Brains Before Bias
The three key elements of the scientific attitude.
What is curiosity, skepticism, and humility?
The definition of a hypothesis.
What is a testable question derived from a theory?
While chatting with a friend in a noisy cafeteria, Emma suddenly hears her name mentioned at another table across the room—despite not actively listening to that conversation.
What is the cocktail party effect?
This school of psychology emphasized that we perceive whole patterns, not just individual pieces—like seeing a face instead of just eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
What is Gestalt psychology?
Before conducting her experiment, Priya carefully reads past studies and evaluates their sources and evidence. She’s using this important scientific thinking process.
What is critical thinking?
Jasmine is watching a fast-paced music video while texting a friend and eating popcorn. She doesn’t notice when the video suddenly switches to a new song and a different background. Later, she insists nothing changed.
Meanwhile, her friend Malik is talking with his mom in a crowded room when he hears someone across the room say his name — and his attention immediately shifts.
Name TWO psychology concepts demonstrated in this scenario and explain how each one affects perception or attention.
What are change blindness and the cocktail party effect?
Explanation:
Change blindness: Jasmine fails to notice changes in the video due to her divided attention.
Cocktail party effect: Malik hears his name despite the background noise because of selective attention.
The "I knew it all" phenomenon.
What is hindsight bias?
What is to verify the reliablility of the findings of a study?
As Miguel plays an intense video game, he doesn’t hear his mom calling him for dinner three times. He was completely focused on the screen and didn’t notice anything else.
What is selective attention?
When looking at your finger as you slowly bring it closer to your nose, your eyes angle inward. This cue helps your brain judge how close something is.
What is convergence?
In her landscape drawing, Ava makes a long road look like it narrows into the distance by having the edges angle toward a vanishing point. This monocular cue gives her drawing a realistic sense of depth.
What is linear perspective?
This cognitive bias is on full display when Jordan, who believes energy drinks improve focus, only pays attention to news articles and YouTube videos that support his belief—and ignores studies that show no benefit or negative effects.
What is confirmation bias?
What is to make sure a hypothesis can be tested possibly disproven?
During a driving simulation, students are told to count how many times the blue car turns left. Most of them fail to notice a pedestrian crossing the street in the background.
What is inattentional blindness?
In a painting, objects in the distance appear fuzzier and lighter in color than those in the foreground. This helps create the illusion of depth.
What is relative clarity?
Your brain compares the slightly different images from your two eyes to judge depth. This process is known as:
What is retinal disparity?
You flip a coin five times, and it lands on heads each time. Someone says it’s "destined" to land tails next. The psychological phenomenon that explains this belief.
What is perceiving order in random events?
A researcher measures happiness by the number of times someone smiles. The definition this scenario describes.
What is operational definition?
In a video experiment, a man asks for directions on the street. Midway through the conversation, two people carrying a door walk between him and the bystander—when the door passes, a different person is now asking for directions, but the bystander doesn’t notice the switch.
What is change blindness?
When Christmas lights blink in a sequence to make it look like a light is moving down the strand, this illusion is created.
What is the phi phenomenon?
Dr. Patel reads a study’s results and wonders: “Did the researchers find what they meant to measure, or was something else influencing the outcome?” She’s questioning whether the study has this important quality.
What is validity?
A scientist claims their findings are correct without providing evidence. The missing scientific attitude in this statement.
Skepticism
The importance of random sampling.
What is to make sure that every member of a population has an equal chance of being included?
After watching a scary movie, Kevin hears creaking in his house and assumes it’s a ghost. If he had just watched a comedy, he likely wouldn’t have thought anything of the noise.
What is a perceptual set (caused by emotional arousal).
Even when a door swings open and changes shape on your retina, you still know it’s rectangular. Your brain is using this concept to keep your perception stable.
What is shape constancy?
After guessing all “C”s on a test he didn’t study for, Jared feels confident he aced it. His confidence is way higher than his actual performance.
What is overconfidence?