Chapter 10 - Problem Solving

Question 1

What are 3 major aspects of problem-solving?

Answer 1

1) Purposeful/goal-directed -> meant to achieve some goal
2) Based on controlled processes rather than automatic ones
3) You cannot produce an immediate solution to the problem because you lack the relevant knowledge

Question 2

What are some different types of problems?

Answer 2

1) well-defined vs ill-defined problems
- well-defined: all aspects of the problems are clearly specified (including initial state or situation, the range of possible moves or strategies, and the goal or solution). For such problems, you know when the goal is reached.
- ill-defined: not obvious when the goal has been reached, and not obvious what information is relevant.

2) knowledge-rich vs knowledge-lean problems
- knowledge-rich: very important in real-life: experts spend their lives dealing with such problems
- problems that can only be solved by those having much relevant specific knowledge.

• knowledge-lean: don’t require such knowledge as most of the info needed is contained in the initial problem statement
• Most research on problem-solving involves this, in part because this minimises individual differences.

Question 3

How can you solve well-defined problems?

Answer 3

algorithms: a list of well-defines instructions for completing a task.

Question 4

While past experience can facilitate problem-solving, what are some problems associated with using past experience to solve problems? (2)

Answer 4

1) Functional fixedness

2) Use of mental sets.

Question 5

Functional fixedness can only be found when one has much prior experience. True or false?

Answer 5

False. Happens even when you have limited experience.

• Asked people to decide whether each of 9 objects could be used for a given function (eg can this be used as packing material for packing an egg in a box?)
• Then participants were asked if the same object can be used for another function (eg play catch over a distance of 15 feet). Some items can be used for both. However, deciding that one of these objects possess the 1st function significantly reduced the probability of detecting that it also possessed the 2nd function.

Question 6

How else is functional fixedness hard to avoid?

Answer 6

Participants designed various objects (eg disposable, spill-proof coffee cup)

1 condition: Showed picture of an inadequate coffee cup with accompanying description explicitly stating various problems with it. Howeevr, participants’ designs consistently included elements of the example coffee cup identified as problematic. The ideas we encounter often constrain our subsequent thinking related to insight.

Question 7

What is funcitonal fixedness?

Answer 7

When we sometimes fail to solve problems because we assume from past experience that any given object only has a limited number of functions.

Question 8

How did Duncker study functional fixedness and what results did he obtain?

Answer 8

Study: Gave participants a candle, a matchbox containing matches, some tacks and several other objects. They are supposed to find a way to attach the candle to the wall so that it didn’t drip onto the table below. Most participants couldn’t solve it correctly, with most of them trying to nail the candle directly to the wall or to glue it to the wall by melting it. Only a few thought of the correct solution, which was to remove the matchsticks from the box, nail the box to the ball and place the candle on it.

Question 9

Why couldn’t many people solve the problem in Duncker’s study?

Answer 9

Participants fixated on the box’s function as a container rather than it as a platform. This is supported by the finding that more correct solutions were produced when the matchbox was empty rather than full. When the container was empty, it appeared less like a container in that state.

Question 10

How do you improve performance in Duncker’s study?

ie reduce functional fixedness

Answer 10

Use a condition: Underline candle, box of matches, box of tacks in the list.

• % of people who came up with solutions was more than double then % of people who came up with solutions when there was no underline.
• Underlining led participants to focus more directly on the key objects involved in problem solution.

This shows that problem-solving performance could be impaired by functional fixedness caused by accumulated past experience within the crucial object in the problem. We sometimes fail to solve problems because we assume from past experience that any given objects only has a limited number of solutions.

Question 11

What are mental sets?

Answer 11

A readiness to act or think in a given way, often because this has shown to be successful in the past. It allows problems to be solved aster and with less processing demands.

Question 12

Are people prone to sticking with mental sets? Provide evidence

hint: water jar luchins (cute right the name ok pls rmb)

Answer 12

Yes even though when the mental set doesn’t solve a problem.

Water jar problem by Luchins

1) Jar A: 28 qt, Jar B: 76 qt, Jar C: 3 qt. You are to get 25 qt of water.
- This is easy, most people can solve this. 95% of participants who had previously been given similar problems solved it.
- Participants in another condition were given complex problem to solve first, and were then asked to solve this water jar problem which is relatively simpler. So only 36% of participants in this condition could solve it
- This condition’s results shown that people often maintain a mental set even when it presents a problem from being solved.

Question 13

What does Levine’s experiment illustrate about how mental sets can prevent us from thinking clearly?

(Adam Le-vine sounds like Adam Le-B: it’s the A B experiment! lame ways for u to rmb)

Answer 13

Participants were presented a series of card bearing either the letter A or B. with instrucutions to work out the hypothesis the experimenter had in mind. On each trial, the participant said “A” or “B” and the experimenter then indicated if this was correct.

• 1st few problems: got position sequence (eg 1st trial: left correct, 2nd trials: right correct)
• After several problems involving a position sequence, participants were given a very simple problem not involving a position sequence. “A always correct, B always wrong”. However, approximately 80% of uni students failed to solve this problem within 100 trials. They assumed that the answer must be some kind of position sequence like before, and this thus resulted in endless position sequences.

Question 14

Which type of people are most susceptible to mental sets and why?

Answer 14

Experts, because their attentional processes are over-influenced by their mental sets, which are accumulated over the years.

Question 15

Provide evidence about how experts are susceptible to mental sets.

Example is related to the game happy birthday guy likes to play.

Answer 15

presented expert chess players with a chess problem and told them to find the shortest way to win.

• can be solved in 5 moves, but actually the shortest in 3 moves, provided you use a less familiar move!
• only 50% of the international Masters and 0% of the Candidate Masters found the short solution.

a similar study was done to clarify why expert chess players often failed to find the shorter solution.

• after these players have found the familiar solution, they reporterd they were looking for a better one.
• however, their eye movements revealed that they were still looking at features of the chessboard position related to the familiar solution.

Direction of attention remained partly under the control of the processes responsible for the initial solution.

Question 16

What’s the difference between solving problems using analysis and using insight?

Answer 16

Analytic: There is a gradual increase in warmth before the solution is reached.

Insight: For some problems, there is barely any increase in warmth until right before a solution is reached. You suddenly know how to do a question. Answer comes up unexpectedly, like it hits you in the face and you go “h0LeY sHiT”. Eureka effect.

Question 17

Provide a well-known example of an insight problem.

Hint: the game is something like what the previous example mentioned.

Answer 17

Mutilated checkboard.

• remove 2 corner squares of a checkboard, top right and bottom left.
• asked participants if dominos can fit the entire checkerboard.
• nearly everyone given this problem starts by mentally covering squares with dominoes (i did too! how encouraging.). very few can solve this problem.
• how to solve: realise that each domino covers one black and one white square, and the pieces u took out were both white.
• so you cannot fit the whole board with dominoes.

Question 18

What does the mutilated checkerboard problem imply about how we think about problems involving INSIGHT?

Answer 18

How we think about a problem (the problem representation) is often of great importance in problem-solving. However, what happens with many problems is that we initially construct one or more problem representations. Eventually, we form the correct problem representation, which involves a sudden restructuring of the problem.

Question 19

List 4 other differences between insight and non-insight related problems.

(note rmb there are actually 5 if you include their definitions!)

Answer 19

1) There is a progressive increase in “warmth” for non-insight problems, which is expected since they involve a sequence of processes. However, for insight problems, the warmth rating remained at the same low level until suddenly increasing dramatically just before the solution is reached.
2) Activation of anterior superior temporal gyrus only occurs when solutions involved insights
3) Insight is more associated with the right hemisphere than the left because integration of weakly active and distant associations occur mostly in the right hemisphere. These processing activities are very relevant for producing insight. In contrast, strong activation of closely connected associations occur mostly in the left hemisphere.
4) Working memory also seems to be more implicated in analytic rather than insight problems.

Question 20

How did Bowden study how the right hemisphere plays an important role in insight?

Answer 20

Used remote associate problems.
Eg: Fence Card Master
You are to think of a word that can form a compound with these.
Ans: Fencepost, postcard, MasterCard.
Participants were then to indicate if their answers involved insight.

Question 21

How did Bowden study how activation of anterior superior temporal gyrus occurred only when solutions involved insights?

Answer 21

Record ERPs.
- Found that there was a burst of high-frequency brain activity 1/3 of a second before the participants indicated that they have achieved an insightful solution

Brain activity was centered on the right anterior superior temporal gyrus. This area is vital to insight because it is involved in processing general semantic (meaning) relationships.

Question 22

Working memory also seems to be more implicated in analytic rather than insight problems.

^ how was this studied?

Answer 22

Considered the effects of counting auditory stimuli, which involves working memory (phonological loop?), on various problems.

• Counting task impaired performance on analytic problems but not on insight ones.
• Fleck also found out that individual differences in working memory did predict performance in analytic problems but not insight ones.

Question 23

What theory can explain the factors that facilitate insight? What does it propose?

Answer 23

Representational Change Theory

• A problem is represented in a certain way; this serves as a probe for information from LTM
• Retrieval process spreads activation across items in LTM (memory search)
• Block occurs if the way a problem is represented does NOT lead to successful memory search.
• Hence the SOLUTION is to represent the problem differently, which will extend the memory search.

Question 24

What can be done to change the representation of your problem, and hence solve insight problems? (3)

Answer 24

1) Elaboration - adding new information
2) Constraint relaxation - rules are reinterpreted
3) Re-encoding - removing functional fixedness

Insight occurs when a block is broken.

Question 25

What are 2 studies that were done to talk about the importance of constraint relaxation?

Answer 25

1) Bulbrook’s BEADS problem

2) Knoblich’s ROMAN NUMERALS problem

Question 26

What did Bulbrook do in his study that talked about constraint relaxation? (How insight can involve relaxing

Answer 26

Presented participants with a string of beads. Most of the string consisted of 2 small white beads alternating with one larger yellow bead, except in the middle where there were 5 white beads together.

Task: To produce a regular patten without unstringing or restringing the beads.

To solve the problem, you have to use a pair of pliers provided to break some of the beads. However, even though pliers were readily available, 43% of the participants failed to solve the problem. Could not see that they can actually break the beads. There was no rule that said they cannot break the beads if you think about it.

Question 27

What did Knoblich do in his roman numerals study?

Answer 27

Presented math problems involving Roman numerals. Each problem presented was incorrect, and the task was to move one stick to turn it into a true statement.

Our experience with equations often involve changing numerical values, but not changing operators. Insight of problems of this type would requires us to relax the normal constraints of artihmetic.

Question 28

What happens when successive problems require the same or different kind of insight?

Answer 28

Same kind involved (eg constraint relaxation): facilitation

Different: Interference and slowing of solution times.

Question 29

How to enhance insight? (4)

Answer 29

1) Provide training to avoid (or overcome) the difficulties caused by incorrect representations of the problem.
- such training enhanced performance on insight problems presented in an artificial format by not on those that were more realistic.
- participants’ performance on realistic problems was at a relatively high level even in the absence of training.

2) Provide subtle cues and use them as this increases chances of showing insight even though they were unaware of any relationship between their shifts in attention and the candle problem.

3) Individuals perform better on insight problems when in a positive mood rather than negative/neutral.
- Positive mood associated with increased brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex immediately prior to problem presentation.
- This brain area is associated with conflict resolution, suggesting that a positive mood allows people to approach insight problems more flexibly.

4) Put a light bulb in the venue. A light bulb represents insight. An illuminating light bulb would activate concepts associated with insighe and thereby enhance insigh problem-solving through the process of priming.
- 44% vs 21%.

Question 30

Patients without a functioning lateral frontal cortex are worse at solving insight problems. True or false?

Answer 30

False. They were better actually.
The lateral frontal cortex is the brain area that is imposing constraints that impedes problem solving of insight problems.
Hence, patients with damage to that brain area should not impose artificial constraints when solving insight problems, and so might perform better than healthy individuals. (82% vs 43%)

Question 31

What is incubation?

Answer 31

Introducing a period of time away from an unsolved problem. Generally increases problem-solving.

Question 32

Why does incubation improve problem solving?

Answer 32

It involves a special type of forgetting.

• What tends to be forgotten over time is control information relating to the strategies tried by the problem solver.
• Forgetting makes it easier for problem solvers to adopt a new approach after incubation period.

This is supported. Misleading information was either presented or not presented at the start of each problem. There was only an incubation effect when the break allowed misleading information to be forgotten.

Question 33

Shi Hui works on a tough paper. Shi Hui can’t find a way to work out her problems on the paper. Shi Hui decides to sleep. Is she going to solve the problems when she wakes up?

(jk wished this always happened)

Answer 33

“Sleeping on a problem” –> very effective form of incubation.

• Participants performed a complex math task and were retested several hours later.
• The problems were designed in such a way that they could be solved in a much simpler way than the one used initially by nearly all the participants.
• % of those who slept found the short cut > % of control participants. (59% vs 25%)

Question 34

What are some conditions that should be present in order for incubation to be more successful?

Answer 34

• More useful for creative problems having multiple solutions: leads to a widening of the search for knowledge, more useful with multiple-solution problems than with single-solution ones.
• More successful when there was relatively long preparation time prior to incubation.

Question 35

Give 5 examples of problem-solving heuristics.

Answer 35

1) Means-end analysis
2) Hill-climbing
3) Progress monitoring
4) Planning
5) Using analogies.

Question 36

What is means-end analysis?

Answer 36

A heuristic where you compare your current state and goal state. Form subgoals to between current and goal state and select a mental operator that allows this subgoal to be attained.

Generally very useful and helps people in their attempts to solve problems, but still not used even when it’s actually very useful.

Question 37

How did Sheller and Levine (1982) illustrate the use of means-end analysis?

• Method
• Results
• Implication

Answer 37

Maze Problem
Participants were given a maze, but most of it wasn’t visible to them. All participants could see where they were in the problem.
Some could also see the goal state (goal-information group) whereas others could not (no-goal-info group)

The use of means-end analysis requires knowledge of the location of the goal –> only goal-info group would have used this

• but problem was designated in such a way that means-end analysis won’t be useful. every correct move involves turning away from the goal.
• goal-info group: performed very poorly, only 10% solved in it in 298 moves
• no-info group: used an average of only 38 moves.

People are so attached to means-end analysis even when it prevents them from discovering the problem structure.

Question 38

What is hill climbing?

Answer 38

changing the present state within the problem into one closer to the goal

• simpler strategy than means-end analysis: mostly used when the problem solver has no clear understanding of the structure of the problem.
• involves a focus on short-term goals, which often fails to lead to problem soltuoin.

Question 39

How does hill climbing work?

Answer 39

people take the action that leads to the biggest similarity between the current state and the goal state. –> you choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly to your goal state.

drawback is that some problems may require you choose a less direct problem to solve the problem.

Question 40

What is progress monitoring?

Answer 40

The rate of progress is monitored constantly, and if it’s deemed slow/inefficient, an alternative strategy is sought. If the strategy you are using can’t allow you to solve a problem, the sooner you realize the better.

Question 41

Even though planning is effective, why do people not use it often?

Answer 41

they assume we have short-term limited capacity and planning does incur time and effort, and simple heuristics suffice. so planning like a bit unnecessary

Question 42

Is there any evidence to show how people think planning incurs time and effort and is often unneccessary

Answer 42

Used water jar problems in which the task was to finish up with specified amounts of water.

• control: free to use whatever method they wanted -> little evidence of planning
• experimental: generate the complete solution before making any moves –> showed very clear evidence of being able to plan, and solved the problem in far fewer moves than control group.

so we actually do have a greater ability to plan than is assumed, but we often choose not to do so unless it’s essential.

Question 43

what else is the amount of forward planning influenced by?

Answer 43

level of expertise

expert chess players worked out the implications of possible moves about 3 pieces (a half-move) further ahead in the game than did non-expert ones.

Question 44

What is analogical problem solving?

Answer 44

A type of problem-solving based on detecting analogies or similarities between the current problem and problems solved in the past.

Question 45

List 3 types of similarities an analogy can share with the problem at hand.

Answer 45

1) Superificial similarity: Solution-irrelevant details (eg specific objects) are common to 2 problems
2) structural similarity: causal relations among some of the main components are shared
3) procedural similarity: procedures/actions for turning the solution principle into concrete operations are common to the 2 problems.

Question 46

When solving the castle problem and showing some participants a relevant story, were there improvements?

Answer 46

Yes 80% of people solved the radiation problem when informed that this story which they encountered previously was relevant. However, only 40% did so when not informed of its relevance.

Question 47

Is there evidence to show that analogical problem solving involves the working memory system?

Answer 47

Participants received verbal analogies (eg black-white, noisy-quiet) and picture-based analogies involving cartoon characters. They were solved on their own while participants performed a secondary task.

findings:
1) performance on verbal and pictorial analogies was impaired when the seconday task involved the central executive, as solving analogies require the central executive.
2) performance on verbal analogies was impaired when the secondary task involved the phonological loop, because both tasks involved the phonological loop.
3) performance on pictorial analogies was impaired when the secondary task involved the visuo-spatial sketchpad (a system for processing and briefly storing visual and spatial information)

Question 48

How to improve analogical problem solving?

Answer 48

We compare it directly with another problem sharing the same structure.
Direct comparison increases problem solving.

Question 49

Having a relevant analogy stored in LTM guarantees we will use it. true or false?

Answer 49

false!!!!!

the radiation problem and castle story had few superficial similarities, and THAT is the problem.

People usually focus on superficial similarities more than structural ones.

• they are more likely to recall spontaneously a previous story with superficial similarities to radiation problem (eg story about a surgeon using rays on cancer) than one lacking such similarities (eg the fortress story)
• also, in everyday life, people often produce their own analogies rather than being given them
• expertise is not always needed to generate analogies based on structural similarities.

Question 50

What is hypothesis testing?

Answer 50

an approach to problem solving based on forming a hypothesis or tentative explanation which is then subjected to 1 or more tests.

psychologists are always testing hypotheses.

Question 51

Can we confirm a hypothesis?

Answer 51

no, the best we can do is to falsify it.

even if all evidence points to supporting the hypothesis, you cannot say that you will not find evidence to falsify it.

Question 52

describe the 2-4-6 task and the findings associated with it.

Answer 52

aims to study whether people focus on confirmation or falsification.

participants were told that 3 numbers conformed to a simple relational rule. they were presented 3 sets of numbers (2-4-6) and were told that these numbers conform to a simple relational rule. after each choice, the experimenter indicated whether the set of numbers conformed to that rule.

• actual rule is “numbers in ascending order” which sounds quite easy
• the hypothesis that participants came up with was more specific than the correct one, so technically it still fits the general rule. that’s why they never bothered to find out the actual rule and falsify their hypothesis.
• however, most took a long time to discover the rule and only 21% were correct on their first attempt while 28% never got it.

Question 53

Why do people perform so poorly at the 2-4-6 task?

Answer 53

most people showed confirmation bias because they are attached to their own initial hypothesis and are loath to abandon it. however, they might be much more willing to try and falsify the same hypothesis if told it was someone else’s.

argued that confirmation bias and failure to try hypothesis disconfirmation prevented participants from replacing their initial hypothesis.

Question 54

What can be done to improve performance on 2-4-6 task?

Answer 54

as mentioned earlier, people show confirmation bias because they are attached to their own initial hypothesis and are loath to abandon it.
- however, if u tell them the hypothesis produced was someone else’s they would be much more willing to falsify it.

or you give them set of numbers (6,8,10), (9, 14, 15) and this will encourage them to come out with a more general hypothesis.

provide an external representation of the numbers they generateed since irl people engaging in hypothesis testing often produce diagrams and graphs to help themselves. (44% vs 21%)

Question 55

What type of people are more likley to show confirmation bias?

Answer 55

those with less expertise.

• chess masters often thought of sequences of moves falsifying their current hypothesis or plan during a game.
• in contrast, non-expert chess players were more likely to confirm their current hypothesis even though it leads to negative consequences.

Question 56

What is expertise? what kind of problems do they usually deal with?

Answer 56

the development of “highly skilled, competent performance in one or more task domains”

they are very efficient in solving problems within their area of expertise, and they usually deal with knowledge-rich problems. –> explains why studies on expertise have typically used “knowledge-rich” problems requiring much knowledge beyond that presented in the problem itself.

Question 57

why is it valuable to study chess-playing expertise?

Answer 57

1) can measure chess players’ level of skill very precisely based on their results against other people.
2) expert chess players develop cognitive skills that are useful in many other areas of expertise.
3) chess players have a remarkable memory for chess positions in the same way that experts in other fields have an excellent memory for information relevant to their particular expertise

Question 58

What are some hallmarks of a chess expert?

omg fml i dont play chess am too stupid for chess pls ST0P

Answer 58

1) they devote much time to practice!!!! this helps to improve chess playing ability
2) much more detailed information about chess positions in LTM called templates, which are organized abstract structures including information about several chess pieces (which are larger for expert players). these templates are useful when deciding on the next move
3) thus, they have much better memory for chess positions than non-experts

Question 59

why do expert chess players possess more template-based info? is there evidence for this?

Answer 59

they can use this info to rmb chess positions, and thus experts should have better memory than non-experts when it comes to chess piece position, even though they don’t differ in general memory ability.

expert players recalled chess board positions much better than beginners. both groups recalled on average from 2 templates, but the maximum template was much larger for experts (13-15 vs 8)

Question 60

describe Gobet and Waters (2003) experiment.

Answer 60

assumed that outstanding chess players owe their excellence mostly to their superior template-based knowledge of chess positions, rather than their use of slow strategy-based processes. + chess experts can access templates very rapidly, hence narrowing down the possible moves they need to consider

if correct, the performance of outstanding players should remain very high when they make their moves under severe time pressure.

used information about expert chess players’ performance in normal competitive games and in blitz chess where the entire game has to be completed in 5 mins. performance in blitx chess was highly assoc or correlated with that of normal chess. suggests tha individual differences in chess-playing abilities depend highly on template knowledge.

Question 61

can u say that slow search processes are irrelevant in chess?

Answer 61

no. the same players playing chess under normal or blitz conditions made superior moves in former conditions.
consider the effect of reducing the time available for chess moves and the skill differences between players were less predictive of game outcome as the time available decresed.
slow porcesses are more important for strong players than weak ones.

also, general intelligence also explains individual differences. the higher the GI the higher the chess ranking, but chess ranking is still better predicted by amount of practice.

Question 62

How does the problem solving of

a) medical experts differ from that of novice doctors?
b) experts in technical specialties from experts in visual specialties?

Answer 62

novices use explicit reasoning more often

medical experts in technical specialties (eg surgery) rely less on implicit reasoning (fast automatic processes) than those in visual specialties (eg pathology)
even when medical experts start with fast automatic processes, they generally cross-check their diagnoses with slow, deliberate processes.

Question 63

is there evidence to suggest these differences in problem solving between medical people?

Answer 63

1) record eye movements while medical students, pathology residents and fully trained pathologists examined slides relating to breast biopsy cases
- fully trained pathologists spend the least time examining each slide (4.5 -> 7. 1 -> 11. 4)
- greater experience was associated with extracting more info from the initial fixation
experts: implicit reasoning (heavy reliance on global impression)
novices: attend to several different parts of each slide in turn (explicit reasoning)

2) presenting difficult mammos showing or not showing breast cancer to doctors experienced in mammos
- avg time to fixate a cancer: 1.13 seconds
- the most expert doctors typically fixate almost immediately on the cancer, suggesting that they were using fast, automatic processes.
- less expert docs rely on a slower, step-by-step process.

for least/less expert doctorrs, provide case photo + detailed verbal description –> they end up performing better at detecting skin lesions.
dont do the same for expert doctors as it runs counter to the strategy they usually use. usually they will search rapidly for a stored pattern closely resembling the case photo (a visual strategy often used). verbal descriptions had the effect of interfering with their abilities to use that strategy effectively.

Question 64

What is deliberate practice?

Answer 64

a very useful form of practice in which the learner can repeat the task, correct his/her errors and is given performance feedback.

Question 65

what is needed for practice to be effective?

Answer 65

1) task not too easy or difficult
2) feedback given
3) adequate opportunitie to repeat task
4) adequate opportunities to correct errors.

major predictions of these approach:

1) the acquisition of expertise depends more on the amount of deliberate practice than simply on the number of hours devoted to practive.
2) (more controversial tho) deliberate practice is all that is needed to develop expert performance and innate talent is assumed to be of little importance
- elite scrabble players engage in more deliberate practice, but direction of relationship is unclear
- likely that both talent and deliberate practice are important.

Question 66

Is there evidence for natural talent?

Howard, 2009

Answer 66

studied expert chess players in 3 categories: candidates (elite players who have completed the right to challenge the world champion), noncandidate grandmasters (elite players but less expert than candidates), and nongrandmasters.

• there was a clear performance difference among these 3 groups early on in the games, and this difference increased over games.
• the rating of players in all groups showed no improvement after they had played over 700 games

Question 67

what did howard’s experiment suggest about natural talent?

Answer 67

it is possible early in career to identify those who will eventually become top players, suggesting that they have very high natural talent.
also suggests that there is a ceiling on performance level that any player can attain based on their natural talent.

Question 68

provide evidence that innate ability/intelligence is important in the development of career-related expertise.

Answer 68

high-complexity jobs (eg biologists, city circulation manager) there is a moderately strong correlation between work performance and IQ.

mean IQ of those in very complex jobs is about 120-130., which is considerably higher than population mean of 100. there are very few successful individuals in such jobs with IQ close to popn mean of 100.

Question 69

what is the unusualness heuristic?

Answer 69

a rule of thumb used by scientists in which the emphasis is on unusual or unexpected findings thay may lead to the development of new hypotheses and lines of experimentation.

Question 70

what are the 2 kinds of methods used by scientists?

Answer 70

1) strong methods: acquired through a lengthy process of acquiring huge amounts of detailed domain-specific knowledge about scientific phenomena, theories etc. such methods are often sufficient to solve relatively simple scientific problems, but are insufficient to permit creative scientific discoveries.
2) weak methods: very general and can be applied to amost any scientific problem. they are so general that it’s often used in most everyday problem solving. eg trial and error, means-end analysis etc.