The word "heuristics" by definition is a way that people using their experience or "common sense" to learn and improve. It exists in our daily life's every decision making more that our thinking. We are facing hundreds of choices every day, such as when to get up in case late for classes; What kind of food to eat today; which TV show to watch tonight. And heuristics can affect every situations I just mentioned.
There are three types of heuristics: availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, and base-rate heuristics. These three kinds of heuristics have some differences in psychology field. An example for availability heuristics, people always think violent crime plays a big part in all kinds of crime, but the truth is there are less than 12% of crime involves violence.
If someone tells you his father is an engineer, sits at office all day and always work late, you may start to picturing a mid-age man probably wear glasses and with little hair, also he could be a little bit fat because he lacks of exercises. That's a representativeness heuristic. It's similar to stereotypes. Sometimes, representativeness heuristic can be very helpful for providing a picture in our brain, the picture could have many useful information about the person or the situation we are about to meet.
The last one is base-rate heuristic which helps us make decisions base on probability. For instance, if you hear a lion roaring next to your door, you will think maybe your neighbors are watching a movie right now instead of thinking there is actually a lion next door to you. Also, it's based on your common sense. According to your information, it's forbidden to raise a lion privately and it may not be that easy for a lion to escape from the zoo.
This picture tells us, our brain receives lots of information everyday, we may not realize but these information are influence us when we are making decisions. I chose this picture because it can well-explained how much our brain involves. When we are making decisions, our brain is like a machine, and each part plays it role.
This picture I took at home is a example of rate-base heuristic. Every time we order him to sit down, we always has a snack on our hand, now he doesn't need the order. As long as he see a snack, he will sit down.
There are three types of heuristics: availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, and base-rate heuristics. These three kinds of heuristics have some differences in psychology field. An example for availability heuristics, people always think violent crime plays a big part in all kinds of crime, but the truth is there are less than 12% of crime involves violence.
If someone tells you his father is an engineer, sits at office all day and always work late, you may start to picturing a mid-age man probably wear glasses and with little hair, also he could be a little bit fat because he lacks of exercises. That's a representativeness heuristic. It's similar to stereotypes. Sometimes, representativeness heuristic can be very helpful for providing a picture in our brain, the picture could have many useful information about the person or the situation we are about to meet.
The last one is base-rate heuristic which helps us make decisions base on probability. For instance, if you hear a lion roaring next to your door, you will think maybe your neighbors are watching a movie right now instead of thinking there is actually a lion next door to you. Also, it's based on your common sense. According to your information, it's forbidden to raise a lion privately and it may not be that easy for a lion to escape from the zoo.
