5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition - Laura Lincoln Maitland [89]
Biases
Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for and use information that supports our preconceptions, and ignore information that refutes our ideas. To lessen this tendency, we can consider the opposite. Belief perseverance is a tendency to hold on to a belief after the basis for the belief is discredited. This is different from belief bias, the tendency for our preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, making illogical conclusions seem valid or logical conclusions seem invalid. Hindsight bias is a tendency to falsely report, after the event, that we correctly predicted the outcome of the event. Finally, the overconfidence bias is a tendency to underestimate the extent to which our judgments are erroneous. For example, when reading this section dealing with obstacles to problem solving and errors in decision making, we tend to think that we make these errors less often than most other people.
Creativity
Creativity is the ability to think about a problem or idea in new and unusual ways, to come up with unconventional solutions. One way to overcome obstacles to problem solving and avoid biases in reasoning is to borrow strategies from creative problem solvers. Convergent thinkers use problem-solving strategies directed toward one correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinkers produce many answers to the same question, characteristic of creativity. When they feel stuck on a particular problem, creative thinkers tend to move on to others. Later they come back to those stumpers with a fresh approach. To combat the confirmation and overconfidence biases, when beginning to solve a problem, creative problem solvers brainstorm, generating lots of ideas without evaluating them. After collecting as many ideas as possible, solutions are reviewed and evaluated.
Review Questions
Directions: For each question, choose the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
1. The three stages of the Atkinson–Shiffrin process of memory are
(A) iconic, echoic, encoding
(B) sensory, short term, long term
(C) shallow, medium, and deep processing
(D) semantic, episodic, procedural
(E) cerebellum, temporal lobe, hippocampus
2. Which of the following examples best illustrates episodic memory?
(A) telling someone how to tie a shoe
(B) answering correctly that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066
(C) knowing that the word for black in French is noir
(D) remembering that a clown was at your fifth birthday party
(E) long-term memory for the times tables learned in second grade
3. Doug wrote a grocery list of 10 items, but leaves it at home. The list included in order: peas, corn, squash, onions, apples, pears, bananas, flour, milk, and eggs. If the law of primacy holds, which of the following is Doug most likely to remember when he gets to the store?
(A) peas, pears, eggs
(B) banana, flour, peas
(C) apples, pears, bananas
(D) flour, milk, eggs
(E) peas, corn, onions
4. In the example above, which of the items would be recalled in Doug’s short-term memory immediately after writing the list?
(A) peas, corn, squash
(B) peas, corn, onions
(C) apples, pears, bananas
(D) flour, milk, eggs
(E) flour, corn, bananas
5. According to the levels of processing theory of memory,
(A) we remember items that are repeated again and again
(B) maintenance rehearsal will encode items into our long-term memory
(C) deep processing involves elaborative rehearsal, ensuring encoding into long-term memory
(D) input, output, and storage are the three levels
(E) we can only hold 7 items in our short-term memory store before it is full
6. Which of the following brain structures plays a key