COGNITIVE PSYCH

Module – 5: Thinking and Concept Formation

Concept formation and categorization

Concept formation refers to the discernment of the properties common to a class of objects or
ideas. The components or features of concepts and how concepts were structured in a semantic
network.
The fundamental unit of symbolic knowledge (knowledge of correspondence between symbols
and their meaning, for example, that the symbol “3” means three) is the concept—an idea about
something that provides a means of understanding the world (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956;
Kruschke, 2003; Love, 2003). Each concept in turn relates to other concepts, such as apple, which
relates to redness, roundness, or fruit. Concepts are ideas that represent a class or category of
objects, events, or activities. The ability to think in terms of concepts allows us to communicate with
each other:

Concepts are defined in terms of their features. Features, as used here, are characteristics of an
object or event that are also characteristic of other objects or events.
From a cognitive viewpoint, the basis for accepting a characteristic as a feature is subjective. Thus,
one can imagine automobiles, marbles, birds, and legos that do not share the feature of mobility,
and so the determination of “critical features” of an object or idea is a function of the circumstances.
conceptual description is similar to the process involved in signal detection, in which acceptability
as a feature of a concept is determined by the stringency of criteria. The setting of a criterion, is
like setting a tolerance for how many features it needs to be considered to be part of a particular
object class
A distinction between features can be made on the quantitative basis as well as on the qualitative
basis just described. Mobility is a qualitative feature that also can be measured quantitatively. Your
Kia may have mobility (a qualitative statement) but may not have as much mobility as someone
else’s Lexus as measured by speed. Thus, both dimensional (quantitative) features and attributional
(qualitative) features enter into conceptual formation; both kinds have been widely studied

A category is a group of items into which different objects or concepts can be placed that belong
together because they share some common features, or because they are all similar to a certain
prototype. Piaget’s cognitive development stage of concrete operational period includes
Classification involves grouping and categorization of similar objects. Suppose for example, a child
is shown four dogs and three cats and is asked whether there are more dogs or more cats. The
preoperational child can answer this question correctly. However, asked whether there are more
animals or more dogs, she replies that there are more dogs. The concrete-operational child will
answer this last question correctly, demonstrating an ability to classify. For Piaget, successful
performance involves not only an awareness of some of the subclasses, such as dogs and cats, but a
complete knowledge that subclasses added together make up a third class (animals) and that the
class can be reversed into its subclasses.

Types of concepts:
Three types of concepts are differentiated: Conjunctive, rational, and disjunctive. Conjunctive
concepts are defined by the presence of at least two features, which means that a conjunctive
concept is a class of objects that have two or more common features. Rational concept is defined by
the relationship between the features of an object or between an object and its surroundings. This
means that rational concepts are based on how an object relates to something else, or how its
features relate to one another. Disjunctive concepts are either/or: they have at least one of several
possible features. Disjunctive concepts are defined by the presence of at least one of several
possible features.

Denotative and connotative meanings

Concepts have two meanings: denotative and connotative. When saying denotative meaning, we
understand the objective meaning of a word or a concept, how the word or the concept described
in dictionaries and encyclopedias. When saying connotative meaning, we understand the subjective
meaning of a certain word or concept, its emotional meaning, the meaning deriving from personal
perceptions.

Those philosophers, who emphasize the connotative meaning of words and concepts, declare that
systems of categories are not objectively "out there" in the world but are rooted in people's
experience. Therefore, many conceptual categories—especially value-based categories—are not
connotatively identical for different cultures, or for each individual within the same culture.

prototype an example of a concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of the concept.
More than likely, prototypes develop according to the exposure a person has to objects in that
category. Culture also matters in the formation of prototypes.
How do prototypes affect thinking? People tend to look at potential examples of a concept and
compare them to the prototype to see how well they match. we use a combination of cognitive
processes including concepts, prototypes, and mental images to identify objects in our daily lives

Stereotyping is used for concepts about people and refers to our cognizing and
understanding of the socially, racially, and ethnically diverse world. Social stereotypes are
oversimplified images of people in various groups. This means that stereotyped thinking
tends to simplify the images of the traits of individuals who belong to a particular group. In
general, the top categories on which most stereotypes are based are gender, age,
race/ethnicity, place of residence, and social class. As a rule, stereotypes are either positive
or negative, and tend to divide people into "us" and "them" categories.

On the one hand, stereotypes make the social world more manageable. On the other hand,
stereotypes tend to grow into faulty concepts which can lead to thinking errors as well as to
behavior and/or personality maladjustment. Stereotypes may be viewed as "all-or-nothing
thinking." In this case, we classify things right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, black or
white, honest or dishonest. Thinking this way prevents us from appreciating the subtleties
of life and also makes the world appear very poor and colorless. Placing people in categories
always causes them to appear more similar than they really are. As a result, we tend to see
out-group members very much alike, even when they are as varied as our friends and
family. People who are not prejudiced work hard to actively inhibit stereotyped thoughts
and to emphasize fairness and equality. A good way to tear down stereotypes is to get to
know members from various ethnic and cultural groups as individuals.

JUDGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING

In the course of our everyday lives, we constantly are making judgments and decisions

Classical Decision Theory

The earliest models of how people make decisions are referred to as classical decision theory.

The Model of Economic Man and Woman Among the early models of decision making crafted in the
20th century was that of economic man and woman. This model assumed three things:

1. Decision makers are fully informed regarding all possible options for their decisions and of
all possible outcomes of their decision options.
2. They are infinitely sensitive to the subtle distinctions among decision options.
3. They are fully rational in regard to their choice of options (Edwards, 1954; see also Slovic,
1990).

The assumption of infinite sensitivity means that people can evaluate the difference between two
outcomes, no matter how subtle the distinctions among options may be. The assumption of
rationality means that people make their choices to maximize something of value, whatever that
something may.

Subjective Expected Utility Theory An alternative model makes greater allowance for the
psychological makeup of each individual decision maker. According to subjective expected utility
theory, the goal of human action is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. According to this theory, in
making decisions, people will seek to maximize pleasure (referred to as positive utility) and to
minimize pain (referred to as negative utility). In doing so, however, each of us uses calculations of
two things. One is subjective utility, which is a calculation based on the individual’s judged
weightings of utility (value), rather than on objective criteria. The second is subjective probability,
which is a calculation based on the individual’s estimates of likelihood, rather than on objective
statistical computations.

Heuristic and Biases

Heuristics help us achieve goal to make a decision in a reasonable time frame, so we need to reduce
the available information available to us and at the same time decrease our efforts by allowing us to
examine fewer cues or deal with fewer pieces of information (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008).
However, sometimes our thinking also gets biased by our tendencies to make decisions more
simply.

Heuristics
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that lighten the cognitive load of making decisions

1. Satisficing: One of the first heuristics that was formulated by researchers is termed
satisficing (Simon, 1957). In satisficing, we consider options one by one, and then we select
 an option as soon as we find one that is satisfactory or just good enough to meet our
minimum level of acceptability. When there are limited working-memory resources
available, the use of satisficing for making decisions may be increased.
For example, satisficing might be a reasonable strategy if you are in a hurry to buy a pack of
gum and then catch a train or a plane, but a poor strategy for diagnosing a disease.
2. Elimination by aspects, in which we eliminate alternatives by focusing on aspects of each
alternative, one at a time. For example, If you are trying to decide which college to attend,
the process of elimination by aspects might look like this:
 focus on one aspect (attribute) of the various options (the cost of going to college);
 form a minimum criterion for that aspect (tuition must be under $20,000 per year);
 eliminate all options that do not meet that criterion (e.g., Stanford University is
more than $30,000 and would be eliminated);
 for the remaining options, select a second aspect for which we set a minimum
criterion by which to eliminate additional options (the college must be on the West
Coast);
 continue using a sequential process of elimination of options by considering a series
of aspects until a single option remains (Dawes, 2000)
3. Representative Heuristic: In representativeness, we judge the probability of an uncertain
event according to:
 how obviously it is similar to or representative of the population from which it is
derived; and
 the degree to which it reflects the salient features of the process by which it is
generated (such as randomness).

We use heuristics because:

It is easy to use and often works. For example, suppose we have not heard a weather report
prior to stepping outside. We informally judge the probability that it will rain. We base our
judgment on how well the characteristics of this day (e.g., the month of the year, the area in
which we live, and the presence or absence of clouds in the sky) represent the
characteristics of days on which it rains
mistakenly believe that small samples (e.g., of events, of people, of characteristics)
resemble in all respects the whole population from which the sample is drawn (Tversky &
Kahneman, 1971).
One reason that people misguidedly use the representativeness heuristic is because they
fail to understand the concept of base rates. Base rate refers to the prevalence of an event
or characteristic within its population of events or characteristics. In everyday decision
making, people often ignore base-rate information,but it is important to effective judgment
and decision making.

4. Availability Heuristic in which we make judgments on the basis of how easily we can call
to mind what we perceive as relevant instances of a phenomenon (Tversky & Kahneman,
1973). People may engage in using the availability heuristic when it confirms their beliefs
about themselves. (For example, Plane and car accident example)
5. Anchoring Heuristic: the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic, by which people adjust
their evaluations of things by means of certain reference points called end-anchors.
The adjustment people make in response to an anchor is bigger when the anchor is rounded
than when it seems to be a precise value.
 For example, if you first see a T-shirt that costs $1,200 – then see a second one that costs
$100 – you’re prone to see the second shirt as cheap. Whereas, if you’d merely seen the
second shirt, priced at $100, you’d probably not view it as cheap. The anchor – the first price
that you saw – unduly influenced your opinion.
6. Framing: Another consideration in decision theory is the influence of framing effects, in
which the way that the options are presented influences the selection of an option (Tversky
& Kahneman, 1981).
we tend to choose options that demonstrate risk aversion when we are faced with an option
involving potential gains. That is, we tend to choose options offering a small but certain gain
rather than a larger but uncertain gain, unless the uncertain gain is either tremendously
greater or only modestly less than certain.
Framing effects are less persuasive when they come from sources of low credibility
(Druckman, 2001).

Biases
several biases that frequently occur when people make decisions: illusory correlation,
overconfidence, and hindsight bias.

 Illusionary correlation: predisposed to see particular events or attributes and categories

as going together, even when they do not. This phenomenon is called illusory correlation
(Hamilton & Lickel, 2000), In the case of events, we may see spurious cause-effect
relationships. In the case of attributes, we may use personal prejudices to form and use
stereotypes (perhaps as a result of using the representativeness heuristic). For example
political party characteristic.
 Overconfidence: an individual’s overvaluation of her or his own skills, knowledge, or
judgment. Why are people overconfident? One reason is that people may not realize how
little they know. Another is that they may not realize that their information comes from
unreliable sources (Carlson, 1995; Griffin & Tversky, 1992).
People sometimes make poor decisions as a result of overconfidence. These decisions are
based on inadequate information and ineffective decision-making strategies.
 Hindsight bias: when we look at a situation retrospectively, we believe we easily can see all
the signs and events leading up to a particular outcome (Fischhoff, 1982; Wasserman,
Lempert, & Hastie, 1991). Hindsight bias hinders learning because it impairs one’s ability to
compare one’s expectations with the outcome, if one always expected the outcome that
eventually happened, one thinks there is nothing to learn.

Fallacies
The application of a heuristic to make a decision may lead to fallacies in thinking

Gambler’s Fallacy and the Hot Hand: Gambler’s fallacy is a mistaken belief that the probability of a
given random event, such as winning or losing at a game of chance, is influenced by previous
random events. For example, a gambler who loses five successive bets may believe that a win is
therefore more likely the sixth time. He feels that he is “due” to win. Gambler’s fallacy is an example
of the representative heuristic gone awry: One believes that the pattern representative of past
events is now likely to change.
A tendency opposite to that of gambler’s fallacy is called the “hot hand” effect. It refers to a belief
that a certain course of events will continue. For example, player’s chances of making a basket are
greater after making a previous shot than after missing one.

Conjunction Fallacy: The availability heuristic might lead to the conjunction fallacy. In the
conjunction fallacy, an individual gives a higher estimate for a subset of events than for the larger set
of events containing the given subset. The representativeness heuristic may also induce individuals
to engage in the conjunction fallacy during probabilistic reasoning.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy: This fallacy represents the decision to continue to invest in something simply
because one has invested in it before and one hopes to recover one’s investment. For example keep
on sending spending on an old car than buy a new car.

Group Decision Making and Groupthink

Benefits of Group Decisions Working as a group can enhance the effectiveness of decision making,
just as it can enhance the effectiveness of problem solving. By forming decision-making teams, the
group benefits from the expertise of each of the members, increase in resources and ideas and
improved group memory over individual memory. Characteristics of successful group decision:

 the group is small;

 it has open communication;
 members share a common mind-set;
 members identify with the group;
 members agree on acceptable group behavior (Shelton, 2006).

Groupthink
Groupthink is a phenomenon characterized by premature decision making that is generally the result
of group members attempting to avoid conflict (Janis, 1971).
What conditions lead to groupthink? Janis cited three kinds:
(1) an isolated, cohesive, and homogeneous group is empowered to make decisions;
(2) objective and impartial leadership is absent, within the group or outside it;
(3) high levels of stress impinge on the group decision-making process

Six symptoms of groupthink

 Closed-mindedness—the group is not open to alternative ideas

 Rationalization—the group goes to great lengths to justify both the process and the product
of its decision making, distorting reality where necessary in order to be persuasive.
 Squelching of dissent—those who disagree with the group are ignored, criticized, or even
ostracized.
 Formation of a “mindguard” for the group—one person appoints himself or herself the
keeper of the group norm and ensures that people stay in line.
 Feeling invulnerable—the group believes that it must be right, given the intelligence of its
members and the information available to them.
 Feeling unanimous—members believe that everyone unanimously shares the opinions
expressed by the group.
 REASONONING AND PROBLEM SOLVING
Reasoning
Reasoning is the process of drawing conclusions from principles and from evidence (Leighton &
Sternberg, 2004; Sternberg, 2004; Wason & Johnson-Laird, 1972). In reasoning, we move from what
is already known to infer a new conclusion or to evaluate a proposed conclusion. Reasoning is often
divided into two types: deductive and inductive reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning (General to specific)

Deductive reasoning is the process of reasoning from one or more general statements regarding
what is known to reach a logically certain conclusion (Johnson-Laird, 2000; Rips, 1999; Williams,
2000). It often involves reasoning from one or more general statements regarding what is known to
a specific application of the general statement.
Deductive reasoning is based on logical propositions. A proposition is basically an assertion, which
may be either true or false. Premises are propositions about which arguments are made. Cognitive
psychologists are interested particularly in propositions that may be connected in ways that require
people to draw reasoned conclusions. That is, deductive reasoning is useful because it helps people
connect various propositions to draw conclusions.

Johnson-Laird (1995) has identified four contingencies in the scientific study of deductive logic.

 Relational inferences based on the logical properties of such relations as greater than, on
the right of, and after. (In the case of Bill et al. you had to use a “greater than” logic.)
 Propositional inferences based on negation and on such connectives as if, or, and and. (For
example, you might rephrase the preceding problem as “If Bill is taller . . .”.)
 Syllogisms based on pairs of premises that each contain a single qualifier, such as all or
some. (such as, “All psychologists are brilliant; some psychologists wear glasses . . .”.)
 Multiplying of quantified inferences based on premises containing more than one qualifier,
such as Some French poodles are more expensive that any other type of dog

 Conditional Reasoning
One of the primary types of deductive reasoning is conditional reasoning, in which the
reasoner must draw a conclusion based on an if-then proposition. The conditional if-then
proposition states that if antecedent condition p is met, then consequent event q follows.
For example, “If students study hard, then they score high on their exams.”
modus ponens argument, the reasoner affirms the antecedent. “If p, then q. p. Therefore,
q,”.
modus tollens argument, in which the reasoner denies the consequent. “If p, then q. Not q.
Therefore, not p.
Some inferences based on conditional reasoning are fallacies, which lead to conclusions that
are not deductively valid. When using conditional propositions, we cannot reach a
deductively valid conclusion based either on denying the antecedent condition or on
affirming the consequent
  Syllogistic Reasoning: Categorical Syllogisms
the other key type of deductive reasoning is syllogistic reasoning, which is based on the use
of syllogisms. Syllogisms are deductive arguments that involve drawing conclusions from two
premises (Maxwell, 2005; Rips, 1994, 1999). All syllogisms comprise a major premise, a
minor premise, and a conclusion. Unfortunately, sometimes the conclusion may be that no
logical conclusion may be reached based on the two-given premises.
Categorical syllogisms : the most well-known kind of syllogism is the categorical syllogism.
Like other kinds of syllogisms, categorical syllogisms comprise two premises and a
conclusion. In the case of the categorical syllogism, the premises state something about the
category memberships of the terms. Each term represents all, none, or some of the
members of a particular class or category. To determine whether the conclusion follows
logically from the premises, the reasoner must determine the category memberships of the
terms.
An example of a categorical syllogism would be as follows: All cognitive psychologists are
pianists. All pianists are athletes. Therefore, all cognitive psychologists are athletes. the
subject is cognitive psychologists, the middle term is pianists, and the predicate is athletes.
In both premises, we asserted that all members of the category of the first term were
members of the category of the second term. conclusion is false because the premises are
false.

Aids and obstacles to Deductive Reasoning

In deductive reasoning, we engage in many heuristic shortcuts. These shortcuts sometimes lead to
inaccurate conclusions. In addition to these shortcuts, we often are influenced by biases that distort
the outcomes of our reasoning

 Heuristics in Deductive Reasoning

Overextension errors. In these errors, we overextend the use of strategies that work in
some syllogisms to syllogisms in which the strategies fail us.
Foreclosure effects when we fail to consider all the possibilities before reaching a
conclusion. Premise-phrasing effects may influence our deductive reasoning, It may lead us
to leap to a conclusion without adequately reflecting on the deductive validity of the
syllogism
 Biases
Biases that affect deductive reasoning generally relate to the content of the premises and
the believability of the conclusion. They also reflect the tendency toward confirmation bias.
In confirmation bias, we seek confirmation rather than disconfirmation of what we already
believe. reasoners tend to believe in the validity of the conclusion, even when the logic is
flawed. Confirmation bias can be detrimental and even dangerous in some circumstances

Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning is the process of reasoning from specific facts or observations to reach a likely
conclusion that may explain the facts. The inductive reasoner then may use that probable conclusion
to attempt to predict future specific instances (Johnson-Laird, 2000). The key feature distinguishing
inductive from deductive reasoning is that, in inductive reasoning, we never can reach a logically
certain conclusion.
two of the reasons why people use inductive reasoning. First, it helps them to become increasingly
able to make sense out of the great variability in their environment. Second, it also helps them to
predict events in their environment, thereby reducing their uncertainty. Thus, cognitive
psychologists seek to understand the how rather than the why of inductive reasoning.
inductive reasoning often involves the processes of generating and testing hypotheses. In addition,
we reach inferences by generalizing some broad understandings from a set of specific instances. As
we observe additional instances, we further broaden our understanding

Causal inference
One approach to studying inductive reasoning is to examine causal inferences— how people make
judgments about whether something causes something else (Cheng, 1997, 1999; Spellman, 1997).
First one thing happens, then another. However, we frequently make mistakes when attempting to
determine causality based on correlational evidence alone. Correlational evidence cannot indicate
the direction of causation.
Categorial Inferences
People generally use both bottom-up strategies and top-down strategies for drawing inference.
Bottom-up strategies are based on observing various instances and considering the degree of
variability across instances. From these observations, we abstract a prototype or a category. Top-
down strategies include selectively searching for constancies within many variations and selectively
combining existing concepts and categories

Reasoning by Analogy
Inductive reasoning may be applied to reasoning by analogy. Analogies are also used in everyday life
as we make predictions about our environment. We connect our perceptions with our memories by
means of analogies. The analogies then activate concepts and items stored in our mind that are
similar to the current input. Through this activation, we can then make a prediction of what is likely
in a given situation. For example, fire is to asbestos is water to vinyl. Analogical reasoning is the
process of identification and transfer of a relational structure form a known system to a less known
system. Not the same as metaphor.

Problem Solving