CH9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE Cognition mental activities associated with thinking knowing remembering communicating Concepts mental grouping of similar objects events ideas or people Prototype mental image or best example of a category Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories Comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird like a robin Our prototype for cats is a furry animal but with a hairless cat we hesitate to believe that it s a cat because it doesn t fit our prototype Algorithms step by step methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem Contrasts with the usually speedier but also more error prone use of heuristics Ex finding a word using the 10 letters in SPLOYOCHYG by trying each letter in each of the 10 positions 907 200 permutations Heuristics mental shortcuts that enable snap judgments simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently usually speedier but also more error prone Reducing the number of options in the SPLOYOCHYG by grouping letters that often appear together CH and GY excluding rare letter combos like two Y s together Insight sudden realization of a problem s solution contrasts with strategybased solutions Confirmation bias tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore distort contradictory evidence Mental set tendency to approach a problem in one particular way often a way that has been successful in the past Predisposes how we think Intuition effortless immediate automatic feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit conscious reasoning Availability heuristic estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory if instances come readily to mind perhaps because of their vividness we presume such events are common Ex casino s displaying how much people win by using bells and lights for even small wins but keeping the losing draws silent with no public display of lights Makes us believe that there is a great chance of winning because the lights and signs are common Ex fearing extremely RARE events because of the thoughts that come to mind Fear letting our children walk to school because we play in our heads tapes of abducted and brutalized children We fear swimming in ocean waters because we replay Jaws the vividness of a recent local cold day makes us reduce concern about long term global warming because there is a lack of comparably available images of global warming Overconfidence tendency to be more confident than correct to over estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments can have an adaptive value People who err on the side of overconfidence live more happily They make tough decisions more easily and seem more credible than others The wisdom to know when we know a thing and when we don t comes with experience Belief Perseverance clinging to one s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited Fuels social conflict The more we come to appreciate why our beliefs might be true the more TIGHTLY we CLING to them We tend to ignore evidence UNDERMINING our belief Framing the way an issue is posed how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments 10 of people die during this surgery vs 90 will survive this surgery Same information different effect Risk seems greater when patients hear that 10 will die those who understand the power of framing can use it to influence our decisions o How to help save the planet carbon tax may be the most effective way to curb greenhouse gases but many people oppose new taxes BUT people are more supportive of funding energy development or carbon capture with carbon offset fee The perils and powers of intuitionPerils of intuition when we overfeel and underthink as we do when judging risks intuition can be dangerous feeds fears and prejudices persist even when people are offered extra pay for thinking smart even when they re asked to justify their answers even when they are expert physicians or clinicians Powers Intuition is huge by taking time to sleep on it we let our unconscious mental machinery work on and await the intuitive result of our unconscious processing Intuition is usually adaptive our instant intuitive reactions enable us to react quickly Our learned associations surface as gut feelings the intuitions of our two track mind o If a stranger looks like someone who previously harmed threatened us we may without consciously recalling the earlier experience react warily Automatic unconscious associations can predict their future decisions before they consciously make up their minds ex political positions Intuition is recognition born of experience what we ve learned but can t fully explain like riding a bike we just know o Ex blitz chess every move is made after barely more than a glance They can look at a board and intuitively know the right move developed a special skill nurses art critics car mechanics etc Do other species share our cognitive skills Using concepts and numbers even pigeons can sort objects pictures of cars cats chairs flowers into categories or concepts Apes also form concepts such as cat and dog after monkeys learn these concepts certain frontal lobe neurons in their brains fire in response to new catlike images others to new doglike images Displaying insight Psychologist Wolfgang Kohler we are not the only creatures to display insight o Placed a piece of fruit and long stick outside the cage of a chimp Sultan beyond his reach Inside the cage there was a short stick which Sultan grabbed and tried to reach the fruit After failed attempts he dropped the stick and surveyed the situation insight jumped and took the short stick and pulled the longer stick to him and used the long stick to get the fruit Apes will exhibit foresight by storing a tool they can use to retrieve food the next day Using tools and Transmitting culture many other specifies invent behaviors and transmit cultural patterns o Chimps select different tools for different purposes heavy stick for making holes light stick for fishing for termites etc o Some chimps slurp termites directly from a stick another group may pluck them off One gropu may break nuts with a stone hammer others with a wooden hammer chimp version of cultural diversity Other cognitive skills sheep can recognize and remember individual faces Chimps two species of monkeys can read your intent showing interest in a