Chapter 13- Problem Solving and Intelligence Flashcards
Savant Syndrome/ Autistic Savants:
- Someone with a mental disability shows remarkable talent
* i.e. ability to recreate a city skyline from memory after a 30 minute ride over the city
Problem Solving:
Have a goal in mind, trying to figure out how to reach that goal
Search Process:
Problem solving as though you are navigating through a maze, seeking a path to your goal
Problem Space:
• Set of all states that can be reached in solving a problem
Looking through entire problem space would take too long, need problem solving heuristic
Hill-Climbing Strategy:
• Every time you have a choice, choose the option that moves you in the direction of your goal
• Want to climb uphill, every time there is a fork in the road, pick the one that takes you uphill
Problems arise when you actually need to move away from your goal to reach it
Means-End Analysis:
Compare current state to goal state, determine how you can make the two states more alike
Problem Solving with Pictures:
Often helpful to translate a problem into a mental image
Problem Solving via Analogy:
• Often, problems resemble problems encountered in the past, can rely on past experience to solve current problem
• Use of analogies is rare, only benefit if they are instructed to use the past problem
• i.e. if trying to solve a problem about tumours, people think back about what they know about tumours instead of thinking about what other problems are similar to the one they are trying to solve now
Understanding a problem’s underlying structure improves problem solving
Subgoals:
• Breaking up a problem into smaller problems
i.e. memorizing chess piece positions, experts would remember groups of pieces based tactics (attacking pieces, defending pieces..etc)
Ill Defined Goals:
• No clear statements about how the goal should be characterized or what operations might be used to reach that goal
• i.e. Saving money for college
Helpful to create subgoals or add extra constraints to try to solve ill defined goals
Functional Fixedness:
• Tendency to be rigid in how one thinks about an object’s function
i.e. Failure to consider pliers as a weight rather than just for pulling/squeezing
Einstellung:
• Also known as a problem solving set
• Collection of beliefs and assumptions a person makes about a problem
Once you figure out a way to solve a problem, solve similar problems the same way even if there is a more direct route
Prerequisites of Creativity:
• Knowledge and skill of a particular domain (i.e. chemistry)
• Willingness to take risks
• Willingness to ignore criticism
• Ability to tolerate ambiguous findings or situations
• Inclination not to “follow the crowd”
• Motivated by pleasure of their work rather than external rewards
Right place at the right time
Preparation
○ Gathers info about problem
Effortful work with little progress
Incubation
○ Sets problem aside (works on it subconsciously)
○ Allowing mind to wander increases likelihood that more and potentially unorthodox ideas will be activated
Allows for problem set to change
Illumination
○ New idea emerges
Not always the right idea, sometimes it just means you’ve discovered a new approach to the problem
Verification
Confirms that new idea leads to the problem’s solution
Intelligence Quotient (IQ):
• Mental age (level of development reflected in a test) divided by chronological age
Good predictors of real world outcomes
Reliability:
• How consistent a measure is from one occasion to another
• Test-retest reliability (if you take a test, wait, and retake it, do you get the same result)
Intelligence tests have strong test-retest reliability
Validity:
• Whether a test actually measures what it is intended to measure
Predictive validity- if intelligence tests truly measure intelligence, then they should be able to predict a person’s performance in settings that require intelligence
Factor Analysis:
• Procedure that looks for common factors that link subtests
• Common element called general intelligence (g)
General intelligence called upon for any intellectual task, high levels of g will have an advantage in every intellectual endeavour
Hierarchical Model of Intelligence:
• Specialized abilities influence performance as well as g
• i.e. performance for reading comprehension depends on g and strength of verbal skills
• Each specialized ability is further divided into other specialized abilities
• Choosing 2 tasks from two categories will have a correlation in performance (both require g)
Choosing 2 tasks from the same category will have a higher correlation in performance (both draw on g and the same specialized ability)
Fluid Intelligence:
• Ability to deal with novel problems
Reaches peak in early adulthood and then declines steadily
Crystallized Intelligence:
• Acquired knowledge that assist in dealing with problems similar to those already encountered
Increases with age
Inspection Time:
• Time a person needs to decide which of two lines is longer or which of two tones is higher
Measure how fast a person can conduct mental processes
Working Memory Capacity (WMC):
• WMC is a measure of executive control, measure of how well people can monitor and direct their own thought processes
People with larger WMC do better on tests designed to measure g, linkage very strong for fluid intelligence
Practical Intelligence:
• Intelligence needed for skilled reasoning in day to day settings
Someone might be street smart even if they lack analytical skill needed in a classroom
Rationality:
• Capacity for critically assessing information as its gathered in the environment
i.e. People might have high test scores but ignore facts, are overconfident…etc
Emotional Intelligence:
• Ability to understand one’s own emotions and others’
Ability to control emotions when appropriate
Multiple Intelligences:
• 8 different types of intelligence • Linguistic • Logical mathematical • Spatial • Musical • Bodily-kinesthetic • Interpersonal Naturalistic
Flynn Effect:
• Scores on intelligence tests have been increase at a rate of 3 points per decade
Effect is stronger in measure of fluid intelligence
Stereotype Threat:
• Negative impact that social stereotypes have on task performance
i.e. Woman thinks she’s expected to do bad on a test, distracts her so she actually does bad
