The document discusses complex cognitive processes such as conceptual understanding, thinking, reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, and transfer. It covers key topics such as what concepts are, how they are formed, and how they aid memory. It also discusses executive function and how it involves managing one's thoughts through skills such as self-control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Critical thinking involves thinking reflectively and evaluating evidence from different perspectives, while decision making requires evaluating alternatives and making a choice.

1. Chapter 9
COMPLEX COGNITIVE PROCESSES

2. 1 Conceptual Understanding
• WHAT ARE CONCEPTS?
• Concepts group objects, events, and
characteristics on the basis of common
properties.
• Concepts help us to simplify, summarize, and
organize information
• “Imagine a world in which we had no
concepts” e.g. “Book”, phone

3. a. WHAT ARE CONCEPTS?
Keep us from “reinventing the wheel” each time we come across
a new piece of information.
• Concepts also aid the process of remembering,
making it more efficient.
• Form through direct experiences with objects and
events in their world.
• Some concepts are relatively simple, clear, and
concrete, whereas others are more complex,
fuzzy, and abstract. Ex. Young vs old, apple vs fruit

4. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Learning About the Features of Concepts
- key features, attributes, or characteristics of the
concept
- defining elements of a concept, the dimensions that
make it different from another concept.
Ex. Book
• the key features include sheets of paper, being bound together along one edge,
and being full of printed words and pictures in some meaningful order.
• Other characteristics suchas size, color, and length are not key features that define
the concept of “book.”

5. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Defining Concepts and Providing Examples
1. Define the concept. As part of defining it, link it to a
superordinate concept and identify its key features or
characteristics. E.g. Dinasaurs --- reptiles
2. Clarify terms in the definition. Make sure that the key
features or characteristics are well understood. --- explain
what reptile is..

6. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Defining Concepts and Providing Examples
3. Give examples to illustrate the key features or characteristics.
dinosaurs --- triceratops, an apatosaur, and a stegosaur.
other reptiles that are not dinosaurs ----snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and
turtles.
nonexamples often a good strategy --- mammals
More examples are required when you teach complex concepts and
when you work with less-sophisticated learners.
4. Provide additional examples. Ask students to categorize concepts,
explain their categorization, or have them generate their own
examples.

7. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Hierarchical Categorization and Concept Maps
• concept map- visual presentation of a concept’s connections and hierarchical organization
• Getting students to create a map of a concept’s features or characteristics can help them to
learn the concept

8. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Hypothesis Testing Hypotheses are specific assumptions and
predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.
• One way to develop a hypothesis is to
• come up with a rule about why some objects fall within a
concept and others do not.

9. b. PROMOTING CONCEPT FORMATION
• Prototype Matching
• individuals decide whether an item is a member of a
category by comparing it with the most typical item(s) of the
category
• The more similar the item is to the prototype, the more likely
it is that the individual will say the item belongs in the
category; the lesssimilar, the more likely the person will judge
that it doesn’t belong in the category.
• eg. robins are viewed as being more typical birds than ostriches or
penguins. Nonetheless, members of a category can vary greatly and still
have qualities that make them a member of that category.

10. 2 Thinking
• What Is Thinking?
• involves manipulating and transforming information in
memory.
• We think to conceptualize, reason, critique, decide, create,
and solve problems.
• concrete subjects---vacation at the beach or how to win at
a video game.
• can also think about more abstract subjects ---such as the
meaning of freedom or identity.
• They can think about the past, future, reality and fantasy.

11. 2 Thinking
• EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
• involves managing one’s thoughts to engage
in goal-directed behavior and exercise self-
control .
• executive attention and working memory,
which both come under the umbrella of
executive function.

12. 2 Thinking
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
• In early childhood, executive function especially
involves developmental advances in:
• cognitive inhibition (inhibiting a strong tendency that
is incorrect),
• cognitive flexibility (shifting attention to another item
or topic),
• goalsetting (sharing a toy or mastering a skill like
catching a ball),
• and delay of gratification (the ability to forego an
immediate pleasure or reward for a more desirable one
later) ex. Scottieboo

13. 2 Thinking
• EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
• Researchers have found that advances or impairments in
executive function in the preschool years are linked to
math skills, language development, and school
readiness (Blair & Raver, 2015).
• And yet another recent study found that young children
who showed delayed development of executive
function had a lower level of school readiness
(Willoughby & others, 2016).

14. 2 Thinking
• the following dimensions of executive function that are the
most important for 4- to 11-year-old children’s cognitive
development and school success:
• 1. Self-control/inhibition. -to concentrate and persist on
learning tasks, to inhibit their tendencies to repeat incorrect
responses, and to resist the impulse to do something now
that they later would regret.
• 2. Working memory. -process the masses of information they
will encounter as they go through school and beyond.
• 3. Flexibility. -consider different strategies and perspectives.

15. 2 Thinking
• EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
A number of diverse activities and factors have been found to
increase children’s executive function, such as:
• computerized training (games) to improve working
memory; some aspects of language, including vocabulary
size, verbal labeling, and bilingualism
• aerobic exercise
• scaffolding of self-regulation
• mindfulness training
• imagination
• and some types of school curricula (the Montessori
curriculum, for example)

16. 2 Thinking
• EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
Think about all the times adolescents need to engage in cognitive control,
such as the following situations (Galinsky, 2010):
• ∙ making a real effort to stick with a task, avoiding being distracted by
interfering thoughts or environmental events, and instead doing what is
most effective;
• ∙ stopping and thinking before acting to avoid blurting out a comment that
a minute or two later they wish they hadn’t said;
• ∙ continuing to work on something that is important but boring when
there is something a lot more fun to do, inhibiting their behavior and
doing the boring but important task, saying to themselves, “I have to show
the self-discipline to finish this.”

17. REASONING
• Inductive Reasoning - from the specific to the
general
• good predictor of academic achievement
• Ex. Reading portions of Emily Dickenson’s poems
• Number of RRLS
• Are all inductive conclusions true?
• Give an example of Inductive Resaoning..

18. REASONING
• Inductive Reasoning
• When two events occur together in time and space, we
often conclude that one has caused the other, despite the
possibility that other factors are involved.
“Harry is a bad influence on my daughter; Sharon didn’t
drink before she met him.”
• The boy might be the cause, but the event may have been a
coincidence.
• Of course, if there is repeated evidence (for example, every
girl Harry has ever gone out withdevelops a drinking
problem), then the argument becomes more persuasive.
• Repeated observation --- pattern

19. REASONING
• Deductive Reasoning - from the general to the
specific.
• When you learn about a general rule and then
understand how it applies in some situations
but not others, you are engaging in deductive
reasoning.
• is always certain in the sense that if the initial
rules or assumptions are true, then the
conclusion will be correct.

20. REASONING
• Deductive Reasoning
Ex:
• Solving puzzles or riddles
• use theories and intuitions to make
predictions, and then evaluate these
predictions by making further observations

21. REASONING
• Deductive Reasoning
knowledge vs reasoning
During adolescence, individuals are increasingly able to reason
deductively even when the premises being reasoned about
are false
Consider this deductive inference problem:
All basketball players are motorcycle drivers. All
motorcycle drivers are women.
• Assuming that these two statements are true, decide whether
the following statement is true or false:
All basketball players are women.

22. CRITICAL THINKING
• Critical thinking
• involves thinking reflectively and productively
and evaluating the evidence. Many of the
“Reflect” questions that appear in every
section of this book call for critical thinking.

23. CRITICAL THINKING
• Mindfulness.
• means being alert, mentally present, and
cognitively flexible while going through life’s
everyday activities and tasks.
• Mindful students maintain an active
awareness of the circumstances in their lives
Mindful students vs mindless students

24. CRITICAL THINKING
• Langer emphasizes that asking good questions is an important
aspect of mindful thinking. She also stresses that it is important to focus on the
process of learning rather than the outcome.
• For example, Trisha didn’t do well on her math test earlier this week. All she
can think about is how poorly she did. If she were engaging in mindfulness,
Trisha would evaluate why she did.
Mindful students mindless students
create new ideas, are open to
new information, and are
aware
of more than one perspective
are entrapped in old ideas,
engage in automatic behavior,
and operate from a single
perspective
trapped in rigid mindsets, not
taking into account
possible variations in contexts
and perspectives

25. CRITICAL THINKING
In addition to mindfulness training, following are some ways
teachers can consciously build critical thinking into their
lesson plans:
∙ Ask not only what happened but also “how” and “why.”
∙ Examine supposed “facts” to determine whether there is evidence to
support them.
∙ Argue in a reasoned way rather than through emotions.
∙ Recognize that there is sometimes more than one good answer or
explanation.
∙ Compare various answers to a question and judge which is really the best
answer.
∙ Evaluate and possibly question what other people say rather than
immediately accepting it as the truth.
∙ Ask questions and speculate beyond what you already know to create new
ideas and new information.

26. CRITICAL THINKING
Critical Thinking in Adolescence
If a solid base of fundamental skills (such as literacy and math
skills) is not developed during childhood, critical-thinking skills
are unlikely to mature in adolescence.
Several cognitive changes occur during adolescence that
facilitate improvements in critical thinking, including the
following (Keating, 1990):
• Increased speed, automaticity, and capacity of information processing,
which frees cognitive resources for other purposes
• More knowledge in a variety of domains
• An increased ability to construct new combinations of knowledge
• ∙A greater range and more spontaneous use of strategies or procedures
such as planning, considering alternatives, and cognitive monitoring

27. DECISION MAKING
• Decision making is thinking that involves
evaluating alternatives and choosing among
them.
• Decision making is improved when we
become aware of potential biases and lawed
heuristics.

28. DECISION MAKING
• Biases and Flaws in Decision Making
• A. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search
for and use information that supports our
ideas rather than refutes them.
• We tend to seek out and listen to people
whose views confirm our own rather than
listen to dissenting views

29. DECISION MAKING
• Biases and Flaws in Decision Making
• B. Belief Perseverance the tendency to hold
on to a belief in the face of contradictory
evidence. People have a difficult time letting
go of an idea or a strategy once they have
embraced it.

30. DECISION MAKING
• Biases and Flaws in Decision Making
• C. Overconfidence Bias tendency to have
more confidence in judgments and decisions
than we should have, based on probability or
past experience. People consistently have
more faith in their judgments than predictions
based on statistically objective measures
indicate they should.

31. DECISION MAKING
• Biases and Flaws in Decision Making
• D. Hindsight Bias tend to overrate their past
performances at prediction. tendency to
falsely report, after the fact, that we
accurately predicted an event.

32. DECISION MAKING
• Decision Making in Adolescence
• Adolescence is a time of increased decision
making—which friends to choose, which
person to date, whether to have sex, whether
to seek immediate satisfaction or delay
gratification in exchange for a positive
outcome, whether to go to college, and so on

33. DECISION MAKING
Decision Making in Adolescence
• Most individuals make better decisions when
they are calm rather than emotionally aroused,
which may especially be true for adolescents
• Social contexts play a key role in adolescent
decisionmaking.
• For example, adolescents’ are more likely to make risky
choices in contexts where substances and other
temptations are readily available

34. 4 Transfer
• What Is Transfer?
• Types of Transfer