Cognitive Psychology

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Cognitive Psychology

• Psy 494
• Dr. Talia Ben-Zeev

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What is Cognitive Psychology?

• What do you think? -- Please write down a
  definition in your notebook.

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BIG Questions

• How does our brain make sense of the immense
  amount of data that we encounter in our
  environment daily?
• Why do we remember certain events but not others?
• Why are some problems easy for us to solve
  whereas others are difficult?
• Do people make rational decisions?

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Why do we find some problems hard?

• The Hobbits and Orcs Problem

H H H O O
O
boat
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Solution to the Hobbits and Orcs problem
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Are we rational thinkers?

• The mammogram problem
• You are a physician
• A woman comes to you with a lump in her breast
• 5 of women her age have breast cancer
• The mammogram is positive
• The reliability of the mammogram is 80
• What is the probability that she has cancer?

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Whats in a cognitive question?

• What makes a question important?
• What makes a question researchable?