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reliability of cognitive processes - Coggle Diagram
reliability of cognitive processes
anchoring bias
the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered ( the "anchor" ) when making decisions
this is how we cling on to the first piece of information we get
during decision making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgements
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Englich & Mussweiler ( 2001 )
aimed to determine the effect of a judges suggestion on a prosecutor's
given case of alleged rape, tested on a group of law students who suggested a sentence of 17.21 month
PROSPECT THEORY ( framing effect )
describes the way people choose between alternatives that involve risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known
states that people evaluate these losses and gains using heuristics
one of these is the
framing effect,
in which people react to choices depending on how they are presented or "framed"
people prefer certain outcomes when information is framed in positive language, but prefer less certain outcomes when the same information is framed in negative language
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Tversky & Kahneman ( 1986 )
aimed to test the influence of positive & negative frames on decision
hypo theoretical scenario of a disease outbreak - 2 conditions : "positive frame" and "negative frame" = each consisted of 2 options, one being certain, the other including a probability
results clearly demonstrated the influence of the frame as more people chose the 'certain' option within the positive frame, where as this was avoided during the negative frame
the peak-end rule
a heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than on the total sun or average of every moment of the experience
effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant
it is not that other information aside from that of the peak and end is forgotten, but rather not used in reaching a decision or judgement
CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT COGNITIVE BIASES
difficult to measure the actual use of such biases in real life situations
we are not very good at explaining our thinking processes. our explanation as to how we decided what was the best option is most likely a rationalism, rather than a true reflection
much of the research is done under highly controlled and artificial conditions
RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY
when we
reconstruct
memory, we are activating schemas that are relevant to an event. in this process we may
distort
memories
Bartlett
refers to efforts after meaning - this is called the 'misinformation effect'
:star: Yuille & Cutshall ( 1986 )
aimed to determine whether leading questions would affect the memory of eyewitnesses at a real crime scene
13 eyewitnesses to a gun crime were interviewed, giving their account of the incident and asked a leading question : "a" or "the" broken headlight on the getaway car ( there wasn't ), or "the" or "a" yellow panel on the car ( it was blue ) - also asked to rate stress levels during
10 / 13 said there was no broken headlight or yellow panel
accuracy of eyewitnesses to police officers was around 80%
could be that lack of emotional response to the video that was shown played a key role in the influence of leading questions
:star: Loftus & Palmer ( 1974 )
aimed to investigate whether the use of leading questions would effect the estimation of speed - predicted using the word "smashed" would result in higher estimation of speed than the word "hit"
45 students were shown 7 films of traffic accidents ranging from 5 - 30 seconds, then asked to give an account of the accident they had seen - answered a questionnaire including to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident
the average estimations for the "smashed" condition ( 40.8 mph ) was higher than the "hit" condition ( 31.8 mph )
Ronald Cotton
was convicted of a rape he didn't commit
victim identified this man as her attacker and he was sent to jail
when the victim was faced with her 'actual' attacker she did not recognise him
her memory of the attacker had been reconstructed
SCHEMAS
"mental representations are known as
schemas
the process of repeatedly adding information to these schemas is
assimilation
replacing our schemas is known as
accomodation
"mental representations" of events are known as
scripts
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Brewer & Treyens ( 1981 )
aimed to investigate the role of schema in the encoding and retrieval of episodic memory
86 psychology students seated in a room made to look like an office consisting of objects typical to an office as well as some abnormal to an office
each was seated in the room for 35 seconds ( unaware the test had begun ) then taken into another room and asked to recall what objects they remembered - they were also asked if they thought they would be asked to recall the objects ( 93% said no )
3 conditions; verbal recall, drawing recall and written recall
found that participants asked to recall by writing or drawing were more likely to remember the objects expected in an office : they also recalled items congruent to the schema of an office but weren't actually there
proves schema played a role in both encoding and recall of the objects