Cognitive Psychology Ch. 12

Front 1

What is reasoning?

Back 1

Cognitiveprocesses by which people start with information and come to conclusions thatgo beyond that information

Front 2

What is deductive reasoning?

Back 2

Anyform of reasoning in which the conclusions follow withcertainty fromthe premises

Front 3

What is inductive reasoning?

Back 3

Anyform of reasoning in which the conclusions follow only probabilisticallyfromthe premises

Front 4

What are categorical syllogisms?

Back 4

Logical arguments containing three statements (two premises and a conclusion) that describe the relation between two categories using the terms "all", "no", or "some"

Front 5

What is the difference between validity and truth?

Back 5

Validity refers to form

Truth refers to content

Syllogisms can be valid without being truthful, and vice versa

Front 6

What factors cause people to make mistakes when looking at syllogisms?

Back 6

Belief bias & the atmosphere effect

Front 7

What is belief bias?

Back 7

When the syllogism's conclusion is something people believe to be true, they are more likely to judge it as valid

Front 8

What is the atmosphere effect?

Back 8

The logic terms used in the premises of the syllogisms (i.e. all, no, some) cause people to more frequently accept conclusions that have the same terms

Front 9

What are conditional syllogisms?

Back 9

Statements that have the format "If P, then Q."

Front 10

What are the antecedent and the consequent in conditonal syllogisms?

Back 10

Antecedent: the first part of the statement that provides a condition under which the second part is guaranteed to be true

Consequent: the second part

Front 11

How well do people judge the validity of conditional syllogisms when: affirming the antecedent, affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent, denying the consequent?

Back 11

Affirming the antecedent: good

Affirming the consequent: poor

Denying the antecedent: poor

Denying the consequent: okay

Front 12

What was Watson's Four-Card Problem?

Back 12

Gave people a conditional syllogism (If P, then Q) and four cards, then had them say which cards they must turn over in order to make sure that the rule is not violated.

Front 13

How and why do abstract vs. real-world rules affect participants' performances on Watson's Four-Card Problem?

Back 13

People perform poorly when the rule is abstract, but much better when it is stated in everyday terms.

Two possible explanations for this effect are:

- permission schema: suggests that people can detect who is not following the rules of society

- familiarity with the rule

Front 14

What experiment looked at familiarity and permission and what were its results?

Back 14

Cosmides & Tooby: created unfamiliar situations in which cheating could occur

Found that participants still did well despite not being familiar with the situation, proving that permission schema is most likely the cause of people's success in the Four-Card Problem

Front 15

What determines the strength of the argument in inductive reasoning?

Back 15

Representativeness of observations

Number of observations

Quality of observations

Front 16

What is a heuristic?

Back 16

A rule of thumb, quick solution to a problem that is correct most of the time but can lead to people making some mistakes occasionally

Front 17

What is a availability heuristic?

Back 17

Events more easily remembered are judged as being more probable than those less easily remembered

In other words, the easier something comes to mind, the more probable people believe it to be, even though it might not be

Front 18

What is a representativeness heuristic?

Back 18

The probability that A comes from B can be determined by how well A resembles the properties of B

Front 19

What is base rate neglect?

Back 19

When people have descriptive information available, they will use representativeness heuristics and ignore the real statistical proababilities when making decisions (they ignore the base rate)

Front 20

What is the conjuction rule and when does it apply?

Back 20

The probability of two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents

Applies for representativeness heuristics--these cause people to ignore logic and lead to conjuction fallacies (when two events that can occur together or separately are seen as being more likely to occur together), which violate the conjuction rule

Front 21

What is the law of large numbers?

Back 21

Says that the larger the number of individuals randomly drawn from a population (the bigger the sample), the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population

Front 22

What is confirmation bias?

Back 22

A tendency to seek out evidence that confirms one's beliefs and to discount evidence that challenges one's beliefs

Front 23

What is an example of confirmation bias?

Back 23

- Watson's Rule: said he was thinking of a rule with three numbers--2, 4, 6--and students had to tell him three numbers and he would tell them whether they fit in the rule or not, so that they could figure out what the rule was.

- Students tend to only say numbers like 8, 10, 12, which lead them to the wrong answer because they're trying to confirm their hypothesis rather than rule out other options that could make them wrong

Front 24

What is the dual-process model and what are its components?

Back 24

A way of thinking about evidence that you encounter, in two distinct ways:

System 1: thinking that is fast, automatic, and uses heuristics

System 2: thinking that is slower, effortful, and more likely to be correct

Front 25

When do you use system 1 vs. system 2 when reasoning?

Back 25

Use System 1 when we have less time or less attention to give to the problem.

Use System 2 when we have more time and attention, when the questions are primed to have you think statistically (i.e. lottery tickets), or if you have training in some type of statistical reasoning

Front 26

How does background knowledge influence people's judgement?

Back 26

It increases the likelihood that they'll pay attention to base rates

Front 27

What is a utility?

Back 27

An outcome that is desirable because it is in the person's best interest

Front 28

What is the economic utility theory?

Back 28

Assumes that people are rational and that if they have all of the relevant information they'll make a decision the results in the maximum expected utility

Front 29

What are the advantages and disadvantages for the economic utility approach?

Back 29

Advantages: specific procedures to determine the "best choice"

Disadvantages:

- people find value in things other than money

- many decisions involve payoffs that can't be calculated

- people aren't often rational thinkers

Front 30

What are some examples of illogical decisions that people make? (4)

Back 30

- Gambling in casinos

- Gambler's Fallacy--given this sequence of a coin flip, HHHHHH, which flip is more likely to happen next? People will choose T because it hasn't happened yet, when in reality it's always 50/50

- When asked to choose out of a jar with 1 red and 9 white beans or 7 red and 93 white beans, people choose the second because there's more red, even though the first would be a better chance of getting red

- Driving to avoid dying in a plane, when there are more car deaths than plane deaths

Front 31

What are expected emotions?

Back 31

Emotions that people predict they will feel after a certain outcome

Front 32

How do people inaccurately predict their emotions?

Back 32

They overestimate the negative emotions they will feel after losing

Front 33

What are immediate emotions?

Back 33

Emotions felt at the time a decision is being made

Front 34

What are the two different types of immediate emotions?

Back 34

Integral: associated with the act of making the decision

Incidental: unrelated to the decision

Front 35

Why do incidental emotions affect our decisions?

Back 35

One theory is that people have a desire for change associated with negative moods, so if a person is sad they'll make more rash decisions in order to cause any type of change as soon as possible (i.e. sell something for less, buy something for more)

Front 36

What is the framing effect?

Back 36

Decisions are influenced by how a decision is stated

Front 37

What are examples of the framing effect?

Back 37

- Disease prevent programs--people are more likely to choose the programs that are stated in terms of saving people, even when they're the same program

- Custody battle--people will choose the same parent to both award AND deny custody, because the wording makes them focus on different aspects of the parent (who has good and bad) rather than the other who is average

Front 38

What is the difference between opt-in and opt-out procedures in decision-making?

Back 38

More people choose to stay in opt-out procedures than opt-in procedures (i.e. organ donating)

Front 39

How does risk affect decision-making?

Back 39

When choices are stated in terms of gains, people take risk-aversion strategies and take the sure gains.

When choices are stated in terms of losses, people take risk-taking strategies in order to avoid those sure losses.

Front 40

What was Tversky and Shafir's experiment and what did it prove?

Back 40

- Participants given a story about passing or failing an exam, then asked whether they would buy, not buy, or postpone the decision to buy a vacation trip. Found that there was no difference in choices for the pass and fail groups, but people who did not have the results of the test yet were more likely to wait to find out.

- Showed that justification is important in decision-making

Front 41

What functions is the prefrontal cortex (PFC) important for?

Back 41

Planning

Problem-solving

Deductive reasoning

Front 42

What happens to the important functions when the prefrontal cortex is damaged?

Back 42

- Preservation errors: can't switch from one pattern of behavior to another (planning disability)

- Loss of problem-solving capabilities

- Difficulty with deductive reasoning problems

Front 43

How does the orbitofrontal cortex play a role in decision-making?

Back 43

It's essential for the evaluation of somatic markers (physical reactions to decision-making, i.e. tight stomach, fast heartrate)

Front 44

What was Sanfey's experiment?

Back 44

- A game in which a computer would generate a money offer, and participants would accept or reject the offer. Some were told they were playing with computers, others with humans.

- Found that when "playing with humans", people would reject unfair offers in which the other "person" was receiving more money out of anger, but this effect would disappear when playing with a computer

Front 45

What were the physiological results of Sanfey's experiment?

Back 45

Found that when there was more activation of the right anterior insula (which is connected with emotional states) participants were more likely to reject offers, and that the prefrontal cortex was equally active when accepting and rejecting offers.

Shows that emotion is important in decision-making

Front 46

What is omission bias?

Back 46

The tendency to do nothing to avoid making a decision that could be interpreted as causing harm (i.e. making someone else get a flu vaccine)

Front 47

How is decision-making influenced by who a person is making the decision for?

Back 47

People are more likely to make a decision for someone else if they are seen as being responsible for that person (i.e. a doctor for a patient, a parent for a child)