Thinking and Problem Solving

Thinking IS Cognition

• Primarily a frontal lobe activity– Drawing info from throughout the brain

(memory) and then working with it– Process, understand, and communicate info

Concepts Redux

• Mental groupings of similar objects, events, people/animals can be organized using a ___________________ to simplify

• Concepts: mental category that groups things– Superordinate – PRODUCE– Basic – APPLES– Subordinate – GRANNY SMITH APPLES

• Prototypes: best example of a concept– Apples (basic) – prototype (_____?_____)– Bird (basic) – prototype (______?_____)

• Schema – mental framework, paradigm, model

Concept vs. Prototype vs. Schema

• Concepts may be formed by definitions– Four legged, furry things that bark are dogs

• The more complex our schema about a concept, the more complex our thinking is about it– Cats may first be thought of as dogs, but later

we debate whether a wolf is a dog or if there is a bigger concept group, including both - canine

Solving Problems

• Algorithms– Systematically try every possibility– Slow but extremely accurate– Ex: locker combinations– More suited to computers than humans

• Examples from stations?

• Insight:– “ah ha!” – the

solution just pops into your brain

• Trial and error:– Similar to algorithms without the system– Example?

• Heuristics:– Mental shortcuts that arrive at a solution using

past experience– Short cut that may not offer a solution– Ex: looking both ways before crossing the

street, what you do when the power goes out

Obstacles to solving problems

• Confirmation bias - ?

• Fixation:– Looking at a problem the same old way or the

first way you think of

• Functional fixation:– Seeing a tool as only have one function– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09UlB17cg

Kw

• Mental set:– Repeating problem solving techniques that

have worked in the past, but don’t work now

• Breaking set– Looking at the problem differently or trying

unique solutions

Heuristics

• Representative heuristic:– Prototype to make decisions about things,

people, or animals– Who was a cheerleader, Cameron Diaz or

Janet Reno?

Heuristics

• Availability heuristic:– Using most vivid memory to make judgments– We may be afraid to go to certain parts of DC,

yet we eat at McDonalds. Which is more likely to hurt you?

Overconfidence Effect

• Because of our tendency for confirmation bias, belief bias, and use of heuristics, we often are more sure of our decisions than we are correct

Overconfidence: Which death is more likely?

• Deaths: All accidents combined vs. Strokes

• 35,900,000 vs. 61,400,000• Deaths: Homicide vs. Diabetes

• 5,700,000 vs. 23,600,000• Crime rates: Detroit vs. San Juan

• 572 vs. 665• Manhattan vs. Gary, Indiana

• 184 vs. 556

Framing

• The way a question is asked will affect our decisions and judgments (how is this like memory?)

• In which case would you buy a ticket for a concert for a band you’re dying to see?– Go to the venue and find you’ve lost $150 dollar ticket– Go to the venue and find you lost $150 dollars from

your wallet

Belief Bias

• We more easily see as logical support for currently held belief and see illogic of arguments that contradict our belief– Gun control debates, much?

• Believe perseverance: it takes OVERWHELMING evidence to “break” us of a belief – can be very damaging– Have teachers slotted you based on non-academic

criteria before? How about based on your performance in 1st and 2nd grade that determined the rest of your schooling experience?

Creativity

• Novel and useful

• Divergent and convergent thinking– Which one explains answering a multiple

choice question using process of elimination?

• IQ and creativity?– Weak positive correlation

Are right brained people going to rule the world?

• Reese’s Peanut Butter – Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0

River Crossing Problem

• http://www.smart-kit.com/s888/river-crossing-puzzle-hard/

Riddles:

• Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.

• What extraordinarily unusual occurrence happened on the 6th of May, 1978?