Cognitive Psychology

1. Cognitive Psychology

2. Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mind and mental function, including learning, memory, attention, perception, reasoning, language, conceptual development, and decision making. The modern study of cognition rests on the premise that the brain can be understood as a complex computing system.

3. Thinking and Reasoning Important Concepts and Theories

4. Mediators INPUT External Stimuls OUTPUT Resulting Behavior/ Memory MEDIATORS Perception, attention, language, reasoning

5. Reasoning • The drawing of conclusions or inferences from observations, facts, or assumptions. • Deductive • A conclusion follows from a premise. If the premise is true, the conclusion MUST be true • Inductive • A premise provides support for a conclusion, but it is possible for the conclusion to be false

6. Deductive Reasoning Activity With a partner, develop a deductive reasoning premise to share with the class

7. Heuristic Cognitive strategies, or “rules of thumb,” often used as shortcuts in solving a complex inferential task Examples? http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples/examples-of-heuristics.html

8. Recycling and Heuristics Looking at Garbage vs. Recycling bin Recycling Heuristic Research from Dr. Shankar Vedantam (NPR audio) http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/how-recycling-bias-affects-what-you-toss-where

9. Creative Thinking Creative Drawings Activity

10. Mental Set – a mental barrier to problem solving Using something that worked for you in the past to solve a problem that you have now Thinking “inside the box”

11. Mental Set Questions Question #1 Question #2 There are six eggs in a basket Six people take one of the eggs each. How is it that one egg can still be left in the basket? What occurs once in June, once in July, and twice in August?

12. Answer to eggs Answers to June, July, August: The 6th person walked away with the egg in the basket The letter U

13. How is it that a man born in Massachusetts, whose parents were born in Massachusetts, is not a U.S. citizen? • He was born before 1776 • The dwarves and Snow White sit down for a bite. How fast can you guess what she serves her guests next? • 7 seconds

14. A detective is called to a home in a very wealthy neighborhood. The maid has found the bodies of George and Mary on the floor of the living room. They are both dead. The room appears to be undisturbed. In fact, the family cat is sitting off to the side, washing its face. The only thing that is unusual in the room is a small amount of water on the carpet. • What happened? • George and Mary are goldfish

15. A man runs away from home, makes three left turns, and sees two masked men waiting for him at home. Who are the masked men? The catcher and the umpire

16. Functional Fixedness The tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.

17. Functional Fixedness Example • NASA needed a way for astronauts to write in space, the problem was, ink pens didn’t write when upside down • Lots of research and millions of dollars finally produced a pen that could write in space. • What did the Russians do? • Used a pencil!

18. You Try: What are ways you can use a brick? http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/7-games-you-can-play-with-brick.html

19. Divergent Thinking Divergent thinking = breaking mental sets to find unconventional alternatives Enhances creativity Example: The Wright brothers had to break the mental set that in order to fly, you needed wings that flap like a bird.

20. Wolfgang Kohler • Gestalt Psychologist who studied schemas and how they are used in problem solving • Used apes as subjects • Concluded that they could use insight, and not just trial and error to solve problems • Read Sultan Example

21. Piaget, Jean Huge influence in the world of cognitive develop. Was the first psychologist to really research how we develop our thinking processes. Two key terms: Assimilation: putting new information into already existing categories (our schemas) Accommodation: when we see something new and it doesn’t fit in our schema….we change or modify it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAQur-Y_BJY&feature=related

22. Piaget’s Cognitive Stages Studied errors in thinking

23. Sensorimotor Stage (birth-2yrs) • Learning by looking, touching, hearing, tasting • Thinking = coordinating sensory information with body movements • Major accomplishment: object permanence • Marks ability to use mental imagery (imagining it’s there without actually seeing it) • Ability to think in concepts

24. Preoperational Stage (2-7yrs) Use of language and symbols accelerates Lack mental abilities to understand abstract concepts (like knowing that division is the reverse of multiplication = irreversibility) Egocentric – sees world from only his/her perspective Lack of conservation

25. Concrete Operations Stage (7-12yrs) Children start to understand conservation, reversibility, and cause and effect Learn to categorize things Very rule bound! – see things as black and white Enjoy fooling adults (pretend sleeping, hiding, etc.)

26. Formal Operations Stage (12-adult) • Abstract Reasoning • Can think hypothetically and in past, present, future • “Consequences” in adolescence: • Argumentativeness • Egocentrism, self- conscioussness, self-focusing • Invincibility • Idealism and criticism (think that the world could be perfect…if only….

27. Video Overview of Piaget • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEam9lpa6TQ&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRF27F2bn-A • Partner Pair and Share • How would you “test” children to see what stage they might be in? (hint: figure out a test for all 4 stages)

28. Critiques of Piaget’s Theory • Piaget was a very “choppy” theorist…. • We don’t fall into concrete stages • Our cognitive processes are flowing and overlapping • Children understand more than Piaget thought • Toddlers can think symbolically (little room representing a big room, for example) • Preschoolers are not as egocentric as Piaget thought • They can take another’s perspective • Developing a theory of mind…how our minds are individual and effected by beliefs and feelings

29. Lev Vygotsky Critic of Piaget Believed that language was the most important cognitive process in humans All other processes (like problem-solving, memory, perception) depended on language Language helped give us cognitive thought/mental images Language helped us mature, not the other way around We learn from the help of others…it’s not all magically independent

30. Vygotsky’s ZPD • Zone of Proximal Development • the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help • Vygotsky and other educational professionals believed education's role was to give children experiences that were within their zones of proximal development, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning

31. Vygotsky’s “Scaffolding” • Scaffolding • a process through which a teacher or more competent peer helps the student in his or her ZPD as necessary, and tapers off this aid as it becomes unnecessary, much as a scaffold is removed from a building during construction

32. Barriers to Reasoning Rationally • Hindsight Bias – “I Knew it all along” • Ex: I knew it was love at first sight…. ? • Aversion to loss – choose thinking that will minimize loss • Ex: 600 dying people: choose: • A procedure to save 200 for sure • A procedure with 33% chance of saving 600 • Same thing, but want to avoid the “thought” of losing • Exaggerating the Improbable • Availabilty heuristic – if examples are easy to think of, we exaggerate the probability it will happen • Dying in an airplane crash • Confirmation bias • Tendency to look for or pay attention only to info that confirms your belief • Ex: once we have our mind made up about a convicted criminal, hard to find evidence to support them

33. Cognitive Dissonance • Cognitive Dissonance: • The uncomfortable feeling/tension that happens when we hold two inconsistent thought together • Example: • Smokers – want to live a long life, but know smoking has horrible health effects • Failed prophecies • See book pg 291-293 • http://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136560695/doomsday-believers-cope-with-an-intact-world • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/doomsday-2011-believers-a_n_865267.html

34. Motivations to Reduce Dissonance • 1. when you need to justify a decision you freely made • 2. when your actions violate your self-concept • 3. when you put a lot of effort into a decision, only to find the results less than you hope for

35. Vygotsky • Bandura – social learning • Cognitive dissonance • Hindsight bias • Do perception/awareness next…bear video, then language, then memory, include how it is studied and well-known studies • Chomsky, Vygotsky, Bruner, Krashen