher levels are remembers quicker

Spreading Activation Model

  • a model of working memory
  • seeks to explain how the mind processes related ideas, in particular semantic or verbal concepts
  • vast, interrelated network of concepts
  • can be tested using / is associated with priming
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9
Q

Describe Meyer and Schvaneveldt’s (1971) research

A
  • example of semantic priming
  • P’s had to decide whether the stimulus presented to them was a word or a non-word
  • primed with a word before the stimulus was shown
  • measured the reaction times of P’s
  • faster responses generated when ‘nurse’ was primed with ‘doctor’ compared to ‘butter’
  • this is because ‘doctor’ and ‘nurse’ are semantically related words
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10
Q

What do neuroscientists believe constitutes a thought?

A
  • Arises from the unified activity of different brain areas
  • Koch (2004) - of the many brain regions and connecting circuits that are active at any instant, a particular subset becomes joined in unified activity that is strong enough to become a conscious thought or perception
  • the specific pattern of brain activity composing this dominant subset varies from moment to moment as we experience different thoughts and as we respond to changing stimuli
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11
Q

What is propositional thought?

A
  • expresses a proposition or statement
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12
Q

What is imaginal thought?

A
  • Consists of images that we can see, hear or feel in our minds
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13
Q

What is motoric thought?

A
  • mental representations of motor movements

- eg throwing an object

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14
Q

What are propositions?

A
  • what most of our thinking occurs as

- statements that express ideas

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15
Q

What are concepts?

A
  • basic units of semantic memory
  • mental categories that we place objects, activities, abstractions and events that have essential features in common
  • acquired either through explicit instruction or through our own observations of similarities and differences among various objects and events
16
Q

Rosch (1977) - Prototype view

A
  • many concepts are difficult to define explicitly
  • easier to define concepts by PROTOTYPES - the most typical and familiar members of a category or a class
  • eg vegetables
  • Rosch suggested that we often decide which category / class something belongs to by its degree of resemblance to the prototype
17
Q

Rips (1997) research

1) is an eagle a bird?
2) is a penguin a bird?
3) is a bat a bird?

A
  • prototype view - quicker decision on 1 than 2 and 3
  • b/cause eagle fits most ‘bird’ prototypes than penguins & bats do
  • experiments (Rips) measuring how quickly P’s responded yes or no to the preceding questions have found that most people take longer to decide whether penguins or bats are birds
18
Q

Uses of the prototype view

A
  • most basic and elementary method of forming concepts as we are required to note similarities among objects
  • children’s early concepts - new objects are determined by their degree of similarity to prototypes such as “mummy”, “biscuit” or “doggie”
  • prototypes differ on personal experience - lots of room for arbitrariness and individual differences
  • eg terrorists or freedom fighters?
19
Q

What does reasoning allow us to do?

A
  • acquire knowledge, make sound decisions and solve problems
  • avoids trial and error
  • before solving problems, we develop solutions to them in our minds before then applying them to the external world
20
Q

What is deductive reasoning?

A

When we reason from the top down

General principles to a conclusion about a specific case

Eg syllogisms - If X is Y and Y is Z, therefore X must be Z

21
Q

What is inductive reasoning?

A

When we reason from the bottom up

Start with specific facts and try to develop a general principle

  • used when discovering general principles after witnessing a number of specific instances of a phenomenon
  • eg Pavlov - when dogs were approached by the experimenter who was about to feed them they started to salivate - thought in terms of a general principle which developed into classical conditioning
22
Q

Issues with reasoning

A

1) distraction by irrelevant information
- Sternberg (1988) - drawer with 19 black socks & 13 blue ones
- how many do you have to pick out to get a matching pair?
- students distracted themselves with the numbers of socks when in fact you only need to pull out 3 to get a pair

2) belief bias
- tendency to abandon logical rules in favour of our personal beliefs
- eg argument for smoking is good for ones health - if the premises are true (don’t have to be valid) then the conclusion is true
- many people forget this due to their personal beliefs on smoking

3) emotions and framing
- when we evaluate problems or make decisions we can sometimes abandon logical reasoning in favour of relying on our emotions (gut instinct) to guide us instead
- framing - the way in which the information is presented to us eg 50% success rate or 50% failure rate

23
Q

Describe the four steps in problem solving

A

1) interpret (frame) and understand the problem
2) generate a hypothesis or possible solutions
3) tests the solutions or hypothesis, seeking to disconfirm one or more of them to find the correct one
4) evaluate the results and if necessary repeat steps 1, 2 & 3

24
Q

What are problem solving schemas?

A

Mental blueprints / step-by-step scripts for selecting information and solving specialised classes of problems

  • learn many of them for a range of different activities such as a schema for cooking dinner to schemas for studying
  • once mastered, we seem to know what to do without having to engage in the problem-solving procedures
25
Q

What are algorithms?

A
  • formulas or procedures that automatically generate correct solutions for problem solving
  • eg mathematical and chemical formulas - if used correctly, the correct answer will always be given
26
Q

What are heuristics?

A
  • general problem-solving strategies applied to certain classes of situations
  • they enter into a wide range of decisions and judgements

(for example, judgements about other people, our own health, decisions on buying certain products etc)

27
Q

What is the representativeness heuristic?

A
  • used to infer how closely something / someone fits our prototype for a particular concept or class and how likely it is to be a member of that concept or class
  • a strategy of assuming that each case is a representative of its class
28
Q

Example of the representativeness heuristic

A

Gambler’s fallacy / Law of large numbers

  • toss a coin and you get HHHHHHH
  • would expect a T next BUT it’s equally likely to be a H or a T
  • we commit a fallacy because we think it must be a T now after all these H’s

Applications - horse racing, betting, gambling

29
Q

What is the availability heuristic?

A
  • causes us to base judgements and decisions on the availability of information in memory
  • AKA we tend to remember events and information that are most important and significant to us
  • often provides a good judgments as we are keeping this important information at the forefront of our minds but it can be subject to bias as we may overemphasise
30
Q

Example of the availability heuristic

A

Slovic (1988)

  • most likely causes of death asked:
  • murder or suicide? botulism or lightning? asthma or tornados?
  • murder, botulism & tornados were chosen as the most likely causes however the P’s were incorrect for all 3 according to public health statistics
  • happened because all 3 are more highly and dramatically publicised when they do occur so are more likely to come to mind when comparing with the other events
31
Q

What is confirmation bias?

A

The tendency to look for evidence that will confirm what a person currently believes rather than looking for evidence that will disconfirm what the person believes

  • when people have very strong beliefs about something or about themselves, they tend to be very selective in the kinds of information that they expose themselves to
  • find it difficult and even upsetting to challenge their ideas
32
Q

What is overconfidence?

A

The tendency to overestimate one’s correctness in factual knowledge, beliefs and decisions

  • another reason why people don’t challenge their beliefs
33
Q

What is a schema?

A

A mental framework, an organised pattern of thought about some aspect of the world

34
Q

What is a script?

A
  • another type of schema

- a mental framework concerning a sequence of events that usually unfolds in a regular, almost standardised order

35
Q

How can we apply what we know about thinking processes to help us understand what happens when something goes wrong with the brain?

A

Eg Alzheimer’s Disease

  • degenerative brain disease
  • gradual loss of higher cognitive functions
  • early symptoms = mild memory problems

BUT - memory changes with normal ageing anyway so how can we tell the difference?

  • need to be able to distinguish early on whether an individual has Alzheimer’s as it takes more effort and costs more to treat
  • use High Density EEG brain mapping
  • measure performance on cognitive tasks that target cognitive and perceptual functions that are selectively vulnerable in AD
  • see the differences in hippocampal functions

Psychology 1B (5 decks)

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