Cogito, ergo sum
(Descartes, Discourse on Method, 1637)
The endeavour to understand human infer is possibly one of the oldest pursuits known to man and indeed many have described this desire as being at the core of what makes us human. Although this area was originally the playing field of philosophers - such as Aristotle, Hobbes, Descartes, Hume and Kant, to name but a few - their insights laid the foundation for the transition of the field to the more scientific endeavour of cognitive psychology. Original theories may have focussed on more normative aspects of directed thinking, intended to recognize practical strategies straight through logic and systematic argument, however contemporary cognitive theories effort to understand the fundamental psychological processes of view and its dynamic effects on our judgment and behaviour (Sternberg, 2005).
When faced with judgment in a problem-solving situation, the human brain relies on a multitude of complicated strategies. The most influential work in problem-solving cognition was possibly that of the Gestalt psychologists in the early twentieth century (King et. Al, 1994). Researchers such as Wertheimer, Duncker and Luchins published compelling research about the structure and dynamics of problem-solving strategies, forming the basis for modern theories such as Piaget's Cognitive improvement and Bandura's collective Cognitive principles (King et. Al, 1994). contemporary pioneers call for a multi-faceted advent to insight cognition, eager to merge known cognitive processes (e.g. Deductive/inductive inference, symbolic and analogical representation, abstract reasoning, algorithmic logic and pattern detection) into one unified principles (e.g. Newell, 1990).
Whilst it may be easier to make good judgments if privy to all pertinent data or given hours for directed research, many of the decisions we make in every-day life are made bereft of such advantages. When faced with a knowledge-poor situation or under constraints of time or uncertainty, we instead depend on 'rules of thumb' or cognitive heuristics (Gleitman et. Al, 2004; Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). In a series of papers in the 1970's, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman 'reshaped the science of mind of human judgment' by proposing that instead of dependency on complicated systems, we in fact only use a petite estimate of easy cognitive heuristics when presented with petite 'outside' data (Hollyoak & Morrison, 2005). For instance, they suggested that habitancy judge likelihood of events based on how it 'represents' a larger group or other similar examples - a phenomena they coined the representativeness heuristic (Tversky & Kahnmeman, 1972). As well as being backed by a wealth of empirical research (Sherman & Corty, 1984 for review), this idea fits well with proper models of learning theory, namely that we tend to categorise things in the memory and store things by association (Sternberg, 2006) and are prone to effects such as stereotyping (Gleitman et. Al, 2004)
Another heuristic demonstrated by Tversky and Kahneman is the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). This heuristic is based on the idea that when asked to judge frequency or probability of an event, we base our judgement on how easy it is to think of relevant examples. In an experiment to test this heuristic they presented participants with four lists of names: two lists containing 19 noted women and 20 less noted men, and two lists containing 19 noted men and 20 less noted women (Study 8, 1973). Using a between-groups design, the first group were asked to recall as many names as possible and the second group were asked to evaluation which class was more frequent, either noted or less famous. The results gave two insights. Firstly, that the noted names were most indeed recalled compared to the less noted names. Moreover, despite the fact that the less noted names were more frequent, the majority of the participants mistakenly judged that the noted names appeared more often. Therefore a key factor that emerged from this study (and others) is that whilst the availability heuristic serves as an sufficient strategy in many situations - that is to say, they lead to exact judgements - they can also lead to 'systematic errors', particularly when judging frequency (Tversky & Kahneman 1973,1974).
The idea that this easy heuristic forms the basis of frequency judgements and lead to bias is a considerable one in judgement research. According to the collective Science passage Index(Institute for Scientific Information, 1970-1982), Tversky & Kahneman's 1973 paper on the availability heuristic is cited 24 times per year compared to an average of 1.4 times per year (Armstrong, 1984). However, despite these impressive figures their Original research has received some commentary (Schwarz et al, 1991; Taylor et al, 1982; Gigerenzer et. Al, 1991). Some researchers have expressed concern about conflated variables, suggesting that the invent of their earlier experiments was ambiguous in determining how the availability heuristic indeed works. For example, think again the experiment described above. Do the subjects base their frequency estimates on the subjective ease of recalling noted names or do they base their estimates on the actual estimate of content recalled?
In 1991, Schwarz et. Al conducted experiments intended to address this 'problem'. They set recall tasks to narrative either 6 or 12 assertive behaviours that participants had previously been complicated in; 6 instances being assumed (based on pre-testing) as 'easy' to recall and 12 instances as 'difficult'. They then asked participants to judge their own assertiveness. The results showed that despite being able to recall 12 assertive behaviours they had personally engaged in, this higher estimate of recall didn't influence their perception of their own assertiveness. In fact, because the task of trying to recall 12 behaviours was subjectively viewed as more difficult, they judged their own assertiveness to be less than average. These findings seemed to address this obscuring about the fundamental process and supports Tversky and Kahnemans Original assertion (1973) that frequency judgments are based on the subjective ease of recall.
Other researchers have questioned other factors regarding the validity of their experimental design. Firstly, replication of the Original studies was non-existent up to as recently as 1998 (except for one paper in 1991 by White) and moreover, their findings of bias in frequency judgment seems to contradict current research that indicates 'humans are able to get answers that reflect the actual relative frequencies of the events with great fidelity' (Watkins & LeCompte,1991; Jonide & Jones, 1992; Sedlmeier et al, 1998).
This is a concern that is mirrored by researchers such as Gerd Gigerenzer (1991;1996), who have engaged in a animated consider over this topic and other criticisms such as proposed subtleties of difference of meaning between probability and frequency. Hereafter research should be focussing on these criticisms with an effort to iron out any difficulties. Some modern research by Brown et al (1995) on exemplar pairs have provided some evidence that the availability heuristic is only one of many strategies complicated in frequency judgment. Indeed, modern work on sustain principles by Tversky and Rottenstreich (1997) suggests that saliency and explicity of narrative of events can have a considerable influence on how one judges their frequency or probability and this idea is backed up by any more modern studies (Sternberg, 2006). Therefore, possibly a more integrated advent to Hereafter research is required, working towards something like a Unified principles like that proposed by Newell - indeed the complexity of the human mind would indicate we are only scratching the surface.
References
Armstrong, J. (1984) enumerate of Daniel Kahnemann, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Science, 185 (4157).
Eysenck, M.W. & Keane, M.T. (2000) Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, Taylor and Frances, London.
Gigerenzer, G., (1996). On narrow norms and vague heuristics: A reply to Kahneman and Tversky (1996). Psychological Review, 103, 592-596.
Gigerenzer, G., (1991). How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond Heuristics and Biases European enumerate of collective Psychology, 2, 83-115.
Gleitman, H., Fridlund, A.J., & Reisberg, D. (2004) science of mind (6th Edition), New York/London,
Holyoak, K. J. & Morrison, R.G. (2005) The Cambridge Handbook of thinking and Reasoning, Cambridge University Press, Uk.
Jonides, J., & Jones, C. M. (1992). Direct coding for frequency of occurrence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 368-378.
King, D.B.,Wertheimer, M., Keller, H & Crichetiere, K. (1994) The patrimony of Max Wertheimer and gestalt science of mind - Sixtieth Anniversary, 1934-1994: The patrimony of Our Past. collective Research, 61 (4), 907
Newell, A. (1990). Unified Theories of Cognition. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F. & Klumpp, G. (1991) Ease of Retrieval as Information: another Look at the Availability Heuristic, Journal of Personality and collective Psychology, 61(2), 195-202.
Sedlmeier, P., Hertwig, R. & Gigerenzer, G. (1995) Are Judgments of the Positional Frequencies of Letters Systematically Biased Due to Availability? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24 (3), 754-770
Sherman, S. J., & Corty, E. (1984). Cognitive heuristics. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Sruli (Eds.), Handbook of collective Cognition (Vol. 1, pp. 189-286). Hillsdale, Nj: Eribaum.
Cognitive Heuristics - relate of Tversky & Kahneman's Availability Heuristic
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