Psychology - cognitive processes

• Different cognitive processes- responsible for processing information at different stages
• Perception - Is a cognitive processes which involves registering information

  Memory- cognitive process- involves encoding, storage, and retrieval of information

  Thinking- cognitive process- involves breaking down information into lesser parts (analysis), bringing different pieces of information together (synthesis), relating certain pieces of information into categories(categorisations) and also allows making of conclusions and inferences.
• thinking produces new information, we can use thinking to combine and restructure existing knowledge to generate new knowledge

  bruner 1957- said "going beyond the information given " is thinking

  Newell and Simon 1972- said "searching through a problem space" for thinking
• Decision making is a cognitive process which involves selecting one of the possible beliefs or actions - to make a choice between alternatives, it is closely linked to thinking because before we think- we must analyse so thinking is an integral prerequisite of any act of decision making. tboth thinking and decision making are complex high order cognitive processes. They are implicit processes- meaning they cannot be directly observed and also involve interaction between large number of factors.
• there are many models for thinking and decision making.

  NORMATIVE MODELS:

  They describe the way thinking should be. they assume that there is unlimited time and resources available to make a decision and they also define what is right or wrong, ineffective and effective, correct and incorrect.

  1. the first example is : formal logic (developed by Aristotle) it talks about the building block of formal logic which is deductive syllogism, meaning there are 2 premises and then a conclusion.
• Normative models describe the way thinking should be and assume unlimited time and resources are available to make a decision
• Normative models define what is right or wrong, ineffective and effective, correct and incorrect
• Formal logic, developed by Aristotle, is a normative model that talks about deductive syllogism, consisting of 2 premises and a conclusion
• Utility theory is another normative model that discusses decisions involving uncertainty and trade-offs between alternatives
• Rational decision makers must calculate the expected utility for each option and choose the one that maximises utility
• The normative economic model includes the theory of probability, which involves analysing success or failure frequencies in the past for similar enterprises in similar circumstances to make decisions based on likely outcomes
• Normative models are unrealistic because no one actually thinks in syllogisms in real life and no one has unlimited time or access to large amounts of statistical data for each decision
• DESCRIPTIVE MODELS- show what people actually do when they think and make decisions- they show an accurate description of real life thinking patterns . these models acquire much deeper meaning when we compare them to normative models
• dual process theory- fast automatic thinking vs slow deliberate thinking
• system 1 and system 2 thinking
• THE ANCHORING EFFECT-BIAS

  is a cognitive bias that talks about the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered- the anchor- when making decisions. anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make judgments. once the anchors set other judgments are made by adjusting away firm that anchor and hence there's a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor
• representativeness heuristic- involves making judgments by comparing things to concepts we already have in mind, it can speed up the decision making process but it can lead to poor choices and stereotypes.
• representativeness heuristic:

  • involves estimation the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype that already exists in our minds
  • this prototype is what we think is most relevant or typical example of a particular event or object. people often overestimate the similarity between the two things they are comparing.
  • it can work as a mental shortcut allowing us to make decisions quickly bt can lead to errors
• representativeness heuristic is the tendency to judge a person or group as typical of a category based on the characteristics of one or a few members of that category
• why does representative heuristics happen?

  • conserving limited cog resources: our cog processes are limited. these heuristics occur cuz they allow us to conserve mental resources and still make decisions quickly and efficiently
  • overestimating the importance of similarity: when we make decisions based on representativeness- we may be likely to make more errors by overestimating the likelihood that something will occur. just because an event or object is representative does not mean its occurrence is more probable
• it also happens because of

  • using categories and prototypes to make choices; making decions based on representativeness involves comparing an object or situation to the schema, or mental prototypes that we already have in mind. such schemas are based on past learning but can change because of new learning. if the existing schema isn't rightly accounting for the current situation- it leads to poor judgements
• availability heuristic- the tendency to make judgements based on how easy it is to retrieve information
• Availability heuristic is a mental shortcut used by individuals to make judgments and decisions based on how easily information comes to mind
• According to the availability heuristic, people judge the likelihood of events based on how readily they can recall examples or instances of those events from memory
• Events that are more easily recalled are often perceived as being more frequent, important, or likely to occur
• Example:

  • Watching news reports about plane crashes can lead to overestimating the likelihood of being involved in a plane crash because those incidents are vivid and easily recalled
  • Conversely, underestimating the risk of dying in a car accident may occur because such events are less frequently sensationalized in the media
• amos tversky and Daniel kahneman- availbility heuristic occurs unconsciously and operates under the pricnple that if you can think of it, it must be important