Thinking and Problem Solving: Fixations and Heuristics

Concepts

Metacognition –

controlling your own thoughts

Hierarchies

– grouping things together in order

Prototypes

– a cognitive representation of things in a category

Problem Solving

FIXATIONS

Functional

fixedness – limited thinking about objects, concepts , or people

Mental

set – approaching situations the same way as the past

Confirmation

bias - to search for information

that confirms preconceptions

Overconfidence-

being really sure about an answer but finding you are wrong

Approaches

Trial

and Error – to experiment with what works

Insight

– Aha! Solution to a problem

Algorithm

– set of directions to solve a problem (steps of math problem)

Heuristics

– rule of thumb ways for solving problems

Representativeness

heuristics – categorizing a scenario based on previous beliefs

Availability

heuristics – based on vivid beliefs

Issues

·

Framing

– wording

Belief

bias - happens when own values, beliefs, prior knowledge, affect the

reasoning process

Belief

Perseverance - reject convincing proof when the belief has been publicly

announced to

others.

Illusory

correlation - believe there is some relationship between events,

variables, etc.,

Memory

reconstruction - process of assembling information from stored knowledge

when a clear or coherent memory of specific

events does not exist

Self

serving bias - to attribute positive outcomes to personal factors, but

attribute negative outcomes to

external factors.

Intuition