Cognitive Psychology
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Cognitive Psychology
How information moves through the stages
The first stage is listening to the information and receiving it and paying attention to the important details. The information is stored in the memory and later retrieved for use.
what happens at each stage
Sensory input is the stimuli we are aware of using our senses of touch, smell, hearing, taste, and sight. Sensory memory helps to register a lot of information from the surrounding but only for a short period of time. Perception is the process where our senses become aware that there is information available in our brain. Attention is where we observe and notice the available information. Working memory has limited capacity where incoming information is held temporarily ready for processing. Encoding is where information is taken into the memory system. Long term memory is where after we receive the information it is implanted in our brain. Any amount of information regardless of the type is retained here without changing it. Retrieval is obtaining information that had been stored back to the memory so that it can be used.
At which points information may be lost
Information may be lost if it is not encoded and stored in either short term or long term memory. This makes information to be forgotten and it can no longer be of any use.
2) Describe 3 things (e.g., concepts, tendencies, processes, etc.) that can limit our ability to solve problems and how each one does this
Concepts are where try to use the solution we had earlier to a problem in order to solve similar problems in the future. If the solution is not effective, it affects our ability to solve the problem due to mental sets. This happens when our minds are fixed and we assume that the current problem is just like other problems we have solved in the past without considering that there are some differences.
Tendencies are where we use only one particular way to solve a problem for example when a computer has a problem, we restart it and it resumes back to normal functioning and thinks that every time a problem arises, the solution is restarting the machine which may not be true. This happens when we successfully solve a problem using a certain strategy and apply the same strategy to solve a different problem which may not work.
Processes limit our ability to solve problems when we think that the current problem is related to the problem we had solved in the past and apply a similar method to get a solution. A lot of time is spent to get a solution to a problem due to the many attempts before a solution is achieved.
3) Name, describe and provide an example of 3 different cognitive biases that affect our decision making
Confirmation bias is where people have fixed opinions about something and they are not ready to change what they believe. Even if new ideas are good they prefer to retain the old information they already have because the new information is scaring. For example, when buying stock in a certain company, we consider the current price of the stock that is trading well and ignore price fluctuations that occur in future that may lead to a loss in the value of the stock.
Availability heuristic bias is where you consider information that you receive very fast especially when we do not have enough time to make comprehensive decisions. For example, you meet with a person driving a very expensive car and think that he/she is very rich ignoring the fact that he could be employed as a driver by the owner of the car.
Anchoring bias is where you receive information for the first time and conclude that is the most reliable piece of information without considering that if you take the time you can get the most reliable information. For example, you are buying a house and you know the average price and think that if you get a price lower than that, it is a good deal and you ignore looking for the best deal.