Cognitive Psychology - Reasoning and decision-making.

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Cognitive Psychology (PSY323M1)

Lecture11. Reasoning and decision-making.

Reading: Chapter 17 of Eysenck and Keane.

Your objectives are to:

i). Be able to outline the main theoretical orientations that account for deductive reasoning.

ii). Evaluate the empirical evidence from studies that have used Wason's (1966) selection task.

Often when we are thinking about something we're thinking about some past event or forthcoming activity of some sort - the sort of idle speculation and reminisence that fills much of our waking life. This type of undirected thinking can be contrasted with that which is more highly focussed, when for example we are required to work something out, to describe or explain something or draw a conclusion given certain premises. This type of thinking is described as directed thinking. Often in such latter situations what we are required to do is to take a piece of knowledge and actively transform it into a new piece of knowledge that is helpful in attaining a goal, whether simple or complex. And if you stop for a moment and devote a little time to appreciate some of the great achievements of human thought, the great intellectual endeavours of people like Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, you can't help but wonder at the real power of thought, and indeed at its great beauty. If you think about it the other way around, at the problem faced by a little human being, a child, that doesn't know very much at all about anything in our complex adult world, it is difficult not to be impressed at the speed with which he or she assimilates many different types of knowledge, at the inevitable and interesting mistakes the child makes while on its way to eventual mastery of different ideas, and the way in it copes with an understanding of the world that is in a constant and radical state of flux. So thoughts are wonderfully interesting.
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How many times have you found yourself wondering what's going on in someone else's head? And why is it that when something makes sense to you that someone else won't buy it, or denies it, or thinks it's rubbish? You always think that you know, in whatever way you think you know these things, that you're right, or more right, or in some sense right - otherwise you'd never express an opinion, never voice an objection, never plan to get from A to B!

Of course we're not simply drawing on our memories when we think ...

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