– Frame. This is a remembered framework to be adapted to fit reality by changing details as necessary.

» is a data-structure for representing a stereotyped situation (being in a certain kind of living room, or going to a child's birthday party)

» "top levels" of a frame are fixed, and represent things that are always true about the supposed situation

» lower levels have many terminals–"slots" that must be filled by specific instances or data

• Communalities of these approaches– Schemata as high level knowledge structures– Contain slots or variables– Slots only accept particular kinds of data– Failure to fill slots leads to them filling in default data:

stereotypical values experienced in the past

• John kicked the ball • John

– Person– Male– 6’4”

• Ball– Round– White– Black spots

• Rapid handling of information in the world possible because of regularities in the world

– We develop(ed) schemata– Cost: we err in the direction of the expected

• Cacciopo, Petty and Sidera (1982) had receivers for a persuasive message divided into groups of people either with a religious self-schema or a legalistic self-schema. They were asked to listen to arguments, supposedly delivered by a congressional representative, relating to either a ban on government assistance for abortions or the reinstatement of capital punishment. Half of the subjects with a religious self-schema heard a message based on religious arguments (e.g. 'There is a sacramental quality to the nature of life that demands that we show the utmost reverence for it') and half heard legalistic arguments (e.g. 'The right to life is one that is constitutionally safeguarded'). Similarly, those with a legalistic self-schema were divided into two groups and presented with religious or legalistic arguments. The results are shown in the graph on the right.

• Of course, it would not be easy for a communicator outside the laboratory to separate receivers into groups according to their self-schemata. However, that is what advertisers, spin-doctors and so on are attempting to do when they find out the geographical area a person lives in, her age, sex, hobbies, income and so on.

– Schemata• Higher order generic cognitive structures that

underlie all human knowledge and skill• Processing lies beyond direct awareness• Products are available to consciousness• Encoding an representational structure helps to

structure experience and to determine what will be encoded into or retrieved from memory

• Systematic errors from– Fitting data into wrong schemata– Applying the correct schemata too enthusiastically, filling

in defaults without checking the data– Relying too heavily upon active or salient schemata

Duncker, 1926

– Attention to action model• Norman and Shallice (1980)• Goal: development of a theory of human action• Assumptions:

– Account for correct human performance– Account for systematic human error– They are two sides of same coin

• Theories of human action face the challenge that – They have to specify a control system that allows for the

autonomy of well established motor programs– And that most actions actually go according to plan

– Norman & Shallice (1986)• Two structures

– Horizontal threads – Vertical threads

– Horizontal threads» Self sufficient strand of specialized processing

structures (schemas)» Govern habitual activities without the need of

attentional control» Receive triggering condition from environmental

input or previously active schemas

– Vertical threads» Interact with horizontal threads» Provide means by which attentional or motivational

factors can modulate schema activation values» Higher level attentional processes especially in novel

situations

Supervisoryattentionalsystem

• Automatic– Task can be executed without awareness– Task can be initiated without deliberation– Attention can be drawn automatically to something– Tasks that can be performed with no interference to each

other

• Task that require deliberate attention– Planning / deciding– Troubleshooting– Ill-learned or novel situations– Dangerous situations– Overcoming a habit

• Judgment and Decision making

• Decline of normative theories– Until early 1970s research into judgment and decision

making had a strong rationalist bias– Mental processes could be understood in terms of

normative theories describing optimal strategies– Errors were attributed to either irrationality or to

unawareness on the part of the perceiver– Humans were assumed to make decisions according

to Subjective Expected Utility Theory (SEU)

PASCAL’S wager: SEU

"If you believe, and God exists, you gain everything. If you disbelieve, and God exists, you lose everything." Alternatively :

"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, and you believe it will be a nuisance and if HE does not exist and you do not believe in Him you will enjoy the worldly pleasures"

Value of choice alternative = p01 X U01 + p02X U02 + ……

• SEU– Assumptions about the decision maker

» DM has a clearly defined utility function allowing to quantify preferences for a range of outcomes

» DM posses a clear and exhaustive view of possible alternative strategies

» DM can create a consistent joint probability distribution of scenarios

» DM chooses between alternatives in such way that they maximize the subjective expected utility

– Problem: unrealistic assumptions

• The very limited view on the problem space

• Human decision making is constrained by the very limited view on the problem space

• In response to this, Simon (1975) created the concept of bounded rationality

– Human mind as very limited capacity to formulate and solve complex problems

– Result is satisficing behavior: settle for satisficing rather than optimal choices, actions

– Example: house purchase

– Imperfect rationality• How do people draw conclusions from evidence

(Wason & Johnson-Laird, 1972)

• Teenagers who don’t have their own cars usually end up borrowing their parents’ cars. In return for the privilege of borrowing the car, the Goldstein’s have given their kids the rule,“If you borrow my car, then you have to fill up the tank with gas.”

•Of course, teenagers are sometimes careless and irresponsible. You are interested in seeing whether any of the Goldstein teenagers broke this rule.

• These cards represent four of the Goldstein teenagers. Each card represents one teenager. One side of the card tells whether or not a teenager has borrowed the parents’ car on a particular day, and the other side tells whether or not that teenager filled up the tank with gas on that day.Which of the following cards would you definitely need to turn over to see if any of these teenagers are breaking their parents’ rule:

• If you borrow my car, then you have to fill up the tank with gas.”• Don’t turn over any more cards than are absolutely necessary.

•borrowed car

did not borrow car 

filled up tank with gas  

did not fill up tank with gas

76% correct

• If p then q• P and non-q should be examined because they are

potentially falsifying• Non-p and q can be ignored because the truth of

the hypothesis will not be effected no matter what is on their other side

• Johnson-Laird & Wason (1970)– Pq 59– P 42– P,q,non-q 9– P, non-q 5

– Imperfect rationality• People are focusing on affirmative statements• People are trying to verify generalizations rather

than falsify them

True or wrong ?

• The is above the +

• The is not above the +

• The + is above the

• The + is not above the

• Picture sentence verification task

– Linguistic factors• Negatives take longer to be verified• Verification of statement as true/false influences verification

time (congruence)– Positive statement: true faster than false

– Negative statements: false verified faster than true

– Constituent comparisons of constant duration

» congruence between picture and sentence (congruence faster)

» Negatives add time

» True negative longest because incongruent and negative

• Judgmental heuristics and biases– Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

• Representativeness» Diagnose situation by extent to which cues match

the set that is representative of hypothesis

Troubleshooter observes set of cues

Matches those to patterns from past experience

After matching a diagnosis is reached

» Problem when

Cues are ambiguous without considering the base rate, probability

Physician: Anthrax vs. Flu

• Availability– “Ease with which instances …can be brought to mind”

» A mean to approximate prior probabilities» People entertain more available hypotheses

– Influences on availability» Recency » Simplicity of hypothesis» Elaboration