Cognition - How Your Mind Can Amaze and Betray You: Crash Course Psychology #15

Summary

This script explores the complexities of human cognition, discussing how our brains, while capable of brilliance, can also lead us to irrational decisions. It covers the formation of concepts and prototypes that simplify our thinking but can also cause prejudice. The script delves into problem-solving strategies like algorithms, heuristics, and trial-and-error, and how cognitive biases like confirmation bias and the availability heuristic can skew our judgment. It also touches on the impact of mental set and framing on decision-making, concluding with a hopeful note on our potential for problem-solving when aware of these cognitive pitfalls.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Cognition is the complex process of knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning, which is not always logical and can lead to both brilliant insights and irrational thinking.
• 🤔 Our brains are capable of forming concepts and prototypes to simplify our thinking, but these mental shortcuts can also lead to prejudice and limit our perspective.
• 🔍 Problem-solving strategies like trial and error, algorithms, and heuristics are essential tools, but they can also be sources of error if not used thoughtfully.
• 💡 Sudden insights or 'Aha!' moments can be powerful, but they are unpredictable and should not be relied upon as the sole method for problem-solving.
• 🔎 Confirmation bias can skew our thinking, leading us to favor evidence that supports our pre-existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory information.
• 🔒 Belief perseverance causes individuals to cling to their initial ideas even when confronted with evidence that contradicts them.
• 🧩 Functional fixedness is a mental set that restricts our ability to view problems from different angles, often leading to suboptimal solutions.
• 🎰 The availability heuristic can distort our judgment by making us overestimate the likelihood of events based on the vividness of our memories, rather than their actual frequency.
• 📊 Framing effects show that how information is presented can significantly influence our decisions and perceptions, even when the core message remains the same.
• 🌟 Despite our cognitive biases and errors, our capacity for ingenuity and intellect is immense, offering hope for solving complex problems when we are mindful of our potential for error.

Q & A

What is cognition and why is it important for humans?

Cognition refers to the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. It is important for humans as it involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning, which are fundamental to our identity and interaction with the world.

How do concepts and prototypes simplify our thinking process?

Concepts and prototypes simplify our thinking by providing mental groupings of similar objects, people, ideas, or events. They allow us to categorize and process information more efficiently without needing to create unique identifiers for every single item or occurrence.

What is the difference between an algorithm and a heuristic in problem-solving?

An algorithm is a logical, methodical, step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution, though it may be slow. A heuristic, on the other hand, is a mental shortcut or simple strategy that allows for faster problem-solving but is more prone to errors.

Why do we sometimes make irrational decisions despite being smart?

We can make irrational decisions because our cognition is influenced by various biases and heuristics, such as confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and the availability heuristic, which can lead us to favor certain information or memories over others, even when they are less accurate or relevant.

How does the availability heuristic affect our judgment?

The availability heuristic affects our judgment by making us more likely to believe that an event will occur if we can easily recall examples or memories of it, particularly if they are vivid or emotionally charged. This can lead to overestimating the likelihood of rare events and underestimating more common ones.

What is confirmation bias and how does it impact our thinking?

Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that confirms our existing beliefs or hypotheses while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence. It impacts our thinking by reinforcing our preconceived notions and potentially leading to incorrect conclusions.

Can you explain the phenomenon of belief perseverance?

Belief perseverance is the psychological phenomenon where individuals continue to hold onto their initial beliefs even when confronted with evidence that contradicts them. This can occur due to cognitive biases that favor the maintenance of consistency in our beliefs.

What is functional fixedness and how does it hinder problem-solving?

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias where people have difficulty thinking of new uses for an object or situation, often because they are fixated on the customary use of the object or situation. This hinders problem-solving by limiting the range of potential solutions one might consider.

How does the framing of a problem influence our decisions?

The framing of a problem influences our decisions by affecting how we perceive the potential outcomes. For example, presenting risks in terms of survival rates versus mortality rates can lead to different interpretations and choices, even though the underlying information is the same.

What is the role of insight in problem-solving and why can't we rely on it exclusively?

Insight plays a role in problem-solving by providing sudden flashes of understanding or solutions that come seemingly out of nowhere. However, we can't rely on it exclusively because these 'Aha!' moments are unpredictable and not guaranteed to occur for every problem. They should be complemented with other problem-solving strategies for consistent results.

How do cognitive biases like overconfidence affect our decision-making?

Cognitive biases such as overconfidence affect our decision-making by leading us to be more certain of our judgments or actions than is warranted by the available evidence. This can result in taking unnecessary risks or making decisions that are not in our best interest.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Cognition: The Human Brain's Double-Edged Sword

This paragraph delves into the complexities of human cognition, exploring why even intelligent individuals can make poor decisions. It discusses the traditional view of cognition as a logical, computer-like process and contrasts it with the reality of a brain that is capable of much more, including irrational thinking and false intuitions. The paragraph highlights how cognition is integral to our humanity, encompassing our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions. It also touches on the cognitive abilities of other animals and emphasizes the human capacity for both brilliance and misjudgment. The concept of forming mental groupings or concepts is introduced as a fundamental aspect of cognition that simplifies our thinking but can also lead to prejudice if not managed properly.

05:02

🔍 Cognitive Biases and Problem-Solving Strategies

The second paragraph examines the neuroscience behind sudden insights and the various ways our cognition can lead us astray. It discusses cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and belief perseverance, which can cause people to cling to their initial beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence. The paragraph also explores how functional fixedness can hinder our ability to view problems from new perspectives. It introduces the concept of heuristics as mental shortcuts that can be both beneficial and fallible, using the availability heuristic as an example of how our judgments can be skewed by vivid memories. The framing effect is also mentioned, illustrating how the presentation of information can influence our decisions. The paragraph concludes with an optimistic note on the potential for human ingenuity and intellect when we are mindful of our cognitive limitations.

10:03

🎬 Behind the Scenes of Crash Course

The final paragraph shifts focus to the production aspects of the Crash Course series, acknowledging the contributions of various team members and the support of subscribers. It provides information on how viewers can get involved with the show, such as sponsoring an episode or being animated into one. The paragraph lists the writer, editor, consultant, director, script supervisor, sound designer, and graphics team, giving credit to the individuals responsible for creating the episode. It serves as a closing note, appreciating the viewers and providing them with ways to engage further with the Crash Course community.

Keywords

💡Cognition

Cognition refers to the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. In the video, cognition is described as more than just logical processing of information; it encompasses knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning. It is the foundation of human uniqueness, influencing our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions, and plays a central role in how we interpret and interact with the world.

💡Concepts

Concepts are mental groupings of similar objects, people, ideas, or events that simplify our thinking by allowing us to categorize things. The video explains that without concepts, we would need unique names for everything, which would be impractical. Concepts help us to communicate and think efficiently, but they can also lead to prejudice if we rigidly adhere to them without considering exceptions.

💡Prototypes

Prototypes are mental images or examples that represent the ideal or typical characteristics of a category. The video uses the example of birds, where a songbird might be the prototype that comes to mind before a penguin, due to its closer resemblance to the typical bird characteristics. Prototypes help us to quickly identify and categorize new instances, but they can also limit our thinking if we fail to recognize diversity within categories.

💡Problem-solving

Problem-solving is the process of finding solutions to problems. The video outlines various strategies for problem-solving, including trial and error, algorithms, and heuristics. It emphasizes that while these methods are useful, they can also lead to errors or biases, such as confirmation bias, where people tend to favor information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs.

💡Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms their preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. The video illustrates how this bias can lead to irrational thinking and false intuitions, such as the persistent belief in a flat Earth despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

💡Heuristics

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to make quick decisions or solve problems efficiently, often based on experience or simple rules. The video explains that while heuristics can be helpful for speed, they are more prone to errors than algorithms. An example given is searching for a bottle of Sriracha in a store, where using heuristics might lead you to check the Asian or condiment sections first.

💡Algorithms

Algorithms are step-by-step procedures or a set of rules used to solve a problem or perform a computation. In contrast to heuristics, algorithms guarantee a solution, though they may be slower. The video uses the example of searching for a product in a store, where an algorithmic approach would involve checking every shelf and aisle methodically.

💡Insight

Insight refers to the understanding of a complex situation or problem by using logical reasoning, experimentation, or sudden inspiration. The video describes 'Aha!' moments, where a sudden flash of insight provides a solution to a problem. It also mentions how neuroscientists have observed this phenomenon in brain scans, highlighting the role of the right temporal lobe in recognition and insight.

💡Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. The video uses the example of a nail sticking out from a board, where someone might only think to use a hammer to fix it, overlooking other potential tools like a brick, due to their mental set on the conventional use of a hammer.

💡Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. The video explains how this heuristic can lead to overestimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory, influenced by their vividness, as illustrated by the example of casino wins being more memorable and thus seemingly more likely.

💡Belief Perseverance

Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to one's initial conceptions even in the face of new evidence that contradicts the existing beliefs. The video discusses how cognitive biases can lead to belief perseverance, where individuals may ignore or dismiss contradictory evidence, thus maintaining their original beliefs regardless of the factual accuracy.

Highlights

Cognition involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning, and it's not always logical.

Cognition is what makes us truly human, including our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions.

Humans have a capacity for cognition matched only by our ability to misjudge things.

Concepts simplify our thinking by mentally grouping similar objects, people, ideas, or events.

Prototypes are mental images or pinnacle examples that help us categorize things quickly.

Concepts and prototypes can lead to prejudice if we don't accommodate things that don't fit our mental models.

Problem-solving can involve trial and error, algorithms, heuristics, or sudden insights.

Confirmation bias leads us to favor evidence that verifies our ideas and ignore contradictory evidence.

Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to initial conceptions even in the face of proof to the contrary.

Functional fixedness is the inability to view a problem from a new perspective due to a mental set.

The availability heuristic causes us to overestimate the likelihood of events based on the vividness of our memories.

Framing affects how we perceive information, as the way an issue is presented can sway our thinking.

Our cognitive minds are capable of incredible intellectual feats and tremendous failures.

Being mindful of our capacity for error and honoring our intellect can lead to nearly infinite problem-solving abilities.

Highlights the importance of keeping an open mind for evolving concepts to avoid prejudice and bias.

Describes how heuristics, as mental shortcuts, can be fallible due to our mental set and cognitive biases.

Explains how cognitive biases like the availability heuristic and framing can lead to fear of rare events and poor decision-making.

Transcripts

Why do smart people make dumb decisions?

Why do conspiracy theorists think that we didn’t land on the moon or that Hillary

Clinton is a space alien?

And why won’t Bernice admit that the new Superman movie just isn’t very good?

We’ve talked about cognition before.

We usually refer to it as the process that we use to think and solve crossword puzzles

and stuff.

But really, cognition involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and to a certain

extent, learning.

And as truly wonderful as our brains are, we can be spectacularly bad at ALL of these

things.

We used to think our cognition worked like a computer -- logically processing information.

But that cabbage-sized chunk of pink, wet brain matter in your skull can do a lot more

than math, and the things that it does are certainly not always logical.

Many experts argue that it’s cognition that makes us truly human, and that everything

that comes with it -- our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions -- are what make us

the individuals that we are.

We’re not the only animals that show some evidence of cognition, of course: Chimps and

gorillas exhibit insight and planning; crows use tools; elephants teach each other.

But our capacity as humans to figure stuff out is matched only by our ability to totally

misjudge stuff.

As prone as we are to brilliance and insight, we’re equally likely to succumb to irrational

thinking and false intuition.

So, to borrow a riff from Rene Descartes, you think, therefore you are.

Which means you’re brilliant a lot of the time.

And sometimes, you’re just going to look stupid.

[INTRO]

We all want to make sense of the world.

And one of the major ways our cognition allows us do that is by forming concepts -- mental

groupings of similar objects, people, ideas, or events.

We like to lump things together.

Concepts simplify our thinking in such a fundamental way that we usually don’t have to stop and

think about using them, they’re just there.

And yet without concepts, we’d need a unique name for everything.

You couldn’t just ask me to shake the anglerfish -- because there’d be no concept of shake

or fish, let alone stuffed, blue anglerfish.

And if I told you I was devastated that I lost my anglerfish -- which I probably would

be -- I’d also have to explain my emotions, their intensities, even the words themselves

that I had to use.

So basically, without concepts, no one would ever get anything done.

We’d all be like a bunch of ents taking all morning to say “Hey, what’s up?”

We often organize our concepts by forming prototypes--mental images or pinnacle examples

of a certain thing.

For example, if I say “bird”--the general shape of a songbird probably pops into your

head before like, a penguin or chicken or emu, because robins and cardinals more closely

resemble our bird prototype.

Still, if I show you a picture of some crazy creature you’ve never seen before, and you

note that it has feathers and a beak, you’ll probably file it under the bird category because

it more closely resembles your concept of bird than your concept of rodent or overcoat

or footstool.

Concepts and prototypes speed up our thinking, but they also can box in our thinking, and

lead to prejudice if we see something that doesn’t fit our prototypes.

A hundred years ago the sight of a female doctor might have caused some heads to explode,

because in peoples’ tiny minds, the prototypes of “doctor” and “woman” didn’t have

any overlap.

And actually some people today still feel that way.

Haters gonna hate.

So it’s important to actively keep your mind open mind to make room for evolving concepts,

and remember that concepts may sometimes hurt as much as they help.

One of the biggest ways our cognition works to our benefit, though, is through our ability

to solve problems.

We use our problem-solving skills all the time: How to assemble Scandinavian furniture,

bake muffins with a missing ingredient, or handle the crushing disappointment of the

new Superman movie.

And we approach problem-solving in different ways -- sometimes we value speed; other times,

accuracy.

Some problems we figure out using trial and error--you know, you try something and if

it doesn’t work, try it a different way, and keep at it until something works.

Trial and error is slow and deliberate--which may be good or bad, depending on the problem.

We can also use algorithms and heuristics to come up with solutions.

Algorithms are logical, methodical, step-by-step procedures that guarantee an eventual solution,

though they may be slow to work through.

Heuristics, on the other hand, are more like mental shortcuts -- simple strategies that

allow us to solve problems faster, although they’re more error-prone than algorithms.

Say you’re at the store, looking for a family-sized bottle of Sriracha.

You could use an algorithm and methodically check every shelf and aisle in the store.

Or you could use heuristics and first search the Asian or condiment sections--the places

that make the most sense based on what you already know.

Heuristics may be way faster, but the algorithmic approach guarantees you won’t overlook the

sauce along the way, because they stuck it in the deli or whatever dumb thing they did

this week.

So algorithms, heuristics, and trial-and-error are problem-solving strategies that involve

a plan of attack.

But sometimes we get lucky while puzzling out a problem, and Aha!, out of nowhere a

sudden flash of insight that solves our problem.

I’ll use orange in the muffin recipe instead of lemon!

Or, Sriracha lives in the Mexican section!

For some reason!

Neuroscientists have actually watched that kind of sudden, happy brain flash on neuroimaging

screens.

In one experiment, they gave subjects a problem to solve:

What word can be added to the three words CRAB, PINE, and SAUCE to create a new compound

word?

Then they asked the subjects to press a button when they had the answer.

While the subjects thought about it, scans showed activity in their frontal lobes, the

areas involved in the focused attention of typical problem-solving.

But right at the Aha!

moment, just as they pushed the button, there was a clear burst of activity just above the

ear in the right temporal lobe, which, among many other things, is involved with recognition.

The answer, by the way, we already gave you the hint earlier in the episode.

Where’s my fish?

Those sudden bursts of insight are awesome, but you can’t count on them to solve all

your problems.

And just because something feels, doesn’t mean it’s truly correct.

Because as inventive and smartypants as we may be, our cognition often leads us astray

in all kinds of ways.

For instance, we often look for, and favor, evidence that verifies our ideas, while we’re

more likely to avoid or ignore contradictory evidence -- a tendency known as confirmation

bias.

This is really similar to the overconfidence we’ve talked about, when you’re basically

more confident than you are correct.

When this kind of cognitive bias takes hold, you might cling to your initial conceptions

in a kind of belief perseverance, even in the face of clear proof to the contrary.

This happens all the time, and it can be maddening for people watching it happen.

People still think that the earth is flat!

It’s like...WHAT?

HOW?

There’s space pictures!

I probably don’t need to tell you -- people can really get weird and defensive when they

evade facts and choose to see only the information that confirms their beliefs.

They may even become functionally fixed, unable to view a problem from a new perspective.

Instead they just keep approaching a situation with the same mental set, especially if it’s

worked in the past.

Say you’ve got a nail sticking out from a board, and you’re like “I need to take

care of that!”

There’s rocks, and bricks all around you.

But because of your functional fixedness on the idea that only hammers work on nails,

you don’t even consider hitting it with the brick, and instead you waste a bunch of

time in the garage looking for a hammer, and you’re angry and frustrated, and there’s

still a nail sticking up from the board.

So, our mental set predisposes how we think, just as you’ll remember that our perceptual

set predisposes how we perceive.

This is what makes heuristics -- those super-convenient mental shortcuts that we all use -- so easily

fallible.

In the 1970s, cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman researched how

we make snap judgments, and discovered one way smart people make dumb decisions.

They found that people believe an event will be more likely to occur if they can conjure

up examples or memories of it, especially if those examples are particularly vivid,

scary, or awesome.

So, say you’re in a casino and you win two dollars at a slot machine.

Suddenly every flashing light and ringing bell in the place goes off.

But when you lose -- which is the vast majority of the time -- it’s just...crickets.

With all their lights and noise-making, the casino makes sure that wins are super vivid

and memorable, while losses just go away unacknowledged.

That way, the next time you’re standing there with 100 bucks in your pocket, you’re

more likely to overestimate your chances of winning, because the memories of winning are

more striking.

The more mentally available those memories are, the more it seems that it’s going to

happen again.

This is known as the availability heuristic.

And it can warp our judgements of people, too.

If we keep remembering news footage that shows people of a given group shooting guns, that

can shape our impression of the entire group -- even if what we saw was only a tiny minority

within that group.

Essentially, we are great at fearing the wrong things.

We worry about being killed in a plane crash or getting bitten in half by a shark or accidentally

choking on a dumpling.

Thanks to our brain’s b-roll of horrific images, we come to fear what’s actually

very rare, instead of worrying about much more common, but less memorable ends like

car accidents, cancer, and heart failure.

Our thinking can also be swayed by framing, or how an issue is presented.

Imagine you’re considering climbing Everest or getting a nose job or eating a bowl of

raw blowfish.

I can frame the risks in different ways.

Telling you that you’ve got a 95 percent chance of survival sounds a lot different

than saying five out of a hundred people die doing this activity, though the information

is the same.

Our cognitive minds are capable of incredible intellectual feats and tremendous failures.

We can solve problems better than any organism on the planet, but given the chance, we can

also mess up a pretty simple judgment every day of the week.

But if we’re mindful of our capacity for error -- and if we honor our ingenuity and

intellect -- I think our ability to solve any problem is nearly infinite.

And that, gives me a lot of hope.

Seriously though where is my fish?

Today you learned how we use concepts, prototypes, and our mental sets to think and communicate,

and how algorithms, heuristics, and insight help us solve problems.

You also learned about how fixation, the availability heuristic, fear, overconfidence, and belief

perseverance can get in the way of good decision-making and thinking.

Thank you for watching, especially to our Subbable subscribers, who make this whole

channel possible.

If you’d like to sponsor an episode of Crash Course, get a special Laptop Decal, or even

be animated into an upcoming episode, just go to Subbable.com/crashcourse.

This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant

is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.

Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor is Michael Aranda, who

is also our sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Café.