Assignment 1 Topics Covered
Use the below to jog your memory about the topics we covered when deciding what to
write about in your Critical Analysis
Note – an interactive version of this list is provided here: https://lozelise.github.io/IFN521/
Week 2 – Information Theories
Shannon
• Events: true/false statements about happenings, situations, states of affairs
• Probabilities are attached to events; the probability can be subjective or objective
• The information value of an event is inversely proportional to its probability.
• The information value of a true event is zero; the information value of an event that
is impossible is undefined
• Surprise: The more unexpected an event, the more information it carries
• Shannon’s theory is silent on the meaning of an event
Dretske
• Proposition: true/false statements about happenings, situations, states of affairs
• Information is carried by an analog signal r that emanates from a source, ie
information is an objective feature of reality
• A human agent digitizes the analog signal
• A human agent has knowledge k, which determines its ability to digitize. The higher
the k, the more it can digitize
• Digitizing transforms a proposition into information content. This happens when the
conditional probability is one; Pr(p|k,r) = 1
• Information content has meaning for the agent
• Information content becomes a belief
• Knowledge is information caused belief
Week 3 – Perception
Sensory information
• What information is coming through the senses?
• Remember, there are more than 5
Attention
• Top-down attention
• Bottom-up attention
• What tasks are driving attention?
• What unusual parts of the scenario are directing attention?
Schemas
• What schemas are being drawn on during processing?
• What background knowledge does the user have that is relevant to the situation?
• Is any information experienced in the scenario being Assimilated into an existing
schema?
• Is Accommodation occurring – are any new schemas being formed?
Processing
• Top-down processing
• Bottom-up processing
• How are expectations filling in missing information?
• What changes or errors in predictions are the perceptual system picking up in the
scenario?
Week 3 – Memory
Working Memory
• Limits to capacity
• Cognitive load
Long Term Memory
• What Episodic memories are being drawn on and/or formed?
• What Semantic memories are being drawn on and/or formed?
• What Procedural memories are being drawn on and/or formed?
Retrieval
• What memories are being Recalled?
• What memories are being remembered through Recognition?
Week 4 – Rationality & Decision-making
Bounded rationality
• What assumptions exist for rational thinking in this scenario?
• How are the users in your scenario bounded in their rationality?
Dual Process Theories
• What decision would System 1 make? What heuristics, intuitions, instincts, etc. are
driving this decision?
• What decision would a user make if they were employing System 2?
Interaction between System 1 & System 2
• How would the Default-Interventionalist Model describe the process of making the
decision?
• How would the Parallel-Competitive Model describe the process of making the
decision?
Cognitive Biases
• Availability Bias
• Anchoring Bias
• Framing Effect
• Confirmation Bias
• Correlation=causation
• Hindsight Bias
• Authority Bias
• Loss aversion
• Recency/Primacy
• Modality effect