PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Chapter 8 Cognition and Language 8 1 Attention and Categorization Cognition means thinking and using knowledge Attention Attention is your tendency to respond to and to remember some stimuli more than others at a given time When an object differs drastically from those around it in size shape color or movement we find it by a preattentive process meaning that it stands out immediately One surrounded by similar objects requires a long and patient search Finding typical features figures requires attentive processing one that requires searching through items in series o Such as Where s Waldo Shifting Attention You can do two things at once however you cannot pay attention to both at the same time Stroop Effect The tendency to read the words instead of saying the color of ink o Reading is an automatic and preattentive process o Refraining from reading and naming the color ink of the typeface makes large attention demands From left to right name each color of the blocks as fast as you can You may find it harder and harder to name off the colors as you move from blocks to words this is because of the Stroop effect Read left to right the color of the ink in each part Try to ignore the words themselves Change blindness o Related to the sensory store we think remember everything in a recently scanned scene But we fail to detect changes in a scene on viewing it again This is change blindness o This is why directors of movies and television shows can film different scenes or parts on different days or in different places chances are we will never notice 1 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Attention blink else o It takes time to shift attention from one item to another o During a brief time after perceiving one stimulus it is difficult to attend to something Attention Deficit Disorder People vary in their ability to maintain attention Attention deficit disorder ADD is characterized by easy distraction impulsiveness moodiness and failure to follow through on plans Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD the same except with excessive activity People with ADD or ADHD easily pay attention to something they care about The problem and fidgetiness relates to shifting attention 3 to 10 of all children are thought to be afflicted 70 are boys The diagnosis is controversial Treatments o The most common treatment for ADD or ADHD is stimulant drugs o Another way to enhance attention is by interacting with nature Categorization Forming categories concepts or classes is a way to organize information People objects or events are classified together when they share important features in common Many categories are best described by familiar or typical examples called prototypes o We decide whether an object belongs to a category by determining how well it resembles the prototypes of that category o For example we define the category vehicle by example car bus train airplane and truck Is an escalator also a vehicle What about water skis These items are not exactly vehicles but not exactly non vehicles Conceptual Networks and priming We form categories and place them in networks of related concepts We don t think about something by itself Upper levels are the common broadly shared characteristics Lower levels are the more distinctive or special characteristics For Example Hearing the word car Thinking about one concept will activate or prime the concepts linked to it through a process called spreading activation might make us think drive or road Priming reading or hearing one word makes it easier to think or recognize a related word Seeing something makes it easier to recognize a related object 2 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes 8 2 Solving Problems Making Decisions and Thinking Algorithm a mechanical repetitive procedure for solving a problem or testing every Mathematics involves primarily algorithmic problem solving Heuristics strategies for simplifying a problem and generating a satisfactory guess Example if you want to guess which child is the oldest choose the tallest Maximizing thoroughly considering every possibility to find the best one algorithmic hypothesis approach Satisficing searching only until you find something satisfactory heuristic approach Insight Differs substantially from using algorithms We look at mathematical and similar type problems and accurately gauge our ability to solve them Insight is used when we have no idea if we d be able to solve the problem It seems that insights occur suddenly ah hah Heuristics Representativeness heuristic the assumption that an item resembles members of some category is probably also in that category o If something looks like a duck waddles like a duck quacks like a duck chances are it s a duck o More accurate judgments are made from base rate information data on the frequency or probability of an event Availability heuristic the tendency to assume that if we easily think of examples of a category then that category must be common o Car crashes are more dramatic than infections contracted during hospital stays nosocomial We fear the car crash more intensely The actual base rate of nosocomial infections is the higher than that of car crashes A tendency to assume Leads us astray Example of error that when Representativeness heuristic Something resembles members of a rare Something looks like it might be a UFO so you category decide it Availability heuristic The more easily we can think of members of a One category gets more publicity than another or is more memorable You remember reports of airplane crashes than car crashes wo you think air travel is more dangerous An item that resembles members of a category probably belong to that category category the more common the category it 3 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Common Error in Human Cognition 1 Overconfidence a We believe our answers are more accurate than they are b We overestimate the quality of our predicted and past performances 2 Confirmation Bias a Accepting a hypothesis and then looking for evidence to support it instead of considering other possibilities b Functional fixedness the tendency to adhere to a single approach or a single way of using an item 3 Framing Questions 4 The Sunk Cost Effect a The tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed phrased differently a The willingness to do something because of money or effort already spent b Example if you bought expensive tickets three months ago to a football game but the game day is today and the weather is