Thinking

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Thinking

• Cognition
• mental activities associated with thinking,
  knowing, remembering, and communicating
• Cognitive Psychology
• study of mental activities
• concept formation
• problem solving
• decision making
• judgment formation

• organizes perceptions
• processes information
• interprets experience

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The Matchstick Problem

• How would you arrange six matches to form
  four equilateral triangles?

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gps
Directed thinking
General Problem Solver
Try to solve problems by judging truth, making
decisions on facts
Spatial thinking
Determining shortcut between solutions
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Problem Solving Strategies

• Trial error Law of Effect
• Algorithm
• Systematic, step-by-step problem-solving
  strategy, guaranteed to provide a solution
• Heuristic
• Rule of thumb that allows one to make judgments
  that are quick but often in error
• Meansend analysis - heuristic in which
  difference between starting situation and goal is
  determined then steps taken to reduce
  difference.
• Insight
• -sudden perception of a solution to a problem.

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• Algorithm
• methodical, logical rule or procedure
  that
• guarantees solving problem
• SPLOYOCHYG - 907,208 COMBINATIONS

• Concept
• mental grouping of similar objects, events,
  ideas, or people
• Prototype
• mental image or best example
• matching new items to prototype provides
• quick method for including items in
  category
• (comparing feathered creatures to prototypical
  bird robin)

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• Heuristic "rule of thumb
• simple thinking strategy often allows us to make
  judgments
• solve problems efficiently
• usually speedier than algorithms
• more error-prone than algorithms

Contagion heuristic people avoid contact with
people or objects viewed as "contaminated"
Effort heuristic
value of object is assigned based on amount of
perceived effort that went
into producing object.
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Blind Spots in Problem Solving

• Representativeness Heuristic
• Tendency to estimate likelihood of event in terms
  of how typical it seems does it represent the
  norm? may cause us to ignore other
  information
• Availability Heuristic
• Tendency to estimate likelihood of event in terms
  of how easily instances of it can be recalled
  Is the memory
  available?
• Plane crashes happen often because we
  have a vivid memory
  available of them.
• Illusion of Control
• Tendency for people to believe they
  can control chance events
  that mimic skill situations

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Peak-end rule judge past experiences on how they
were at peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how
they ended. All other information discarded,
including pleasantness or unpleasantness,
and how long
experience lasted.
This heuristic was first suggested by Daniel
Kahneman
Social proof aka informational social
influence, in ambiguous social
situations
when people are unable to determine
appropriate behavior. Makes
assumption that surrounding people possess more
knowledge about situation, behavior of others
considered as appropriate.
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• Functional Fixedness
• think of things in terms of
• usual functions

• Overconfidence
• tendency to be
  more confident
• than correct
  to overestimate
• accuracy of ones
  
• beliefs and
  judgments

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• Mental Set
• tendency to approach
• problem in particular way
• especially if successful in
• past but may not be help
  solving new problem
  
• 
  Confirmation Bias
• 
  Inclination to search only for
• 
  evidence that will confirm
• 
  ones beliefs
• Belief Perseverance
• clinging to initial conceptions after basis
  on which they were
  formed has been discredited

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• Anchoring Effect (focalism) cognitive bias
  - describes human tendency to rely heavily,
  or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information
  when making decisions.
• Framing Effect
• biasing effects on decision making due
  to way in which a choice is worded

Best way to market ground beef
as 25 fat or 75
lean?
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All apples are fruit. All fruits grow on trees.
Therefore all apples grow on trees.
Deductive reasoning
Top-Down reasoning
Spain Portugal are near each other they
have similar languages.
Sweden Denmark are near each other have
similar languages.
Therefore, countries that are near each other
have similar languages
Bottom-Up reasoning
Inductive reasoning
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• Artificial Intelligence
• designing/programming computer systems
• to do intelligent things
• simulate human thought processes
• intuitive reasoning
• learning
• understanding language

• True flexibility of human thought processes has
  yet to be developed in machine.

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The Matchstick Problem Solution