Cognition and Emotion

Transcription

1 Cognition and Emotion Week 6 - Class 2 22/12/2016 Joske Houtkamp Bachelor Course Information Science Utrecht University

2 Photos taken, edited, and shared to Instagram can show signs of depression through filters, faces, and colors Andrew Reece Christopher Danforth "Inkwell" filter - depressed participants Valencia" and warmer tones healthy individuals

3 Topics Using general knowledge Problem solving strategies Decision making heuristics Emotions and decision making

4 Using General Knowledge Matlin, Cognitive Psychology, first chapters: How does our cognitive system perceive, process and store information? Chapter 8: This information is influenced by general knowledge. It allows us to interpret, use the information, act on it, etc. With one specific piece of information we can build on this. Two components Semantic memory: Organized knowledge about the world; includes general knowledge, lexical or language knowledge, and conceptual knowledge. Schemas: general knowledge about an object or event.

5 Structure of Semantic Memory Semantic memory allows us to: organize objects according to concepts; make inferences going beyond the information given; decide which objects are similar. Organized knowledge about the world general knowledge lexical or language knowledge (e.g. the word justice is related to the word equality) conceptual knowledge (e.g. a square has four sides) semantic-memory.html 5

6 Semantic vs. episodic memory indisputable nuggets of information not associated with emotion or personal experience Knowing that grass is green Recalling that Washington, D.C., is the U.S. capital and Washington is a state Knowing how to use scissors Understanding how to put words together to form a sentence Recognizing the names of colors Remembering what a dog is Knowing that President John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963 Kim Ann Zimmermann, 6

7 Semantic Memory Influences most of our cognitive activities, such as reading, problem solving, determining locations; Essential components: categories and concepts; Category: a set of objects that belong together. Your cognitive system considers these objects to be at least partly equivalent. The category fruit tells something about all members; Concept: mental representations of a category, e.g. fruit.

8 The Prototype Approach and Semantic Memory Eleanor Rosch How do we decide which objects are similar? We organize each category on the basis of a prototype, the item that is most typical and representative of the category; prototype approach: you decide whether an item belongs to a category by comparing that item with a prototype; Members of a category differ in prototypicality.

9 Aitchison 2004

10 The Exemplar Approach and Semantic Memory We first learn some specific examples of a concept (exemplars), then classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles those specific examples. Concept dog contains information on all dogs you have ever seen (prototypical approach: idealized representation of a dog). Every new stimulus is classified by determining the similarity to the examples. Most probable: both strategies are used. How do we decide which objects are similar?

11 Network Models and Semantic Memory How do we decide which objects are similar? Prototype approach and exemplar approach emphasize the question whether an item belongs to a category. Network models: propose a netlike organisation of concepts in memory. Many interconnections between concepts; Meaning of a concept depends on the concepts to which it is connected; Every concept is a node, from the nodes spreading activation to other connected nodes.

12 Model developed by Collins and Quillian (1) each node represents a specific word, such as "bird" each node is stored together with a set of properties, such as "has wings" or "can fly connections link categories to exemplars, representing a hierarchical arrangement. for example, "bird" is connected to "canary". features, such as "can fly" are stored only at the category level, such as "bird", in which they represent key properties. mkarosli/memory

13 Model developed by Collins and Quillian (2) Retrieve this knowledge: some cue or stimulus activates one set of nodes, which then activate other related nodes, called spreading activation. in response to the question "Is a chicken a bird", the time to answer this question depends on the number of connections that intervene between the node that represents chicken and the node that represents "bird". mkarosli/memory

14 Schemas and Scripts Our knowledge of the world is broader and more complex than words, concepts etc. Schema generalized knowledge about a situation, an event, or a person Schema theories: people encode "generic" information about a situation, then use this information to understand and remember new examples of the schema. "This is just like what happened when..." Schema theories are especially helpful when psychologists try to explain how people process complex situations and events. Again example of top-down and bottom-up processing (!) Active processing Schemas can lead to errors Errors usually make sense within the framework of that schema Script simple, well-structured sequence of events

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16 Schemas and Memory Selection A psychology professor s office

17 Experiment Brewer and Treyens (1981) Participants were asked to wait in a room ( a psychology professor s office ) for 35 seconds. recall objects from the room; highly likely to recall objects consistent with "office schema (desk, not picknick basket); "remembered" items that were not in the room, but were consistent with "office schema (e.g. books). However: other experiments produce more complex results (see Matlin)

18 Virtual environments Schemas are used to fill in missing information, for instance to evaluate an environment on ambience, by associations and memories.

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20 What have we covered so far? Perception and theories on (visual) perception Attention and theories on attention (selected,divided attention) Memory Short term/long term memory General knowledge Top-down vs Bottom-up processing So: collecting, organizing, storing and retrieving information. Now: thinking, transforming knowledge

21 Problem Solving and Decision Making Problem solving 1. Understanding the problem 2. Problem solving strategies 3. Factors that influence problem solving 4. Creativity think Decision making

22 Intelligence by Wechsler Intelligence: The aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and deal effectively with his environment (Wechsler, 1958) Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

23 Gardner: Theory of multiple intelligences (MI) verbal/linguistic logic/mathematical intelligence visual/spatial intelligence musical/rythmic intelligence physical/kinaestetic intelligence interpersonal intelligence intrapersonal intelligence naturalistic intelligentie oasis.org/what-mi-am-i/

24 Thinking? The action of using one's mind to produce thoughts (Merriam Webster) Thinking can refer to the act of producing thoughts or the process of producing thoughts. Thinking allows humans to make sense of, interpret, represent or model the world they experience, and to make predictions about that world. It is therefore helpful to an organism with needs, objectives, and desires as it makes plans or otherwise attempts to accomplish those goals. (Wikipedia) Thinking is conscious and it is active. It is the kind of cognitive process that can make new connections and create meaning. It is dialogic: it has the quality of an internal conversation between different perspectives, although the 'give-and-take' quality of external dialogues may not always be immediately obvious. And it is linguistic: verbal for those of us who use spoken language, visual for those of us who use sign language to communicate with others and with ourselves. /the-voices-within/201008/what-do-wemean-thinking 24

25 Thinking cogito ergo sum René Descartes ( ) Thinking: the process of mentally representing some aspects of the world (incl. ourselves) and transforming these representations so that new representations, useful to our goals, are generated (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007)

26 Thinking Reasoning: cognitive processes we make to use inferences from knowledge and draw conclusions. Problem solving: the set of cognitive processes that we apply to reach a goal when we must overcome obstacles to reach that goal. Decision making: cognitive processes we use to make choices. Thinking requires you to go beyond the information you were given, so you can reach a goal: a belief, a solution, or a decision.

27 Problem solving Wolfgang Kohler The Mentality of Apes (1925) Bananas are not within reach. Chimp Sultan uses a stick to solve the problem.

28 Can you solve this problem? 28

29 Deviation (just for fun) _animals_have_morals#t

30 Problem solving Problem solving used when you want to reach a certain goal, but the solution is not immediately obvious missing information and/or obstacles block the path initial state goal state obstacles

31 Steps 1. Understanding the problem 2. Strategies for problem solving 3. Factors influencing problem solving 4. Creativity

32 Understanding the problem construct a well-organized mental representation of the problem based on the information provided in the problem and previous experience identify and attend to the most relevant information methods to represent the problem situated cognition/embodied cognition

33 Understanding the problem Selecting relevant information Attention to important information Bransford and Stein (1984) algebra story problems distracting negative thoughts ( I hate these algebra problems ) Focus on relevant parts of the problem Effective problem solvers read the description of a problem very carefully, paying particular attention to inconsistencies.

34 Understanding the problem Methods of representing the problem problem representation: a suitable representation supports problem understanding and solving shows the essential information required for understanding/solving working-memory capacity Symbols Matrices Diagrams Visual representation

35 Understanding the problem Methods of representing the problem Symbols Formulas Mary is 10 years younger than twice Susan s age. Five years from now, Mary will be 8 years older than Susan s age at that time. How old are Mary and Susan? m = 2s - 10 m + 5 = s Possible disadvantages? translating words into symbols can lead to mistakes oversimplification misremembering the problem

36 Do not confuse the content of representations with their intrinsic property. S. Harris, American Scientist, 66, 647

37 Understanding the problem Methods of representing the problem Matrix grid showing all possible combinations of items Demonstration 11.3: Hospital Room Problem Most useful for complex, stable, categorical information

38 MAtrix Comparative performance of 6 crime types, over 3 years for 15 wards Audit Commission/Leicestershire County Council

39 Understanding the problem Methods of representing the problem Diagrams Representation of abstract information in a concrete fashion instructions for assembling objects Novick and Morse (2000) origami more accurate with both a verbal description and a step-by-step diagram rather than only a verbal description Reduce large amount of complicated information into a concrete form Hierarchical tree diagram Graphs

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41 Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812

42 1854 cholera epidemic in London; John Snow

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45 Understanding the problem Visual Images (mental images) Escape boundaries of traditional concrete representations Good visual-imagery skills provide advantage -animal/2012/11/08/clever-captive-cockatoocreates-tool-a-first-for-his-species/

46 Situated cognition Problem solving: not only information inside our head.. Situated-cognition approach We often use helpful information in our immediate environment to create spatial representations; importance of external situation/context. Real life provides information needed to solve complicated problems. Other people also provide information.

47 Embodied cognition Embodied cognition approach: We often use our own body and our own motor actions, in order to express our abstract thoughts and knowledge; importance of own body as context Cognition is bodily grounded People solve certain kinds of problems more quickly or more accurately if allowed to move parts of their bodies. mental-rotation tasks: using hands swinging rope problem Recent discussion:

48 Problem Solving Strategies Algorithm always produces a solution; sometimes inefficient Exhaustive search try all possible answers Heuristic general rule; strategy in which you ignore some alternatives and explore only those alternatives that seem especially likely to produce a solution Weigh the costs and benefits of using heuristics The most widely used heuristics: Analogy approach Means-end heuristic Hill-climbing heuristic

49 Heuristics for Problem Solving Analogy approach Widely applied: you employ a solution to a similar, earlier problem to help you solve a new problem. determining the real problem (the abstract puzzle underneath the details) problem isomorphs: set of problems that have the same underlying structures and solutions, but different specific details However people tend to focus on surface features and fail to see structural features Failure to see analogies Successful use in engineering, often creative breakthroughs in art and science Biomimetica/ biomimicry

50 Eastgate Building, Harare, Zimbabwe, has an air conditioning system modeled on the self-cooling mounds of termites

51 Shinkansen Bullet Train of the West Japan Railway Company Is there something in Nature that travels quickly and smoothly between two very different mediums?

52 The Means-Ends Heuristic One of the most effective and flexible problem-solving strategies 1. divide the problem into subproblems 2. try to reduce the difference between the initial state and the goal state for each of the subproblems Identify the "ends" you want and then figure out the "means" to reach them Elves goblins problem (cannibals-missionaries, goat-cabbage) Demo

53 The Means-Ends Heuristic Research: People pause at points in the problem when they begin to tackle a subproblem and need to organize a sequence of moves. Working memory is active during planning. Sometimes the correct solution requires moving backward, temporarily increasing the distance to the goal. People are reluctant to move away from goal state. 53

54 Maze One example of a type of problem that requires the hill-climbing method is a maze. The maze contains an entrance and an end (respectively, the initial state and the goal state). Each line within the maze becomes an obstacle between the initial state and the goal state. 0Taking%20it%20Apart 54

55 Hill Climbing Heuristic Strategy: When you reach a choice point, choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly toward your goal; useful when only the immediate next step can be seen; not enough information about alternatives. Disadvantage: encourages short-term goals; the less direct alternative may have greater long-term benefits; does not always lead to a solution.

56 Tower of Hanoi Object of the game is to move all the disks over to Tower 3 One disk at a time But you cannot place a larger disk onto a smaller disk. Difference reduction? Not effective. People often start with difference reduction, then switch to switchen means-ends (Kovotsky e.a. 1985) Problem isomorph/deep structure: nsters.gocognitive.v0.91_0_0.swf

57 Problem solving A combination of bottom-up processing emphasizes stimulus information top-down processing emphasizes our concepts, expectations, memory, and prior knowledge Also consider influence of Expertise (knowledge, memory skills, problem solving strategies, speed and accuracy, metacognitive skills) Mental set Insight Creativity

58 Decision Making Thinking going beyond the information given in order to reach a goal. Deductive reasoning given some specific premises, judge whether those premises allow you to draw a particular conclusion, based on the principles of logic. Decision making assessing and choosing among several alternatives.

59 Decision Making No fixed rules Perhaps no correct decision (information may be missing) Interdisciplinary: psychology, economy, political sciences, sociology, philosophy Most research on concrete, realistic scenarios (not abstract situations) Important: the use of heuristics Dual-process theory Type 1 processing fast and automatic Type 2 processing slow and controlled

60 Heuristics Kahneman and Tversky Humans often use heuristics (simple, efficient rules) to form judgments and make decisions These rules work well under most circumstances, but they can lead to systematic deviations from logic and probability The resulting errors are called "cognitive biases.

61 Heuristics (5.26m) Accurate decisions in an uncertain world Accuracy effort trade-off Ignore part of the information 1. The Representativeness Heuristic 2. The Avalailability Heuristic The Recognition Heuristic 3. The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic The Committment Heuristic The Affect Heuristic The Default Heuristic

62 Representativeness Heuristic K! People judge that a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which the sample was selected. random-looking outcomes are believed to be more likely than orderly outcomes. people often ignore important statistical information that they should consider. Throw a coin 6 times: heads-tails Thhtht seems more likely than hhhttt It is expected that throwing a coin results in a random order of h s and t s

63 The Representativeness Heuristic Sample Size and Representativeness Example: Small hospital, about 15 babies born every day Larger hospital, about 45 babies born every day Which hospital would be more likely to report that more than 60% of the babies on a given day would be boys, or would they both be equally likely to report more than 60% boys (which is a deviation)? Answer: the small hospital A large sample is statistically more likely than a small sample to reflect the true proportions in a population. small-sample fallacy assume a small sample will be representative of the population from which it was selected stereotypes

64 The Representativeness Heuristic Base Rate and Representativeness E.g. Student Mia; shy, enjoys reading and visiting museums Which study is more likely, China studies or medicine? base rate how often an item occurs in the population base-rate fallacy emphasize representativeness and underemphasize important information about base rates Representativeness is such a compelling heuristic that people often ignore the base rate, or how often the item occurs in the population People rely on representativeness when asked to judge category membership. even when provided with base-rate information, people ignore it stereotypes Base-rate fallacy

65 The Representativeness Heuristic The Conjunction Fallacy and Representativeness Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Now rank the following options in terms of the probability of their describing Linda. Give a ranking of 1 to the most likely option and a ranking of 8 to the least likely option Linda is a teacher at an elementary school Linda works in a bookstore and takes yoga lessons Linda is active in the feminist movement Linda is a psychiatric social worker Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters Linda is a bank teller Linda is an insurance salesperson Linda Is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement Tversky&Kahnemann 1983

66 Conjunction fallacy and representativeness Which option scored highest? 1. Linda is a bank teller or 2. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement Option 2! However: Conjunction: (combinatie) van kenmerken Conjunction fallacy: when people judge the probability of the conjunction of two events to be greater than the probability of a constituent event

67 Representativeness Heuristic Summary We use the representativeness heuristic when we make decisions based on whether a sample looks similar in important characteristics to the population from which it is selected. So appealing that we tend to ignore other important characteristics that we should consider, such as sample size and base rate. We also fail to realize that the probability of two events occurring together (for example, bank teller and feminist) needs to be smaller than the probability of just one of those events (for example, bank teller).

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69 Availability Heuristic Estimate frequency or probability in terms of how easy it is to think of relevant examples. Only accurate when availability is correlated with true, objective frequency. Can be distorted by recency and familiarity Example: chance of being involved in an air accident is considered higher because of media attention

70 Availability Heuristic Memory is better for more recent items. Recent items are more available. People judge recent items to be more likely than they really are.

71 The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 (median 2.250, 512 resp.; correct answer ) When making an estimate, people begin with a first approximation (anchor) and then make adjustments to that number on the basis of additional information. -> often reasonable answer However, people rely too heavily on the anchor, and their adjustments are too small; over-influence of current hypotheses or beliefs, top-down processing

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73 Family name A-M : group A Family name N-Z: group B Group A Imagine that you got a theater ticket for $20. As you enter the theatre, you discover that you have lost your ticket. The seat was not marked, and the ticket cannot be recovered. Would you pay another $20 for a ticket? Group B You have gone to see a play where the ticket is $20. As you enter the theatre, you discover that you have lost a $20 bill. Would you still pay $20 for a ticket to get into the theatre?

74 Framing effect 1. framing effect the outcome of a decision can be influenced by: 2. the background context of the choice 3. the way in which a question is worded item A: Imagine that you got a theater ticket for $20. As you enter the theatre, you discover that you have lost your ticket. The seat was not marked, and the ticket cannot be recovered. Would you pay another $20 for a ticket? item b: You have gone to see a play where the ticket is $20. As you enter the theatre, you discover that you have lost a $20 bill. Would you still pay $20 for a ticket to get into the theatre? From the standpoint of economic theory, both items present the same facts and call for the same answer; any different between them must be due to chance. From a psychological point of view, the framing of the question can be expected to influence the answer.

75 Framing effect Study Kahneman & Tversky (1984) A: 46 % buys a new ticket; B: 88 % buys a new ticket. The decision frame is different so the situation feels different: A: a theater play is a transaction for which a certain price is acceptable. A new ticket makes the costs of a new ticket too high B: losing 20 has no relation with (the costs of) the ticket

76 The Wording of a Question and the Framing effect People are distracted by the surface structure of the questions. The exact wording of a question can have a major effect on the answers.

77 Framing effect Tversky and Kahneman (1981): Asian disease problem Participants were asked to "imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows." The first group of participants was presented with a choice between programs: In a group of 600 people, Program A: "200 people will be saved" Program B: "there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved 72 % of the participants selected program A, the others program B (risk averse)

78 Framing effect Tversky and Kahneman (1981): Asian disease problem (2) The second group of participants was presented with the choice between the following: In a group of 600 people, Program C: "400 people will die" Program D: "there is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die 78 % selected program D, 22 % program C. Programma A and C are identical; B and D are identical. (risk taking: better a 2/3 chance that 600 would die than guaranteed death of 400 people)

79 Framing effect Change in the decision frame. Presentation of the case focusing on survivors: A (=C) seems the safe solution, possible gains Presentation of the case focusing on expected victims: Preference for program D (=B);avoid certain death for 400. However, subtle difference between the phrasings of the options in the two scenarios? The two framings in case of treatment A are not truly mutually substitutable; the statement "200 of 600 lives will be saved" is not mutually substitutable with the statement "400 of 600 people will die".

80 Other heuristics? Affect heuristic (Slovic) Often applied in judging risks and advantages of a decision If the decision feels good we assume it is the right decision: risks are considered small and advantages great. If the decision feels bad the other way around. Finucane

81 Emotion & decision making Lerner, J. S., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P., & Kassam, K. S. (2015). Emotion and decision making. Psychology, 66. Emotions powerfully, predictably, and pervasively influence decision making. Many examples of influence of emotions in daily activities/decision making processes (can be useful for your project). Relationships between macro-level phenomena (e.g., weather, sports outcomes) and individual-level behavior: Schwarz & Clore s (1983): people have a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction on sunny days; economists have found a positive correlation between the amount of sunshine on a given day and stock market performance across 26 countries (Hirshleifer & Shumway 2003, Kamstra et al. 2003); stock market returns declined when a country s soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup (Edmans et al. 2007).

82 Strategies Strategies for minimizing the effects of emotions on decision making in situations where such effects are seen as deleterious: 1. minimizing the magnitude of the emotional response (e.g., through time delay, reappraisal, or induction of a counteracting emotional state); 2. insulating the judgment or decision process from the emotion (e.g., by crowding out emotion, increasing awareness of misattribution, or modifying the choice architecture). Lerner et al., 2015

83 Strategy: delay (waiting) Rarely used: Delay is fundamentally antithetical to the function of many emotional states, which motivate immediate behavioral responses to adaptive concerns. Considered as sensible; very difficult to conduct Lerner et al., 2015

84 Strategy: awareness Increasing awareness of misattribution appraisal tendencies will be deactivated when decision makers become more cognitively aware of their decisionmaking processes. Schwarz & Clore (1983): ambient weather effects on judgments of subjective well-being disappeared when people were reminded of the weather. a simple reminder to attribute (positive or) negative mood to its correct source could eliminate the carryover of incidental mood. Lerner et al., 2015

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86 And Study Matlin: Overconfidence in decision making : overconfidence; loss aversion; optimism The trouble, says Nobel Laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman, is that we're often confident in our intuitive judgments even when we have no idea what we're doing. Individual differences and styles hindsight judgments about events that already happened in the past hindsight bias judging an event as inevitable, after the event has already happened; overconfidence that we could have predicted the outcome in advance

87 Almost the last slide s/heuristics s/risk-communication (Kahneman, overconfidence)

88 Work on your project AND Finally, in January Prepare for the exam; study all chapters and papers listed on the Literature page We will provide example questions and reading suggestions Enjoy your holidays! 90