Module 23

THINKING AND
REASONING PRESENTED
BY:
MAHNOOR MASOOD M.TALHA

JASIM BALOCH

HAMZA AWAN
WHAT IS THINKING????

 DEFINITION:

PSYCHOLOGISTS DEFINE
THINKING AS THE MANIPULATION OF
MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF
INFORMATIONS. A REPRESENTATION
CAN BE A WORD,VISUAL IMAGE,SOUND
OR DATA IN ANYOTHER SENSORY
MODALITY STORES IN MEMORY.
OUR UNDERSTANDING OF
THE NATURE OF
FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS
INVOLVED IN THINKING IS
GROWING. WE BEGIN BY
CONSIDERING OUR USE OF
MENTAL IMAGES AND
CONCEPTS,THE BUILDING
BLOCKS OF THOUGHTS.
 MENTAL IMAGES ARE
REPRESENTATIONS IN THE
MIND OF AN OBJECT OR MENTAL IMAGES:
EVENT.
PROCESSES OF
THINKING:
ANALYSIS,
UNDERSTANDING
COMAPRISON,
THE FORMATION
ABSTRACTION

POSITIVE AND
OPINION
NEGATIVE
FORMATION
OPINIONS

CONCLUSIONS.
EXAMPLE:

 Think of your best

friend. Chances are
that you "see" some
kind of visual image
when asked to think of
him or her ,or any
other person or object,
for that matter. To
some cognitive
psychologists, such
mental images
constitute a major part
of thinking.
EXAMPLES OF MENTAL
IMAGES:

 It takes the mind to longer to scan mental

images of large objects than small ones just as
the eye takes longer to scan an large object
longer than an actual small one.
 Similarly we are able to rotate and manipulate
mental images of objects as we are able to do in
real world.
For instance, many
athletes use mental
imagery in their
training or before a
competition outlining
each step they will
take to accomplish
their goal.
LET US PLAY WITH YOUR
MINDS

ARE THEY
SAME ???
THE MIND'S EYE:
Psychologist Zenon Pylyshyn theorized that
the human mind processes mental images by
decomposing them into an underlying
mathematical proposition. Roger Shepard and
Jacqueline Metzler challenged that view by
presenting subjects with 2D line drawings of
groups of 3D block "objects" and asking them
to determine whether that "object" is the same
as a second figure, some of which rotations of
the first "object". then it would be expected that
the time it took to determine whether the object is
the same or not would be independent of how
much the object had been rotated. Shepard and
Metzler found the opposite: a linear relationship
between the degree of rotation in the mental
imagery task and the time it took participants to
reach their answer.
CONCEPTS(CATEGORIZING THE
WORLD):

CONCEPTS: PROTOTYPE:
TYPICAL, HIGHLY
A MENTAL GROUPING
REPRESENTATIVE
OF SIMILAR OBJECTS,
EXAMPLES OF A
EVENTS, OR PEOPLE.
CONCEPT.

CONCEPTS INFLUENCE PEOPLE MOSTLY

BEHAVIOURS. WE CONSIDER CARS AS A
WOULD BEHAVE GOOD VEHICLE
DIFFERENTLY OF WHEREAS
HAVING DOG A PET WHEELBARROWS AS A
AND THINKING OF POOR ONE. CARS ARE
WOLF AS A PET. THE PROTOTYPES HERE.
EXAMPLES OF PROTOTYPES:

MOST TYPICAL PROTOTYPES OF LEAST TYPICAL PROTOTYPES OF

VEHICLES: VEHICLES:
REASONING:MAKING
UP YOUR MIND

 THE PROCESS BY WHICH INFORMATION IS

USED TO DRAW CONCLUSIONS AND
MAKE DECISIONS IS KNOWN AS
REASONING.
 FOR EXAMPLE:
 PROFESSORS DECIDING WHEN STUDENTS
ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE.
 AN EMPLOYER DETERMINING WHO TO
HIRE OUT OF A POOL OF JOB APPLICANTS.
SYLLOGISTIC REASONING: THE FORMAL RULES OF
LOGIC

 FORMAL REASONING IN WHICH PEOPLE DRAW A CONCLUSION FROM A

SET OF ASSUMPTIONS. A SERIES OF STATEMENTS THAT PRESENT TWO
ASSUMPTIONS ARE USED TO DERIVE A CONCLUSION.
FOR EXAMPLE

PREMISE
PREMISE
ONE:ALL A'S
TWO:C IS AN A
ARE B

CONCLUSION:
THEREFORE C
IS B
ALGORITHMS AND HEURISTICS:

 AN ALGORITHM IS A STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE THAT PROVIDES THE CORRECT

ANSWER TO A PARTICULAR PROBLEM.
 FOR EXAMPLE: YOU CAN FIND THE LENGTH OF A RIGHT TRIANGLE BY USING THE
FORMULA WITHOUT HAVING THE FOGGIEST NOTION OF THE MATHEMATICAL
PRINCIPLES BEHIND FORMULA.
 A HEURISTICS IS A THINKING CAPACITY THAT MAY LEAD US TO A SOLUTION OF A
PROBLEM OR DECISION BUT UNLIKE ALGORITHMS SOMETIMES MAY LEAD TO
ERRORS.
 FOR EXAMPLE:SOME STUDENTS FOLLOW THE HEURISTICS OF PREPARING FOR A
TESTBY IGNORING THE ASSIGNED TEXTBOOKREADING AND ONLY
STUDYING LECTURE NOTES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT PAY OFF.
REPRESENTATIVENESS AND
AVAILABILITY HEURISTICS:

REPRESENTATIVENESS: AVAILABILITY:

INVOLVES JUDGING THE

A RULE WE APPLY WHEN
PROBABILITY OF AN EVENT
WE JUDGE PEOPLE BY THE
ON THE BASIS OF
DEGREE TO WHICH THEY
HOWEASILY THAT EVENT
REPRESENT A CERTAIN
CAN BE RECALLED FROM
CATEGORY OR GROUP.
MEMORY.

IF YOU OWN A STORE THAT

HAS BEEN ROBBED MANY
FOR EXAMPLE WE ARE
TIMES BY TEENAGERS
MORE AFRAID OF DYING IN
WHENEVER A TEENAGER
AIRPLANE THAN IN CAR
WILL ENTER INTO YOUR
HOWEVER AIRPLANE ARE
STORE YOU WILL PROBABLY
MUCH MORE SAFER!
THINK ABOUT YOUR STORE
BEING ROBBED BY.