Chapter 9 - Cognition

Question 1

Concepts

Answer 1

mental representations that groups/categorizes shared features of related objects/events/stimuli

Allow us to make generalizations based on limited experience

we form concepts and categories rapidly, and often automatically

Question 2

What is the classical theory of conceptual knowledge? What are some problems with it?

Answer 2

Classical theory: Categories are well-defined (ex: dog is four legged animal that barks)

Problems:
1. the rules that come to mind are often wrong (ex: dog can be missing a leg)
2. Rules don’t characterize human behavior (“typicality effects”- some examples feel more “typical” than others, like robin vs penguin in being birds)

Question 3

What is the Family Resemblance Theory

Answer 3

category members don’t need to all share a definitional feature, but tend to have several features in common

Question 4

Different people show _____ levels of brain activity when thinking about the _____ concepts

Answer 4

Different people show similar levels of brain activity when thinking about the same concepts

Question 5

Functional specificity applied to concepts

Answer 5

Brain has specialized regions for different kinds of knowledge

Different people show similar
patterns of brain activity when
thinking about the same concepts

Our brains are so predictable in how they represent
concepts that we can use your brain activation to
predict what you are thinking (or at least “seeing”

Question 6

How are our concepts organized in the brain?

Answer 6

“Medial-to-Lateral” (inner to outer) organization for inanimate to animate objects

Medial parts of the ventral/what pathway: tools, inanimate objects

Lateral parts of the ventral/what pathway? animals, animate objects

Question 7

Theory of Mind

Answer 7

the understanding that people’s minds produce representations of the world an that these representations guide people’s behaviors

Question 8

Temporoparietal junction

Answer 8

Region of brain located where temporal lobe and parietal lobe meet, involved in social cognition (understanding other ppl’s thoughts), theory of mind

helps you think about others’ minds and pay attention to socially or contextually relevant information.

left: language, semantic knowledge (understanding meaning)
right: social cognition, theory of mind, attention to important/unexpected events in the environment

Question 9

Confirmation bias

Answer 9

bias/flaw in human reasoning known where we tend to seek evidence that supports an opinion/belief and not evidence that falsifies that opinion

Question 10

Wason Card Problem and what it illustrates

Answer 10

Wason Card Problem: logic puzzle given rules

There are two modes of thinking/decision making:

1. Heuristic: fast, efficient strategies that may facilitate decision making but do not guarantee that a solution will be reached (“mental shortcut”, “rule of thumb”)
   -automatic, quick, no sense of voluntary control
2. Algorithm: well defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem
   -effortful, demands attention and computation

Question 11

Availability heuristic/bias

Answer 11

Items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently

Question 12

What is the framing effect? What do framing effects under uncertainty tell us about human tendencies?

Answer 12

Framing effect: people often give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased (or framed)

ex: packaging beef as 80% lean vs 20% fat

Tells us….
we are not economically rational
we hate losses (loss aversion), care more about avoiding losses than achieving equal-sized gains

Question 13

loss aversion

Answer 13

losing something feels worse than gaining the same thing feels good

Monkeys, like humans, also exhibit loss aversion
* Some of our decision making tendencies may be
the product of forces that evolved millions of
years ago.

Question 14

Prospect theory is… and assumes…..

What theory does this contrast with?

Answer 14

Prospect theory:
we choose risks when evaluating losses
and avoid risks when evaluating gains

Assumes that people simplify available information, give great weight to outcomes that are sure things and compare choices with a reference point

• Prospect Theory can be contrasted with “Rational Choice Theory”
  (people make decisions based on rational analysis)

Question 15

Prototypes

Answer 15

convenient representations of categories because they reflect the most typical instance of the category