CHAPTER 7 - THINKING AND INTELLIGENCE
COGNITION
- cognition is thinking
- cognitive psychology is the study of how we manipulate and organize knowledge,
memories, language, perception
- usually a study of the conscious but not necessarily
Concepts
- a category of information, ideas, memories
- natural concepts -> formed through experience and observation (furniture)
- artificial concepts -> defined by specific boundaries (odd/even)
- prototype resemblance (ideal of concept, measure possibilities based on this
assumption)
- ex: what makes a cat not follow the model of a dog?
- children use this for language learning
- process things closer to prototype more quickly
- propositions are rules that define the membership in a category
- necessary (must include) and sufficient (it alone is the thing) features
- ex: for sport may include: competition, athleticism, etc
cognitive schemata
- are networks of knowledge
- mental constructs consisting of collections of related concepts (including prototypes,
propositions, rules)
- serves to reduce mental effort -> helps making judgments -> cognitive shortcuts ->
we don’t consciously think about our propositions
- a schema is constantly being modified, a flexible model
- role and event schemata are useful in everyday life
- role schema of ‘professor’ - understanding of what that means (ex:
unconscious response to student complaints is based on assumptions of
professorhood)
- event schema of ‘restaurant’ - how you should behave, clothes, expectations,
tipping norms
- example: professionals know things by intuition, amateurs need to think
because the situation hasn’t become unconscious yet
PROBLEM-SOLVING
- trial and error
- algorithms (steps that guarantee results)
- heuristics (shortcut or ‘rule of thumb’)
- used when there is little time, too little/much information, unimportant decision
- ex1: working backwards (how long will it take to get somewhere?)
- ex2: availability bias - over-rely on easy examples (what kills more: lightning
or tornadoes?)
- ex3: representativeness bias - compare to prototype (probability: ABABBAB /
BBBBBBB?)
COGNITION
- cognition is thinking
- cognitive psychology is the study of how we manipulate and organize knowledge,
memories, language, perception
- usually a study of the conscious but not necessarily
Concepts
- a category of information, ideas, memories
- natural concepts -> formed through experience and observation (furniture)
- artificial concepts -> defined by specific boundaries (odd/even)
- prototype resemblance (ideal of concept, measure possibilities based on this
assumption)
- ex: what makes a cat not follow the model of a dog?
- children use this for language learning
- process things closer to prototype more quickly
- propositions are rules that define the membership in a category
- necessary (must include) and sufficient (it alone is the thing) features
- ex: for sport may include: competition, athleticism, etc
cognitive schemata
- are networks of knowledge
- mental constructs consisting of collections of related concepts (including prototypes,
propositions, rules)
- serves to reduce mental effort -> helps making judgments -> cognitive shortcuts ->
we don’t consciously think about our propositions
- a schema is constantly being modified, a flexible model
- role and event schemata are useful in everyday life
- role schema of ‘professor’ - understanding of what that means (ex:
unconscious response to student complaints is based on assumptions of
professorhood)
- event schema of ‘restaurant’ - how you should behave, clothes, expectations,
tipping norms
- example: professionals know things by intuition, amateurs need to think
because the situation hasn’t become unconscious yet
PROBLEM-SOLVING
- trial and error
- algorithms (steps that guarantee results)
- heuristics (shortcut or ‘rule of thumb’)
- used when there is little time, too little/much information, unimportant decision
- ex1: working backwards (how long will it take to get somewhere?)
- ex2: availability bias - over-rely on easy examples (what kills more: lightning
or tornadoes?)
- ex3: representativeness bias - compare to prototype (probability: ABABBAB /
BBBBBBB?)
