Thinking

Cognition• Another term for thinking, knowing

and remembering

Maybe by studying the way we think, we can eventually think better.

Does the way we think really matter?

Cognitive Psychologists

Thinking involves a number of mental activities, which are listed below. Cognitive

psychologists study these in great detail.

1. Concepts2. Problem solving3. Decision making4. Judgment

formation

Concepts• A mental grouping

of similar objects, events, ideas or people.

• Concepts are similar to Piaget’s idea of….

In order to think about the world, we form……..

SchemasThese animals all look different, but they fall under our concept of “dogs”.

Category Hierarchies

We organize concepts into category hierarchies.

Courtesy of C

hristine Brune

Prototypes

• A mental image or best example of a category.

We base our concepts on ….

•If a new object is similar to our prototype, we are

• better able to

• recognize it.If this was my prototype of a man; then what is Matthew?

Categories

Once we place an item in a category, our memory shifts toward the category

prototype.

A computer generated face that was 70 percentCaucasian led people to classify it as Caucasian.

Courtesy of O

liver Corneille

How do we solve problems?

Trial and Error

Algorithms• A methodical, logical

rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

What are the benefits and detriments of algorithms?

Algorithms

Very time consuming, exhaust all possibilities before arriving at a solution.

Computers use algorithms.

S P L O Y O C H Y G

If we were to unscramble these letters to form a word using an algorithmic approach, we would face

907,208 possibilities.

Heuristics

• A rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently.

•A short cut (that can be prone to errors).

Who would you trust to baby-sit your child?

Your answer is based on your heuristic of their appearances.

Insight

• A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem.

•No real strategy involved

Humans and animals have insight.

Grande using boxes toobtain food

Insight

Brain imaging and EEG studies suggest that

when an insight strikes (the “Aha” experience),

it activates the right temporal cortex (Jung-Beeman, 2004). The

time between not knowing the solution and realizing it is 0.3

seconds.

From M

ark Jung-Beekm

an, Northw

estern U

niversity and John Kounios, D

rexel University

Obstacles to problem solving

Confirmation Bias• A tendency to

search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions.

For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month.

Match Problem

Can you arrange these six matches into four equilateral triangles?

Match Problem

Fixation• The inability to

see a problem from a new perspective.

Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

Candle-Mounting Problem

From

“Problem

Solving” by M

. Scheerer. C

opyright © 1963 by

Scientific A

merican, Inc. A

ll Rights R

eserved.

Candle-Mounting Problem: Solution

Mental Set

•A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially if it has worked in the past.

•May or may not be a good thing.

Functional Fixedness

• The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.

What are some things I can do with this quarter (other than spend it)?

Types of Heuristics(That often lead to errors)

Representativeness Heuristic

• A rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match our prototype.

• Can cause us to ignore important information.

Below is Linda. She loves books and hates loud noises. Is Linda a librarian or a stripper?

If you meet a slim, short, man who wears glasses and likes poetry, what do you think his profession would be?

An Ivy league professor or a truck driver?

Availability Heuristic

• Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in our memory.

•If it comes to mind easily (maybe a vivid event) we presume it is common.

Although diseases kill many more people than accidents, it has been shown that people will judge accidents and diseases to be equally fatal. This is because accidents are more dramatic and are often written up in the paper or seen on the news on t.v., and are more available in memory than diseases.

Availability Heuristic

Why does our availability heuristic lead us astray?Whatever increases the ease of retrieving

information increases its perceived availability.

How is retrieval facilitated?1. How recently we have heard about the

event.2. How distinct it is.3. How correct it is.

Making Decision & Forming Judgments

Each day we make hundreds of judgments and decisions based on our intuition, seldom using systematic reasoning.

Overconfidence• The tendency to

be more confident than correct.

• To overestimate the accuracy of your beliefs and judgments.

Considering “overconfidence” who you want to risk 1 million dollars on an audience poll?

Exaggerated Fear

The opposite of having overconfidence

is having an exaggerated fear about what may

happen. Such fears may be unfounded.

The 9/11 attacks led to a decline in air travel due to fear.

AP

/ Wide W

orld Photos

Framing

• The way an issued is posed.• It can have drastic effects on

your decisions and judgments.

Example: What is the best way to market ground beef — as 25% fat or 75% lean?

Belief Bias

1. Democrats support free speech

• The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning.

• Sometimes making invalid conclusions valid or vice versa.

2.Dictators are not Democrats.

Conclusion: Dictators do not support free speech.

God is love.Love is blind

Ray Charles is blind.Ray Charles is God.

Anonymous graffiti

Belief Perseverance

•Clinging to your initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Copy the nine dots as you see them. Without lifting your pencil from the paper, draw exactly four straight, connected lines that will go through all nine dots, but through each dot only once.

Do you want the answer(s)?

Perils & Powers of Intuition

Intuition may be perilous if unchecked, but may also be extremely efficient and

adaptive.

Artificial Intelligence

Language and Thought

Its all about communication!!!

Language

• Our spoken written or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning.

Believe it or not, this communication is a form of language!!!

Language transmits culture.

Phonemes

• In a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

• Chug has three phonemes, ch, u, g.

How many phonemes does platypus have?

Morphemes

• In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning.

• Can be a word or part of a word (prefix or suffix).

Structuring Language

Phrase

Sentence

Meaningful units (290,500) … meat, pumpkin.Words

Smallest meaningful units (100,000) … un, for.

Morphemes

Basic sounds (about 40) … ea, sh.Phonemes

Composed of two or more words (326,000) … meat eater.

Composed of many words (infinite) … She opened the jewelry box.

Grammar

• A system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate and understand others.

Semantics

• The set of rules by which we derive meaning in a language.

• Adding ed at the end of words means past tense.

The Chinese languages do not have expansive semantic rules. They usually have totally different symbols for different tenses.

Syntax

• The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

• In English, adjectives come before nouns, but not in Spanish!!

Is this the White House or the House White?

Language development

• How many words do you think you know now?

Probably around 80,000.

After age 1 you average about 13 words a day.

We learn, on average (after age 1), 3,500 words a year, amassing 60,000 words by the time we graduate from high school.

Language Development

• Babbling Stage: starting at 3-4 months, the infant makes spontaneous sounds. Not limited to the phonemes of the infant’s household language. (bababa,nanana,ohohoh)

•One-word stage: 1-2 years old, uses one word to communicate big meanings. (done, big, dog)•Two word stage: at age 2, uses two

words to communicate meanings- called telegraphic speech. (me ball, me food,

me done)

When do we learn language?

Longer phrases: After telegraphic speech, children begin uttering longer phrases (Mommy get ball) with syntactical sense, and by early elementary school they are employing humor.

You never starve in the desert because of all the sand-which-is there.

Spell what I say: I Cup, hahaha

How do we explain language development?

Skinner

• Skinner thought that we can explain language development through social learning theory (which is?). The young boy imitates

his dad, then gets a reward.

ChomskyInborn Universal Grammar

• We acquire language too quickly for it to be learned.

• We have this “learning box” inside our heads that enable us to learn any human language.

Explaining Language Development

Statistical Learning and Critical Periods: Well before our first birthday, our brains are discerning word breaks by statistically analyzing which syllables in hap-py-ba-by go together. These statistical analyses are learned during critical periods of child development.

Does language influence our thinking?

Genes, Brain, & Language

Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience modifies the

brain.

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Language & Age

Learning new languages gets harder with age.

Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity• The idea that

language determines the way we think (not vive versa). Linguistic Determinism:

•The Hopi tribe has no past tense in their language, so Whorf says they rarely think of the past.

Do people that speak more than one language think differently

depending on their language at that time?

Word Power

Increasing word power pays its dividends. It pays for speakers and deaf individuals

who learn sign language.

Thinking in Images

To a large extent thinking is language-based. When alone, we may talk to ourselves.

However, we also think in images.

2. When we are riding our bicycle.

1. When we open the hot water tap.

We don’t think in words, when:

Thinking without Language• We can think in words.

• But more often we think in mental pictures.

In 1977, Reggie Jackson hit 3 HR’s against the Dodgers. He has stated that before each at bat, he visualizes crushing a home run. Do you think visualization helps?

Do Animals think?

Do animals have a language?

Animals & Language

Honey bees communicate by dancing. The dancemoves clearly indicate the direction of the nectar.

Do Animals Think?

Common cognitive skills in humans and apes

include the following:

1. Concept formation.

2. Insight3. Problem Solving4. Culture5. Mind?

African grey parrot assorts redblocks from green balls.

William

Munoz

Insight

Chimpanzees show insightful behavior when solving problems.

Sultan uses sticks to get food.

Kohler’s Chimpanzees• Kohler

exhibited that Chimps can problem solve.

Animal Culture

Animals display customs and culture that are learned and transmitted over generations.

Dolphins using sponges asforging tools.

Chimpanzee mother using andteaching a young how to use

a stone hammer.

Copyright A

manda K

Coakes

Michael N

ichols/ National G

eographic Society

Mental States

Can animals infer mental states in themselves and others?

To some extent. Chimps and orangutans (and dolphins) used mirrors to inspect

themselves when a researcher put paint spots on their faces or bodies.

Do Animals Exhibit Language?

There is no doubt that animals

communicate.

Vervet monkeys, whales and even

honey bees communicate with members of their species and other

species.Rico (collie) has a

200-word vocabulary

Copyright B

aus/ Kreslow

ski

The Case of Apes

Chimps do not have a vocal apparatus for human-like speech (Hayes & Hayes,1951).

Therefore, Gardner and Gardner (1969) used American Sign Language (ASL) to train Washoe, a chimp, who learned 182

signs by the age of 32.

Apes and Signing

Gestured Communication

Animals, like humans, exhibit communication through gestures. It is

possible that vocal speech developed from gestures during the course of evolution.

Computer Assisted Language

Others have shown that bonobo pygmy chimpanzees can develop even greater

vocabularies and perhaps semantic nuances in learning a language (Savage-Rumbaugh, 1991). Kanzi and Panbanish developed vocabulary for

hundreds of words and phrases.

Copyright of G

reat Ape T

rust of Iowa

Criticism

1. Apes acquire their limited vocabularies with a great deal of difficulty, unlike children who develop vocabularies at amazing rates.

2. Chimpanzees can make signs to receive a reward, just as a pigeon who pecks at the key receives a reward. However, pigeons have not learned a language.

3. Chimpanzees use signs meaningfully but lack syntax.

4. Presented with ambiguous information, people tend to see what they want to see.

Conclusions

If we say that animals can use meaningful sequences of signs to communicate a

capability for language, our understanding would be naive… Steven Pinker (1995)

concludes, “chimps do not develop language.”