Cognition Thinking and Reasoning

Cognition Thinking and Reasoning

Key Question • How do we construct and process information based on our needs, motives and desires?

Chief Belief of the Cognitive Perspective • The mind is like a super computer processor

Concept • A mental category which groups pieces of information together which share common properties • Objects • Relations • Activities • Abstractions • Qualities • Allow us to summarize info in a manageable format to make quick and efficient decisions

Categorization of Concepts • Basic Concepts-concepts having a moderate number of instances • Easier to acquire than those having few (more specific) or many (more abstract) instances • Convey an optimal amount of info • Based on: • Prototype-our own representative example of a concept • We compare instances of a concept to our prototype to evaluate how representative the instance is of the concept • We link our concepts together via relationships that give the concept meaning and express a single ides called Propositions • Propositions are further linked into cognitive schemas which create an integrated mental network of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about a particular topic • Images, particularly Mental Images, are important in the construction of cognitive schemas as well. • These mental representations allow us to manipulate and may exist in all sensory modalities

Organization of the Brain

Conscious = Thought • Many processes are performed by our mind without our deliberate knowledge • Subconscious Processes- lay outside of awareness, but can be brought into conscious when necessary (ex decoding letters to read) • Nonconscious Processes-remain outside of awareness (ex intuition) • Jerome Kagan (1989) argued that fully conscious awareness occurs only when we must make a deliberate choice • Much of Cognition has been spent on this conscious thought though and out ability to reason

Reasoning • Drawing conclusions from observations, facts or assumptions • Formal Reasoning • Solving problems with a single right (or best) answer • Options: • algorithms-set of procedures guaranteed to produce correct answer • deductive reasoning-drawing conclusions from a set of observations or propositions (premises) • Important not to reverse premises • Inductive reasoning-conclusion probably follows from the premise, but could be false • Informal Reasoning • Solving problems with no clearly correct solution • Options: • Heuristic-a rule of thumb that suggests the course of action without guaranteeing an optimal solution • Dialectical Reasoning-the process of comparing and evaluating opposing points of view in order to resolve differences.

Creative Thinking • People often stick to the same heuristics, strategies and rules that have worked for them before, called mental set • Help us to be efficient, but hinder us when fresh insights and methods are needed • People who are uncreative tend to be convergent thinkers-following a particular set of steps that they think will converge on one correct solution • People who are creative tend to be divergent thinkers-mental exploration of unconventional alternatives in breaking mental sets

Creativity • Traits associated with Creativity: • IQ is not one of them • There are 3: • Nonconformity • Curiosity “Why? • Persistence

Development of Thought and Reasoning • First proposed by Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget • As children develop, they must make constant mental adaptations to new observations and experiences • Takes two forms: • Assimilation-the process of absorbing new information into existing cognitive structures • (ex. Owen and the dogs) • Accommodation-the process of modifying existing cognitive structures in response to experience and new information • (ex. Owen and the cat)

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to Age 2) • Preoperational Stage (2-7) • Concrete Operations Stage (7-12) • Formal Operations Stage (12-Adult)

Challenges to Piaget • Changes between stages are not as clear-cut not as sweeping as Piaget implied • Children may use several different strategies to solve a problem and it may pertain to circumstances, therefore stages actually overlap • Children Can understand far more than Piaget gave them credit for • Object permanence may be much younger • Operations may take place much earlier also • Preschoolers are not as egocentric as Piaget thought • 3 and 4 year olds can take another’s perspective

What we do take from Piaget • New reasoning abilities depend on the emergence of previous ones • Children actively interpret worlds at all stages not just passive empty vessels (important to understand for education) • Piaget probably underestimated children and overestimated adults • Believed all adults developed formal operational reasoning and abstract reasoning (some do not)

How Adults Think • Based on the work of King and Kitchener in 1994 • Interested in determining how people came to decisions on important issues • Developed 7 cognitive stages on the road to reflective thought • Some in childhood others in adolescence and adulthood

Broad Outlines of King and Kitchener’s Stages • Two Pre-Reflective Stages • Correct answer always exists through sensed or through authorities • If authorities don’t have answer answer is what “feels” right • Three Quasi-Reflective Stages • People know that some things can’t be known with absolute certainty, not sure how to deal with such situations • Any judgment about evidence is considered purely subjective (All opinions are created equal) • Two Reflective Stages • Some things can never be known with certainty, but some judgments are more valid • Willing to consider evidence from a variety of sources and reason dialectically • Most people do not show evidence of this until their middle or late 20’s, if at all. • Represents movement away from “ignorant certainty” towards “intelligent confusion” (Kroll, 1992)

Barriers to Reasoning Rationally • The need to be right • Television viewing? • Hindsight Bias • Prevents us from looking back at findings critically (we assume we knew more that we actually did) • Avoiding Loss • People make decisions based on trying to avoid and minimize risks and losses • Exaggerating the Improbable • Particularly with catastrophic events due to the availability heuristic

More Barriers to reasoning Rationally • Confirmation Bias • Tendency to accept evidence that confirms what we already believe and ignore or reject information that disconfirms our ideas • Need for Cognitive Consistency • People look to avoid cognitive dissonance-state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is incongruent with their behavior • Dissonance exists and needs to be reduced when: • You need to justify a choice or decision you freely made • Your actions violate your self-concept • You put a lot of effort into a decision, only to find the results less than you hoped for (Justification of Effort)

Overcoming Cognitive Biases • People are not equally irrational in all situations • Bias diminishes in areas where we have expertise or when decisions have serious consequences • Once we understand a bias, we may be able to reduce or eliminate it • Hal Arkes (1988) work with Neuropsychologists

Animal Minds • Animals seem to possess Cognitive abilities • Originally explained through principles of operant conditioning, but now we have moved on from ridicule of behaviorists • Study of Cognitive Ethology has demonstrated animals abilities to anticipate, make plans, and coordinate activities • Much of this could be tied to genetics as well, so we must be cautious

Examples of Animal Cognition • Otters and Chimps using stones as rudimentary tools • Chimps seemingly able to count to understand more and less • My favorite: • Chimp that doesn’t like Zoo Guests

Animal Language • No nonhuman species meets the following criteria for language: • Must use combinations of sounds, gestures, or symbols that are meaningful, not random • Must permit displacement, communication about objects and events that are not present • Must have a grammar that permits productivity, ability to produce and comprehend an infinite number of new utterances • Some primates have been trained to communicate, but interpretations often times were subjective leading to fascinating findings that may have been exaggerated • Other animals have also been used (Dolphins, Parrots)

Thinking about the Thinking of Animals • Must be careful to avoid Anthropomorphism • Demonstrated in the horse Clever Hans

Cognition Thinking and Reasoning