Cognitive Psychology
Let's say that you can't decide between moving to California or New York after college. How can creating a pros/cons list reduce confirmation bias during big decision making?
Try to think of ideas and cons for both, rather than what you have heard. If you just think of information that is readily available in your head (availability heuristic) you will be mistakenly making confirmation bias by avoiding information that counteracts with your knowledge, Actively research both states and research against the knowledge you know and compare the pros/cons amongst states.
Compare/contrast the metamemory of each age group: 2 years old, 7 years old, and 18 years old
2: Not developed 7: Not yet aware words are easer to remember when related to one another, rather than random (effort) Overconfident 18: Much more accurate than younger children in judging accuracy
"He is a golden retriever, therefore he is a dog." Try to create a propositional calculus for the previous statement where you: affirm the antecedent, affirm the consequent, deny the antecedent, and deny the consequent. Think about which are valid and which are invalid.
Affirming the antecedent (VALID): He is a golden retriever, therefore he is a dog Denying the antecedent (INVALID): He is not a golden retriever, therefore he isn't a dog Affirming the consequent (INVALID): He is a dog, therefore he is a golden retriever. Denying the consequent (VALID): He is not a dog, therefore he is not a golden retriever
What are some possible factors that influence children's eyewitness testimony?
Age, Stereotypes and suggestions; Researched by the Sam Stone study Inability to say I don't know, and likelihood of changing statements when cross-examined
Why is it important to consider both the possible gains and losses when making big decisions?
Because if we only think about gains, we will avoid risks, and if we only think of losses we take them. We need to understand each decision in both loss and gains to accurately know to avoid or seek out risks.
Describe the new sets of challenges of conducting research in children and older adults.
Children: Easily influenced- stereotypes and suggestions-, hard for consent, reluctant to say i don't know Elderly: stereotypes and individual differences
*Review and discuss the research on metamemory in children.
Children are not aware that effort is necessary to remember (it is not automatic). Have overconfidence Unsophisticated ideas of their memory
Discuss possible memory strategies that can help children improve their memory.
Children have poor recall because they don't use memory strategies (intentional, goal-oriented activities to improve our memories) effectively. They could be using strategies, but no effectively (utilization deficiency). 1. Rehearsal is useful for working memory 2. Organizational strategies like grouping 3. Imagery
Compare and contrast children and older adult's memory to adults' memory (working and long- term memory). What are some possible explanations for age differences in memory other than age itself?
Children: - Have central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad like adults -Have poor recall memory, good recognition compared to adults -Do not have a well-organized sense of who hey are and difficult encoding/retrieving events with theirselves -Difficulty in source monitoring Usually due to not understanding how to spontaneously use memory strategies and incomprehension of being self aware. Elderly: - Depends on the nature of the task for working memories and long term - Simple tasks vs complicated tasks - Perform well on semantic memory (better than adults) and automatic behaviors - Difficulty in prospective memory (since it relies on working memory) but do well with an environmental cue - Slight or no declines in implicit memory tasks - No difficulties in recognition - Explicit recall tasks are hard to define based on someones education and verbal abilities Due to stereotypes, people might believe they are less competent and don't engage in memory strategies theirselves. Explanations for age differences in memory: 1. Neurocognitive changes (brain shrinks with age, increased frontal lobe) 2. difficulty paying attention 3. Less effective use of memory strategies 4. Contextual cues hypothesis 5. Cognitive slowing
Summarize the research regarding memory in children and older adults.
Children: - reduced working memory, reasonably strong recognition memory, and poor memory on long-term recall tasks. - no autobiographical memory before 2-3 -poor source monitoring Older adults: -As adults grow older, their working memory remains intact for some tasks, but it is limited if the task is complicated or if it requires manipulation of information. - age differences are relatively large for prospective memory tasks; in contrast, age differences are relatively small for implicit memory tasks and for recognition tasks. - Age differences on explicit recall tasks are typically more substantial, but the deficits depend on a variety of factors. For instance, elderly individuals perform relatively well if they have high verbal ability, if they are well educated, or if they are tested early in the day.
What are some techniques/tasks that are used to test children's memory? What about elderly adults' memory?
Children: Recognition: show objects, show more, what are recognized? Recall: Show items, what did you remember? (memory strategies not developed until middle childhood) Autobiographical memory: Children produce a life narrative
"if I study for my exam, then I will get a good grade." Which type of deductive reasoning is this? Identify the antecedent and the consequent.
Conditional reasoning Antecedent: If I study for my exam Consequent Then I will get a good grade
Differentiate between conditional reasoning and syllogism. Think of examples for each.
Conditional reasoning describes a relationship between conditions while a syllogism has two statements we must assume to be true and a condition. Conditional reasoning uses the sentence structure of if then while syllogism uses some, all, none, therefore. Both of these are either valid or invalid Conditional reasoning example: If my favorite fruit is an apple and I am eating an apple, then I am eating my favorite fruit Syllogism All of my friends are girls Some girls are mean Therefore some of my friends are mean
Discuss some possible factors that influence infants' memory.
Context and spacing effects Infants do not have developed regions of their cortex (working/long term memory) Mother's vs Strangers Ethnicity Encoding Specificity Spaced learning vs mass learning Levels of processing tasks
Differentiate between deductive reasoning and decision making. When would you use each? Try to come up with a few specific situations in your daily life.
Deductive reasoning is when you begin with some specific premises that are true, and you need to judge whether those premises allow you to draw a particular conclusion, based on the principles of logic In decision making, you must assess the information and choose among two or more alternatives. This is much more ambiguous Deductive reasoning Comprehension tests and homework on articles Decision making Life choices
Describe the relationship between confirmation bias and affirming the antecedent and denying the consequent.
Denying the consequent means that you say the then part of a sentence is false, leading to a correct conclusion Confirmation bias is when people would rather try to confirm or support a hypothesis that try to disprove it. When researching confirmation bias it is found people are way less likely to deny the consequent than to affirm the antecedent with are both valid.
How might individual differences affect one's performance on a memory task?
Elderly individuals perform relatively well if they have high verbal ability, if they are well educated, or if they are tested early in the day.
Let's say that you get a 100% on exam 3. When you see your exam grade, you exclaim to your classmates, "I knew I was going to get a 100% on the exam!" Explain how you are expressing hindsight bias in this situation. What are possible explanations for the hindsight bias?
Hindsight bias occurs when an event has happened and we say that the event had been inevitable and we actually knew it all along. We often reconstruct the past to match our present knowledge. This example displays the hindsight bias by claiming we knew we were going to get it. Possible explanations involves the anchoring and adjustment heuristic- by seeing this information was 100% true, we adjust to claiming to know it 95%.Another explanation is people misremember events to be current with information to justify the outcome.
How can illusionary correlations explain stereotypes? Provide an example. How is this related to the social cognition approach?
Illusory correlation occurs when people believe two variable are statistically related, even though there is no actual evidence for this relationship. According to the social cognition approach, stereotypes can be traced to our normal cognitive processes by the availability heuristic. Since people can think of more examples of someone fitting a stereotype, we believe it to be true. Anchoring and Adjustment: We tend to rely too heavily on an anchor and the adjustments are too small. People tend to endorse their current beliefs instead of questioning them
What is the general role of heuristics in decision making?
In decision making you must assess the information and choose among two or more alternatives. A heuristic is a general strategy that usually works well(good bet not always). Decision making tasks allow us to use heuristics. When we make decisions we often use heuristics. that are fast and simple to reduce the difficulty of making decisions but this can lead to inappropriate decision making
Compare the metamemory of a young adult to that of an elderly adult.
Older and younger adults share similar beliefs about memory tasks and how memory works. Also similar recall prediction values and selecting most difficult items to study. Older adults are more likely to be overconfident especially where their working memory is over worked
Discuss possible reasons for overconfidence.
Overconfidence is when our confidence judgements are higher than they should be based on performance. Reasons for overconfidence include: 1. People are often unaware our knowledge is based on uncertain assumptions/ information from unreliable sources 2.We resist searching for counterexample and look for readily available information that confirms it. 3. People don't recall other possible hypothesis (competing) which leads to being overconfident of what they do remember 4. If people remember competing hypotheses, they don't take them seriously 5. Overconfidence is unknown by the public due to lack f researchers publishing.
Create an example of each key term: representative heuristic, availability heuristic, and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic.
Representative heuristic: We judge that a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which the sample was selected. Example: Randomness over coincidences and order. If a sample is generated randomly it should look 'random', but random can be orderly as well. Tend to ignore base rate. Lotto winner being 12345 Availability heuristic:When we estimate frequency or probability in terms of how easy it is to think of relevant examples. What is the population of Indonesia versus Italy? (corona). Anchoring and Adjustment heuristic
Discuss possible issues that could arise when using each heuristic inappropriately.
Representativeness heuristic: We often ignore important statistical information that we should consider(Small sample fallacy). We ignore the base rate, and sample size. We also fail to recognize the probability of 2 events occurring together is smaller than 1 event. Based on judgement of similarity to a group. Availability heuristic: Based on judgement that we need to remember examples that could be contaminated by recency and familiarity. We judge more recent items to be more likely than they really are. With more media coverage, we think things are more likely than other things with less coverage. Anchoring and Adjustment: We begin with an anchor and make adjustments to the number based on information. Did ghandi live past 140? When did he die?
What important statistical evidence does the representative heuristic lead us to ignore?
Sample size and base rates.
What is the current perspective of heuristics on decision making?
Some researchers say heuristics underestimate people's decision making skills. Some say we are not perfect decision makers, especially under time pressure but do relatively well with fair chances. People think it also depends on the real world environment of the decision problems (ecological rationality)
Why is the belief-bias effect and confirmation bias considered examples of top-down processing?
The belief bias effect occurs in reasoning when people make judgements based on prior beliefs and general knowledge rather than the rules of logic. Confirmation bias is when people would rather try to confirm or support a hypothesis that try to disprove it. The belief bias effect is an example of top down processing because it involves our prior expectation to judge new experiences and understand the new world. Our previous knowledge will question valid conclusions. This is because people are not flexible thinkers and it is more difficult to agree with evidence outside of their beliefs, which involves confirmation bias.
How can planning fallacies be avoided to maximize test preparation?
The planning fallacy is when people underestimate the amount of time or money required to complete a project and estimate that the task will be relatively easy to complete. This can be avoided by making more realistic estimates about the amount of time a large project will require. 1. dividing project into several parts and estimating how much time each will take 2. envision each step to complete your project 3. try to think about some person (not yourself) and how long they took to complete their project and what obstacles they faced
Explain how the wording of a question and our own background information can lead to the framing effect.
The framing effect demonstrate that the outcome of your decision can be influenced by 1. The background context of the choice and 2. The way in which a question is word or framed Background context can influence decisions and so can the wording. (20$ lost ticket example) The wording of a question can influence decisions and shows a trend that people avoid risks when gains are implied and take risks with losses (prospect theory).
*What did you find surprising about the research on metamemory in elderly people?
The stereotype is not true and it is more aligned with unhealthy individuals
