Text 4. Thought processes

Read the text and give a short summary of each paragraph.

Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). These words of Descartes sum up the importance of thought processes in humans and probably the most important reason we differ from animals. Although animals retrieve and store information, there is little evidence to suggest that they can use it in quite the same way as humans. Humans, on the other hand, are able to use information to reason and solve problems, even when the information is partial or unavailable.

Thinking can be categorized into reasoning and problem solving. Although these are not distinct they are helpful in clarifying the processes involved.

Reasoning is the process by which we use the knowledge we have to draw conclusions or infer something we know about the domain of interest. Reasoning is classified as being deductive, inductive or abductive. Deductive reasoning involves deciding what must be true given the rules of logic and some starting set of facts (premises). Inductive reasoning involves deciding what is likely to be true given some starting set of beliefs or observations.

Deductive Reasoning derives the logically necessary conclusion from the given premises. It is important to note that it can lead to a logical conclusion which conflicts with our knowledge of the world. For example, if it is raining then the ground is dry. It is raining. Therefore the ground is dry. It is a perfectly valid deduction! Deductive reasoning is therefore often misapplied. Human deduction is at its poorest when truth and validity clash. This is because people bring their knowledge of the real world into the reasoning process as it allows them to take short cuts which make information processing more efficient.

Inductive Reasoning. Induction is generalizing from cases we have seen to infer information about cases we haven’t. For instance, if all the dogs that we have seen are white, we may infer that all dogs are white in colour. This is disproved when we see a black dog! In the absence of counter examples, all that we can do is gather evidence to support our inductive inference. In spite of its unreliability, induction is a useful process which we use constantly in learning about our environment.

Abductive Reasoning. Abduction reasons from a fact to the action that caused it. This is the method we use to derive explanations for the events we observe. This kind of reasoning, although useful, can lead to unreliability as an action preceding an event can be wrongly attributed as the cause of the event.

Skill Acquisition. Skills in a given problem area differentiate the novice from the expert. A commonly studied domain is chess playing. It is particularly suitable since it lends itself to representation in terms of problem space theory, in which the initial board configuration and the final position constitute the states while the moves appeared as transition operators. Masters took lesser time than novices to react to a situation and produced better moves. This is largely because chess masters remember board configurations and good moves associated with them. They can chunk the board configuration in order to hold it in short-term memory.

Skilled behavior becomes automatic over a period of time. Experts tend to mentally rehearse their actions in order to identify exactly what they do. Although such skilled behavior is efficient it may cause errors when the context of the activity changes.

Individual Differences. The psychological principles and properties that have been discussed apply to the majority of people. However, there are individual differences which affect a small percentage. The differences may be long term such as sex, physical capabilities and individual capabilities. Others are for a shorter duration and may include the effects of stress or failure on the user. Still others may change through time such as age. These differences should be taken into account in interface designs to eure that a grensater population of users is benefited.

(Abridged form: 1.Cемашко Л.А. Английский язык: Сборник текстов для студентов факультета психологии. – Челябинск: Изд-во ЮУрГУ, 2006. – 156 с., 2.http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/memory.htm)

Answer the questions below:

1. In what ways do the thought processes in humans differ from those in animals?

2. Describe all categories of reasoning.

3. What is a commonly studied domain for skill acquisition and in what ways can skilled behavior become efficient?