Culture and the Individual

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Culture
and the Individual

• Cognition The Anthropological Approach

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Focus on In-Context, Everyday Cognition
Focus is on mental processes and structures in
context That means everyday cognition, rather
than cognition that attempts to be best or
correct as in intelligence or epistemological
tests Heuristics Derived from linguistics Emic
vs Etic Feature Analysis and Componential
Analysis Features that distinguish one meaning
from another Meanings have more than one
feature Structure of meanings Paradigm Serial
Symbolic Processing Taxonomy Connectionist
Model
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Heuristics

• A heuristic is a cognitive/mental short cut
• Satisficing Finding an option that meets
  certain criteria, but is not necessarily the
  best option possible
• EG. Choosing a tree to make a canoe
• Elimination by aspects Using criteria one by
  one in sequence to eliminate options that are not
  desirable
• EG. Buying a used car

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Frame Elicitation Interviewing

• A technique for eliciting an emic version of how
  someone conceptualizes a particular
  concept/topic.
• Tell me about?
• What kinds of ___________ are there?
• What is the difference between ___ and ___?
• EG. Race Interview

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Similarity Judgments

• Give participants three terms/concepts and ask
  them to select the one that is most different
• Elicits feature analysis from informants
• Allows researcher to test predictions about
  features of terms/categories
• EG. Sedan SUV Truck

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Paradigms
A structure made up of mutually exclusive
categories American Kinship Categories
Three features for kinship categories
Generation, Collaterality, Gender
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Taxonomies
A structure made up of categories where some
categories are kinds of others Kinds of Pets
Folk taxonomies rarely exceed five levels,
probably because of short term memory.
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Major Components of Feature Analysis

• Domain an area of conceptualization
• Attribute a feature of meaning
• Dimension a set of contrasting features
• Polysemy multiple senses of meaning for a
  single term/concept
• Conjunctivity features that jointly define a
  concept/term
• Chunking grouping like things together into a
  new single category
• Analogy matching concept relationships
• Semantic Networks - structures of meaning that
  are linked together by patterned relationships

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Schema

• Schema a complex cognitive structure that
  consists of an abstract plan for organizing human
  experience
• Synonyms in cognitive science
• Frame
• Scene
• Scenario
• Script

• Two functions
• Representations of environmental
  regularities
• Processing mechanisms

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Abstract Representation

• EG. Entertaining American Dinner Party
• People multiple individuals
• Roles one or more hosts, one or more guests
• Objects table, chairs, dishes, glasses,
  silverware, table covering, a variety of foods
  and drinks, etc.
• Location a home with a dining room, plus other
  rooms in which people can relax before and after
  the dining experience.
• Behavior Patterns greeting, conversation,
  dining, etc.

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Processing Mechanism

• Recognizing features
• Recognizing the configuration (pattern of
  relationship) of features
• Constructing an event to fit the configuration of
  features that make up the abstract schema that
  already exists

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Types of Schema

• Image Schema
• House
• Event Schema
• Entertaining
• Orientation Schema
• Inside
• Narrative Schemas
• Fairy tale narrative
• Metaphoric Schemas
• Britain is taking small steps

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Image Schema
Which one fits your image of a house?
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Schema Model
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Serial Symbolic Processing Model
In this model, X occurs when a and b are
activated Y occurred when c and d are
activated. There is no partial activation or
aggregated activation potential.
Serial symbolic processing works well for math
and logic problems. Functions as rigid rules
that govern outcomes
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Connectionist Model
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Serial and Connectionist Models

• Serial structures are quickly learned and easily
  changed
• Serial structures are defined by rules that can
  be verbalized
• Connectionist structures are built up over time
  through many experiences
• Connectionist structures are not easily changed
• Connectionist structures are usually not
  conscious or verbal much more difficult to
  explain

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Cultural Models

• Cultural models are schema that are extracted by
  the investigator from the thinking and behavior
  of informants. Informants do/can not describe
  them explicitly.
• Carolina Islands Navigation system
• Folk Schema for the Mind
• The American Model of Marriage

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Carolina Islands Navigation

• Major components of the Model
• Star Tracks
• Placement of the Sun
• Reference Island
• Etaks
• Stationary Canoe,
• Moving Environment
• Learned formally with instruction

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Folk Schema for the Mind

• Conscious, perceived and perceiving self
• Real life event
• Perception
• Thought to feeling or wish
• Feeling Reflexive Expressive Act
• Wish to thought or intention
• Intention
• Act
• Learned informally no instruction

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American Model for the Mind

• Eight Characteristics of Marriage
• Sharedness
• Lastingness
• Mutual Benefit
• Compatibility
• Difficulty
• Effort
• Success or Failure
• Risk
• Learned informally no instruction

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Cultural Theories

• Cultural Theories are schema consisting of an
  interrelated set of proposition that describe the
  nature of something. Are verbalized explicitly
  by informants.
• The Theory of Conventionality
• The Theory of Essences

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Conventionality

• Conventionality rules that are arbitrary,
  relative and alterable
• Morality rules that are rational, universal and
  unalterable
• Question Does every culture have a theory of
  conventionality?

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Essences

• Are there natural kinds that remain intact
  despite changes in many of the distinctive
  features that define them?
• Still under investigation.

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Schemas and Perception

• How people label things can affect how the things
  are perceived
• This effect only occurs if the names or labels
  are salient at the time of perception
• Language (labels) only affects perception weakly

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Schema and Memory

• An event that has a short, reliable and
  agreed-upon label will be more easily remembered
  than one that does not
• An event that is coded in a schema will be more
  easily remembered than one that is not.
• People are biased toward remembering things
  together when they associate them together in
  schemas
• The more typical an event, the less accurately it
  will be remembered
• People will remember typical events by filling in
  typical details
• Memory can be biased by verbal stereotypes as
  well as typical event schemas
• Memories recalled by people without well-formed
  schemas will be less accurate
• Memories recalled by people without well-formed
  schemas when aggregated across individual will be
  more complete and accurate than memories recalled
  by people with well-formed schemas

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Schemas and Reasoning

• Reasoning is making inferences on the basis of
  the form of the argument alone
• Reasoning allows us to create schemas
• Schemas allow us to reason
• Resoning appears to be a human universal
• People can use logic correctly when they have
  been trained with familiar content
• People are smart because someone taught them the
  right models.

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Socially Distributed Cognition

• Individuals are dependent on good cultural models
  for intelligence and ability
• Cultural models are held by a group and are
  taught by members of the group
• The individual is only a part of the general
  process by which models are developed,
  elaborated, taught, replaced and forgotten.

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Confirmation Bias in Distributed Cognition

• The larger the decision making group, the less
  optimal the decision will be
• New information discovered by individuals will be
  ignored by the group in favor of what is already
  known
• This is called confirmation bias
• Confirmation bias is overcome by
• Having a large number of individuals
  independently making a decision
• Having a set of agreed upon rules for making
  decisions or drawing conclusions

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Cognitive Artifacts

• To improve distributed cognition
• Overcome confirmation bias
• Use of cognitive artifacts
• Pencil and paper
• Symbolic systems like algebra and calculus
• The scientific method
• Computer
• Calculator
• Navigational instruments
• Etc.