Unit 7B Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, and Language

1. Unit 7BThinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, and Language Monday, November 18, 2013

2. Thinking: Concepts • Cognition: the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating • Studied by cognitive psychologists • Concepts: mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people • helps simplify things • Give us a lot of information with little cognitive effort

3. Thinking: Concepts • Example: Chair • Many different types—high chair, reclining chair, dentist chair—but it’s their common features—meant for sitting—that define the concept of chair • What would life be without concepts?

4. Thinking: Concepts • To further simplify things, we organize concepts into category hierarchies • Once we perceive something, we also identify it’s category

5. Thinking: Concepts • Ways to form concepts: • By definition • Example: told that a triangle has 3 sides = classify all 3-sided geometric forms as triangles • Developing prototypes (a mental image or best example) • Most common way of forming a concept • The more closely something matches our prototype of a concept, the more readily we recognize it as an example of the concept • Example: Picture a bird.

6. Which matches your prototype more?

7. Thinking: Concepts • Once we place an item in a category, our memory of it later shifts toward the category prototype • Example: Shown an ethnically mixed face (70% Asian, 30% Caucasian), people categorized the face as Asian but later recalled it being a more prototypically Asian face then it was(90% Asian rather than 70%)

8. Thinking: Concepts • Concepts speed and guide thinking, but don’t always make us wise • Example: • Prototype of prejudice = white against black, male against female • Prejudice that goes the other way is often overlooked

9. Thinking: Solving Problems • Strategies • Trial and error • Algorithms—methodical, logical rules or procedures that guarantee solving a particular problem • Heuristics—simple thinking strategies that often allow us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently

10. Thinking: Solving Problems • Insight—a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem • Contrasts with strategy-based solutions • Some animals also use insight • Example: Sultan the chimpanzee • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE

11. Thinking: Solving Problems • Brain Teasers • The maker doesn’t want it, the buyer doesn’t use it, and the user doesn’t see it. What is it? • Aman left home one morning. He turned right and ran straight ahead. Then he turned left. after a while, He turned left again, running faster then ever. Then he turned left once more and decided to go home. In the distance he could see two masked men waiting for him. Who were they?

12. Thinking: Solving Problems • Activity: • You have two minutes to come up with as many uses of a paper clip as you can.

13. Thinking: Solving Problems • Activity results • You just took a creativity test • Add up the total # of uses and divide by two • 4 is average, 8 is high

14. Thinking: Solving Problems • Creativity—the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas • Not related to IQ • IQ tests measure convergent thinking • Creativity tests measure divergent thinking

15. Thinking: Solving Problems • Components of Creativity: • Expertise • Imaginative thinking skills • Venturesome personality • Intrinsic motivation • Creative environment

16. Thinking: Solving Problems • Obstacles to Problem Solving • Confirmation bias—a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence • Example: WMD in Iraq • Fixation—the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set

17. Thinking: Solving Problems • Examples of Fixation: • Mental set: a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past • Funcitonal fixedness—the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

18. Thinking: Solving Problems • What are the final three letters in the following sequence? • O-T-T-F-?-?-?

19. Thinking: Solving Problems • What are the last three letters in the following sequence? • J-F-M-A-?-?-?

20. Thinking: Making Decisions and Forming Judges • Representaiveness heuristic—judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes • May lead us to ignore other relevant information • Availabilty heuristic—estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory • If instances come readily to mind, we presume such events to be common

21. Thinking: Making Decisions and Forming Judges • Which are you more afraid of: car accident, being murdered, terrorist attack, or choking?

22. Thinking: Making Decisions and Forming Judges • Overconfidence—the tendency to be more confident than correct—to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments • Belief perserverance—clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

23. Thinking: Making Decisions and Forming Judges • Intuition—an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought • Usually enables us to react quickly and adaptively

24. Thinking: Making Decisions and Forming Judges • Framing—the way an issue is posed • Example: Which sounds more dangerous? • 10% of people die while undergoing a particular surgery • 90% of people survive a particular surgery

25. Review • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKTAUcoKCLo

26. Exit Slip • Answer the following questions. Put answers on front table before you leave. • Give an example of a concept. • People are more concerned about a medical procedure when told it has a 10% death rate than they are when told it has a 90% survival rate. What is this an example of? • What is the inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective called? • Why do people often underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a project?