Beliefs, Reasoning, and Decision Making

Beliefs, Reasoning, and Decision Making
Author: Roger C. Schank
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134781628

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It is not unusual for a festschrift to include offerings from several areas of study, but it is highly unusual for those areas to cross disciplinary lines. This book, in doing just that, is a testimony to Bob Abelson's impact on the disciplines of social psychology, artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the applied areas of political psychology and decision-making. The contributors demonstrate that their association with Abelson, whether as students or colleagues, has resulted in an impressive intellectual cross-fertilization.

Beliefs, Reasoning, and Decision Making

Beliefs, Reasoning, and Decision Making
Author: Roger Schank
Publisher:
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

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It is not unusual for a festschrift to include offerings from several areas of study, but it is highly unusual for those areas to cross disciplinary lines. This book, in doing just that, is a testimony to Bob Abelson's impact on the disciplines of social psychology, artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the applied areas of political psychology and decision-making. The contributors demonstrate that their association with Abelson, whether as students or colleagues, has resulted in an impressive intellectual cross-fertilization.

Rationality and Reasoning

Rationality and Reasoning
Author: Jonathon St. B.T. Evans
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135472300

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This book addresses an apparent paradox in the psychology of thinking. On the one hand, human beings are a highly successful species. On the other, intelligent adults are known to exhibit numerous errors and biases in laboratory studies of reasoning and decision making. There has been much debate among both philosophers and psychologists about the implications of such studies for human rationality. The authors argue that this debate is marked by a confusion between two distinct notions: (a) personal rationality (rationality1 Evans and Over argue that people have a high degree of rationality1 but only a limited capacity for rationality2. The book re-interprets the psychological literature on reasoning and decision making, showing that many normative errors, by abstract standards, reflect the operation of processes that would normally help to achieve ordinary goals. Topics discussed include relevance effects in reasoning and decision making, the influence of prior beliefs on thinking, and the argument that apparently non-logical reasoning can reflect efficient decision making. The authors also discuss the problem of deductive competence - whether people have it, and what mechanism can account for it. As the book progresses, increasing emphasis is given to the authors' dual process theory of thinking, in which a distinction between tacit and explicit cognitive systems is developed. It is argued that much of human capacity for rationality1 is invested in tacit cognitive processes, which reflect both innate mechanisms and biologically constrained learning. However, the authors go on to argue that human beings also possess an explicit thinking system, which underlies their unique - if limited - capacity to be rational.

The Developmental Psychology of Reasoning and Decision-making

The Developmental Psychology of Reasoning and Decision-making
Author: Henry Markovits
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781315856568

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Logical thinking is a critically important cognitive skill. It is not just essential for mathematical and scientific understanding, it is also of prime importance when trying to navigate our complex and increasingly sophisticated world. Written by world class researchers in the field, The Developmental Psychology of Reasoning and Decision-Making describes the ways that children learn to reason, and how reasoning can be used to overcome the influence of beliefs and intuitions. The chapters in this edited collection focus on the new, revolutionary paradigm in reasoning and cover the recent research on the development of reasoning in two important areas: Cognitive abilities required to reason well and how these abilities develop in children and adolescents. Recent empirical data showing the effect intuition and prior belief have on reasoning, even when the outcome is inappropriate. Different theoretical and empirical perspectives from recent Piagetian theory, mental models and gist processing are examined, along with empirical results looking at specific aspects of reasoning in children. The key theme of the book is to better understand how reasoning develops not only through examining 'logical' reasoning, but also the nature of the interactions between people's intuitions and their reasoning abilities. The Developmental Psychology of Reasoning and Decision-Making provides an overview of the main theories and key empirical results related to the development of reasoning and should be of particular interest to students and researchers in developmental psychology and education, along with those in cognitive psychology.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2011-10-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1429969350

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Major New York Times bestseller Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012 Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011 A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

Working Memory and Thinking

Working Memory and Thinking
Author: Kenneth Gilhooly
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135471886

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Thinking and memory are inextricably linked. However, a "divide and rule" approach has led cognitive psychologists to study these two areas in relative isolation. With contributions from some of the leading international researchers on working memory and thinking, the present volume aims to break down the scientific divisions and foster scientific integration in the connections between these two core functions of cognition. Broadly defined, thinking comprises mentally driven change in current representations. The processes involved in such change include application of logical rules, heuristics, problem solving strategies, decision making, planning and comprehension of complex material. Memory involves the encoding, retention and retrieval of information, and the retention may be temporary or in a long-term knowledge base.; Thinking cannot occur in a vacuum; it relies on the long-term memory base and a temporary mental workspace. Despite the apparent limitations on mental workspace, humans can drive a car and hold a conversation, or store partial solutions while tackling other aspects of a problem. So too, some aspects of thinking are relatively resilient in the face of quite extensive brain damage, yet other aspects are remarkably vulnerable to neuroanatomical insults. Humans can solve complex problems with many alternative choice points and yet seem to be able to consider only a few hypotheses at any one time. These apparent paradoxes present significant scientific challenges as to how humans can be such successful thinkers despite their very limited working memory. The chapters herein represent a diversity of views as regards the nature or working memory and forms of human thinking. The links between working memory and thinking are directly addressed and made explicit, and in so doing this volume offers an increasingly integrated understanding of human thinking and memory.

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism
Author: Kinga Morsanyi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2019-10-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351060902

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Thinking and Reasoning in Autism provides fresh insights into the cognitive processes that underlie some of the typical characteristics of autism. Autism has long been considered an enigma, and no single theory so far has been able to explain, or even fully describe, the key characteristics of the autistic mind. From the interdisciplinary perspective of new research in cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience, this book explores thinking, reasoning and decision making in autism. The new cognitive approaches challenge some of the existing assumptions of the nature of thought in autism, including presumed areas of impairments. Instead, this book focuses on the nuanced array of cognitive signatures that characterize the autistic mind, and in many cases it reveals the possibility of intact performance alongside instances of remarkably enhanced thinking. The book considers the implications of these characteristics, providing in-depth analyses of specific areas of cognitive functioning, and their everyday manifestations. Featuring contributions from world-leading researchers from the fields of cognitive science and autism research, this volume will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers, as well as those working with individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Liminal Thinking

Liminal Thinking
Author: Dave Gray
Publisher: Rosenfeld Media
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2016-09-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1933820624

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"Why do some people succeed at change while others fail? It's the way they think! Liminal thinking is a way to create change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs. What beliefs are stopping you right now? You have a choice. You can create the world you want to live in, or live in a world created by others. If you are ready to start making changes, read this book."

The Scout Mindset

The Scout Mindset
Author: Julia Galef
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0735217556

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"...an engaging and enlightening account from which we all can benefit."—The Wall Street Journal A better way to combat knee-jerk biases and make smarter decisions, from Julia Galef, the acclaimed expert on rational decision-making. When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a "soldier" mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and everything in between, we are driven to defend the ideas we most want to believe—and shoot down those we don't. But if we want to get things right more often, argues Galef, we should train ourselves to have a "scout" mindset. Unlike the soldier, a scout's goal isn't to defend one side over the other. It's to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what's actually true. In The Scout Mindset, Galef shows that what makes scouts better at getting things right isn't that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than everyone else. It's a handful of emotional skills, habits, and ways of looking at the world—which anyone can learn. With fascinating examples ranging from how to survive being stranded in the middle of the ocean, to how Jeff Bezos avoids overconfidence, to how superforecasters outperform CIA operatives, to Reddit threads and modern partisan politics, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think.

How Do We Know? on the Nature of Knowledge and Beliefs

How Do We Know? on the Nature of Knowledge and Beliefs
Author: R. W. Van Der Pol
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 9781291855036

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It is generally accepted that sound decision making relies on knowledge. This may seem easy enough, but it appears that knowledge used in decisions comprises beliefs, and... we cannot easily tell whether a belief is true. This book is meant to help you improve your decision-making skills, by exploring how we know - in two ways. First, the nature of beliefs is clarified, by studying beliefs and their context of human brains and thinking. Second, the ways of obtaining beliefs and their consequences for the truth and reliability of beliefs are studied: observation, communication, conception, memorization and reasoning. Especially reasoning is studied into its details. We base our insights on observations of real reasoning, instead of formal logic only. The book serves both as a theoretical guide and a practical aid, with examples that will help you in making better judgments about the reliability of your beliefs. As a result, you will recognize poor decisions and/or make better ones.