Efficient Cognition

Efficient Cognition
Author: Armin W. Schulz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262546736

Download Efficient Cognition Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

An argument that representational decision making is more cognitively efficient, allowing an organism to adjust more easily to changes in the environment. Many organisms (including humans) make decisions by relying on mental representations. Not simply a reaction triggered by perception, representational decision making employs high-level, non-perceptual mental states with content to manage interactions with the environment. A person making a decision based on mental representations, for example, takes a step back from her perceptions at the time to assess the nature of the world she lives in. But why would organisms rely on representational decision making, and what evolutionary benefits does this reliance provide to the decision maker? In Efficient Cognition, Armin Schulz argues that representational decision making can be more cognitively efficient than non-representational decision making. Specifically, he shows that a key driver in the evolution of representational decision making is that mental representations can enable an organism to save cognitive resources and adjust more efficiently to changed environments. After laying out the foundations of his argument—clarifying the central questions, the characterization of representational decision making, and the relevance of an evidential form of evolutionary psychology—Schulz presents his account of the evolution of representational decision making and critically considers some of the existing accounts of the subject. He then applies his account to three open questions concerning the nature of representational decision making: the extendedness of decision making, and when we should expect cognition to extend into the environment; the specialization of decision making and the use of simple heuristics; and the psychological sources of altruistic behaviors.

Evolution and the Mechanisms of Decision Making

Evolution and the Mechanisms of Decision Making
Author: Peter Hammerstein
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2024-03-19
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262551500

Download Evolution and the Mechanisms of Decision Making Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A multidisciplinary examination of cognitive mechanisms, shaped over evolutionary time through natural selection, that govern decision making. How do we make decisions? Conventional decision theory tells us only which behavioral choices we ought to make if we follow certain axioms. In real life, however, our choices are governed by cognitive mechanisms shaped over evolutionary time through the process of natural selection. Evolution has created strong biases in how and when we process information, and it is these evolved cognitive building blocks—from signal detection and memory to individual and social learning—that provide the foundation for our choices. An evolutionary perspective thus sheds necessary light on the nature of how we and other animals make decisions. This volume—with contributors from a broad range of disciplines, including evolutionary biology, psychology, economics, anthropology, neuroscience, and computer science—offers a multidisciplinary examination of what evolution can tell us about our and other animals' mechanisms of decision making. Human children, for example, differ from chimpanzees in their tendency to over-imitate others and copy obviously useless actions; this divergence from our primate relatives sets up imitation as one of the important mechanisms underlying human decision making. The volume also considers why and when decision mechanisms are robust, why they vary across individuals and situations, and how social life affects our decisions.

Simply Rational

Simply Rational
Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Evolution and Cognition
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2015
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 019939007X

Download Simply Rational Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life. Gerd Gigerenzer provides a lucid review and catalog of concrete instances of heuristics, or rules of thumb, that people and animals rely on to make decisions under uncertainty, explaining why these are very often more rational than probability models. After a critical look at behavioral theories that do not model actual psychological processes, the book concludes with a call for a heuristic revolution that will enable us to understand the ecological rationality of both statistics and heuristics, and bring a dose of sanity to the study of rationality.

The Sentient Enterprise

The Sentient Enterprise
Author: Oliver Ratzesberger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2017-09-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119438896

Download The Sentient Enterprise Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Mohan and Oliver have been very fortunate to have intimate views into the data challenges that face the largest organizations and institutions across every possible industry—and what they have been hearing about for some time is how the business needs to use data and analytics to their advantage. They continually hear the same issues, such as: We're spending valuable meeting time wondering why everyone's data doesn't match up. We can't leverage our economies of scale while remaining agile with data. We need self-serve apps that let the enterprise experiment with data and accelerate the development process. We need to get on a more predictive curve to ensure long-term success. To really address the data concerns of today's enterprise, they wanted to find a way to help enterprises achieve the success they seek. Not as a prescriptive process—but a methodology to become agile and leverage data and analytics to drive a competitive advantage. You know, it's amazing what can happen when two people with very different perspectives get together to solve a big problem. This evolutionary guide resulted from the a-ha moment between these two influencers at the top of their fields—one, an academic researcher and consultant, and the other, a longtime analytics practitioner and chief product officer at Teradata. Together, they created a powerful framework every type of business can use to connect analytic power, business practices, and human dynamics in ways that can transform what is currently possible.

The Evolution of Decision Making

The Evolution of Decision Making
Author: J. Austin
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2015-11-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781517119911

Download The Evolution of Decision Making Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Decision making can be difficult. A poor decision can lead to a life filled with self-doubt, low self-esteem, or disruption from discovering our intended purpose. Our thoughts fuel our emotion. So much about our behavior is dependent upon the way we think. And what we think (self-talk) influences how we feel. For the adolescent (or the less-mature thinker) behavior is too often motivated by emotion.

Efficient Cognition

Efficient Cognition
Author: Armin W. Schulz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2018-02-09
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262037602

Download Efficient Cognition Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

An argument that representational decision making is more cognitively efficient, allowing an organism to adjust more easily to changes in the environment. Many organisms (including humans) make decisions by relying on mental representations. Not simply a reaction triggered by perception, representational decision making employs high-level, non-perceptual mental states with content to manage interactions with the environment. A person making a decision based on mental representations, for example, takes a step back from her perceptions at the time to assess the nature of the world she lives in. But why would organisms rely on representational decision making, and what evolutionary benefits does this reliance provide to the decision maker? In Efficient Cognition, Armin Schulz argues that representational decision making can be more cognitively efficient than non-representational decision making. Specifically, he shows that a key driver in the evolution of representational decision making is that mental representations can enable an organism to save cognitive resources and adjust more efficiently to changed environments. After laying out the foundations of his argument—clarifying the central questions, the characterization of representational decision making, and the relevance of an evidential form of evolutionary psychology—Schulz presents his account of the evolution of representational decision making and critically considers some of the existing accounts of the subject. He then applies his account to three open questions concerning the nature of representational decision making: the extendedness of decision making, and when we should expect cognition to extend into the environment; the specialization of decision making and the use of simple heuristics; and the psychological sources of altruistic behaviors.

The Evolution of Decision Making

The Evolution of Decision Making
Author: Jacques L. Austin
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2015-11-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781519211491

Download The Evolution of Decision Making Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Decision making can be difficult. A poor decision can lead to a life filled with self-doubt, low self-esteem, incarceration, or disruption from discovering one's intended purpose. The book begins with the story of a young man growing-up in a small southern town. His tale of poor-decision making with life altering consequences lays the foundation for this Cognitive Behavioral approach to decision-making. The Evolution of Decision-Making teaches the basic principles needed to guide one to an orderly evaluation of the elements needed to arrive at an intelligent decision. Readers will learn how to tap into their genius and discover purpose, one decision at a time.

Insights in Decision Making

Insights in Decision Making
Author: Robin M. Hogarth
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 1990-04-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780226348551

Download Insights in Decision Making Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

How do people make decisions? How can we help people make better decisions? How can we best study the processes of decision making? The growing field of behavioral decision research, which seeks to link observed decision behavior to underlying psychological mechanisms, may provide the answers to these questions. The volume is based on a recent conference held to honor the work and memory of the late Hillel J. Einhorn, a pioneering scholar in behavioral decision research. Composed of contributions by leading researchers, Insights in Decision Making provides a state-of-the-art image of work in this field. The range of topics covered includes conceptual and technical issues the bridge the gap between theory and the practical concern of improving decision making, difficulties in statistical thinking, experimental studies of processes of judgment and choice, and the emergence of new paradigms for studying decision behavior. Providing many avenues for future research, Insights in Decision Making will be essential reading for students of the psychology of decision making and will prove valuable to readers in psychology, economics, statistics, and management.