Psychology 102: Cognitive processes

Welcome to Psychology 102

Psychology 102:
Cognitive processes

Dr James NeillCentre for Applied PsychologyUniversity of Canberra2009

Image source; Remix of http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/File:Brain,_G_Reisch.png (public domain) and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EEG_mit_32_Electroden.jpg (GFDL by http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Aschoek) by James NeillAcknowledgements: This lecture is based on 2008 lecture notes by Dr, Thea Vanags and the instructor slides and material provided by Pearson Education for Chapter 15 from Gerrig et al. (2008) Psychology and life (Australian edition).

Reading

Gerrig et al. (Chapter 8):
Cognitive processes

Image source: Cover of Gerrig et al. (2008)

The Brain:
1.5 kg of wet tissue

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CabbageBG.JPGLicense: Public domain

Cognitive Scenarios:
A mysterious note

At midnight, there's a knock on your door. When you answer, there is no one there, but you see an envelope on the floor. Inside the envelope is a handwritten message: The cat is on the mat. What do you make of this?

Gerrig et al. (2008), p. 248


Cognitive Scenarios:
Attention, Problem Solving, Memory...

Kris is sitting at a desk reading some interesting papers to help with an assignment. Without removing her eyes from the paper she is reading, she reaches for a bag of sweets, unties a wrapper and pops a sweet into her mouth. Suddenly she stops and wonders: What is happening here?Gerrig et al. (2008), p. 248


Studying cognition

Language use

Concepts & their organisation

Problem solving & reasoning

Overview

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Studying cognition

Cognitive science

Cognitive psychology

Cognition

Processes of attention


Framing decisions

Consequences of decision makingDecision aversion

Decision making

Cognitive Science

Cognitive Psychology

Processes of knowingAttending,

Remembering

Reasoning

Content of the processes e.g.,Concepts

Memories

Cognition

Thinking

Knowing

Remembering

Communicating

Cognition

Image source: Unkown

Discovering the process of mindF.C. Donders: Reaction timeThe amount of time it takes experimental participants to perform particular tasks

Studying cognition

Image source: Gerrig et al. (2008)

Serial processesCarried out in order, one after the other

Parallel processesCarried out simultaneously

Mental processes & resources

Attentional processes

Distribute the limited processing resources over different tasks

Controlled processes

Require attention

Automatic processes

Do not require attention

Mental processes & resources

Language use

Language production

Audience design

Speech execution & errors

Language understanding

Language & evolution

Linguistic relativity

Visual representations


What people say, sign, and write and the processes they go through to produce the message Speakers versus listeners

Language production

Shaping a message depending on the audienceH. Paul Grice

Cooperative principleSpeakers should produce utterances appropriate to the setting and meaning of the ongoing conversation

Audience design

Herbert ClarkCommon GroundCommunity membership

Linguistic co presence

Physical co presence

Audience design

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SpoonerismYou have tasted the whole worm!

Tips of the slung

Processes

Representations

Speech execution
& speech errors

Resolving ambiguityLexical ambiguity

Structural ambiguity

Products of understandingRepresentations

Propositions

Language understanding


Fully human speech anatomy first appears in the fossil record ~50,000 years ago.

Language & evolution

May have evolved with walking, running, tool making, & complex group organisation.

Fully human speech anatomy first appears in the fossil record in the Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 years ago) and is absent in both Neanderthals and earlier humans (Lieberman, 2007).

Image description: Woman in museum, USALicense: Unknown

Language structureWashoe & ASL

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh Bonobos

Audience designDorothy Cheny
& Robert SeyfarthVeret monkeys

Cross-species comparisons








Language development

Babbling stage: 4 months, sounds like ah-goo

One-word stage: ~1 year old.

Telegraphic speech: Before 2nd birthday, want juice

Complete sentences: 2+ years

Image source: Unknown (Vanags, 2008)Unfamiliar language all the syllables run together Infants can detect word breaks at 8 months old


Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images

We learn language before learning numbers

Between 1 and 18, we learn on ~10 words/day or 3,500 per year.

Vocab of ~60,000 by end of high school

Image source: Unknown (Vanags, 2008)


Operant Learning (Skinner) - language development can be explained on the basis of learning principles such as association, imitation, and reinforcement.

Inborn Universal Grammar (Chomsky) - the rate of language acquisition is so fast that it cannot be explained through learning principles, so most of it is inborn.

Phonemes

The smallest, distinctive sound unit

bat, has three phonemes b a t

chat, has three phonemes ch a t


Morpheme

Smallest unit of language that conveys meaningBat

Pre

Un

Undesirables 4 morphemesUn-desir-able-s

Grammar - the rules

Semantics how we get meaning from the sentence, e.g.,add ed and it happened in the past

Syntax rules for making a grammatically correct sentence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._EdImage source: Unknown (Vanags, 2008)

Semantics & syntax

They are hunting dogs.




What are the relations between language, thought, and culture?

Linguistic relativity proposes that the structure of language has an impact on the way in which an individual and culture perceives, thinks, and acts in the world e.g., temporality (past, present, future), gender, taxonomies; i.e., language precedes and shapes thought

Linguistic relativity
(Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

PerceptionImageryFrontal cortexTemporal cortexParietal CortexOccipital cortexVisual representations

Perception-ImageryImage source: Gerrig et al. (2008)

Spatial Mental Model

Combining verbal & visual representations


5 minute break have a stretch


Concepts & their organisation

Concepts

Categories & hierarchies

Prototypes

Category boundary members


Concepts

Group similar things together in our mind

Concept of chair:


Concept categories are
hierarchically organised

Hierarchies help to organise items in categories

AnimalsDomesticatedWildDogsCatsMixed breedPure breedHeeler x Huskymad dog Holly


Prototypes

Mental image or best example of a category

Closer something is to the prototype of a category, the easier it is to recognise as being in the category


Prototypes

When an item is placed in a category, our memory of it later shifts towards the category prototype!

Categories can have blurry boundaries

Iimage source (left): Public domainImage source (right): Unknown (Vanags, 2008)

Category boundary members

Give your neighbour the name of an object that you think is very unrepresentative of its category.

Can your neighbour guess the category you are thinking of?

Problem solving & reasoning

Problem solving methods

Obstacles to problem solving

ReasoningDeductive

Inductive

Judging and deciding


Thinking that is directed toward solving specific problems

Moves from initial state to a goal

Problem solving

Problem solving

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Problem spaceInitial state

Goal state

Set of operations

Well-defined problem

Ill-defined problem

Problem solving

Problem solving: Trial & error

Just keep going until you get it right!

Can be inefficient and no guarantee it will work, but some element of trial and error persistence is often key to solving problems.


Problem solving: Algorithms

Step-by-step procedures that always provides the right answer

Follow a series of pre-defined steps guaranteed to work


Problem solving: Heuristics

Cognitive strategies / Mental shortcuts
(rules of thumb)

Shortcuts to solving complex inferential tasks

May or may not provide the right solution

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Availability heuristic: A person begins with a first approximation (anchor) and then makes adjustments to that number based on additional information.

The availability heuristic is a phenomenon (which can result in a cognitive bias) in which people predict the frequency of an event, or a proportion within a population, based on how easily an example can be brought to mind.

Availability heuristic: Judgment based on information readily available in memory

Representative heuristic: Assigns an object to a category on the basis of a few characteristics

Anchoring heuristic: Insufficient adjustment up or down from an original starting value when judging the probable value of an outcome

Problem solving: Heuristics

Problem solving: Insight

Insight a flash of inspiration!


Problem solving

Think-aloud protocolsVerbalising ongoing thoughts while working on a task

Functional fixednessThe inability to perceive a new use for an object previously associated with some other purpose


Confirmation bias eagerness to search for ideas that confirm what we think

Fixation inability to see a problem from a different perspective


Functional fixedness think only of what an item is usually used for

Mental set use the mindset that has worked before

Reasoning

Process of thinking in which conclusions are drawn from a set of factsDirected toward a given goal

Deductive reasoning

Drawing conclusions by logically following two or more statements

1. All men are mortal 2. Socrates is a man 3. (Therefore,) Socrates is mortal

Belief bias

Prior knowledge, attitudes, or values distort (pre-existing beliefs) can distort logical reasoning and lead to invalid conclusions

Belief bias: Examples

Students like to drink

Lecturers are not students

Lecturers do not like to drink

Lecturers like to study

Students are not lecturers

Students do not like to study


Goes beyond the confines of current evidence; makes conclusions about the unknown based on probability estimates derived from available evidence and past experience.

e.g., All parties I ever been to are boring, therefore Jim's upcoming party will be boring too.

Inductive reasoning

We make numerous judgments and decisions based on our intuition, seldom using systematic thinking.

Judgment: Forming opinions, reaching conclusions, and making critical evaluations

Decision making: Choosing between alternatives

Judging & deciding

Judging & deciding: Heuristics

Representative heuristic judge the likelihood of something in terms of how well it matches our prototype

Availability heuristic we base our judgements on how available the information is to us mentally.

Overconfidence

Tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

e.g., on the stock market, both the seller and the buyer may be confident about their decisions on a stock.


Exaggerated fear

Opposite of overconfidence: exaggerated fear about what might happen

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

AP/ Wide World PhotosImage source: Unknown (Vanags, 2008)

Framing decisions

How information is presented affects decisions and judgements, e.g.,Which is most fear-inducing?

A disease will kill 1 person per million.

The fatality risk is .000001%

What's a better way to market beef?

25% fat

75% lean


Belief perseverance

Clinging to initial conceptions after the information on which they were based has been discredited.

If you see that a country is hostile, you are likely to interpret their ambiguous actions as a sign of hostility (Jervis, 1985).

Review questions

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Information_icon4.svgImage source: Unknown (Vanags, 2008)

What is cognition?

The process and content of knowing, including thinking, remembering, and communicating.

How do we mentally organise information?

We mentally organise information using concepts which are stored in hierarchically organised categories.

What are the components of language?

Language is made up of phonemes, morphemes, syntax and semantics

What are 4 techniques we use for problem solving?

We use trial-and-error, algorithms, heuristics and insight to solve problems

What are the obstacles to problem solving?

Our problem solving is impaired by the confirmation bias, fixation, functional fixedness, and mental set.

What errors do we make in judgment and decision making due to cognitive bias?

Our judgment and decision making is affected by heuristics, overconfidence, exaggerated fear, and belief perseverance.

Next week

Lecture No lecture

Tutorials No tutorials

Essay Time to get going!

Gerrig, R. J., Zimbardo, P. G., Campbell, A. J., Cumming, S. R., & Wilkes, F. J. (2008). Psychology and life (Australian edition). Sydney: Pearson Education Australia.

Jervis, R. (1985, April 2). Quoted in D. Goleman, Political forces come under new scrutiny of psychology. The New York Times, pp. C1, C4. (p. 396)

Lieberman, P. (2007). The evolution of human speech: Its anatomical and neural bases. Current Anthropology, 48(1), 39-66.

References