Chapter 9- Problem Solving and Creativity Flashcards
Convergent thinking problems
Problems that have known solutions and require analytic thinking and crystallized intelligence/learned strategies to come up with the correct answer
Have known solutions that can be reached by narrowing down a set of possible answers
The problem solver has to analyze the problem and then apply learned strategies and knowledge to come up with the answer
EXAMPLES: intelligence tests, college entrance exams, how to operate a coffee maker
Divergent thinking problems
Problems that have no known solutions and require novel solutions
Requires fluid and creative intelligence
Must break away from normal problem solving strategies and make unusual associations to arrive at different ways of thinking about a problem
May lead to redefining the problem in a way that makes finding a solution more likely
EXAMPLES: How to solve the problem of rising world temperatures? Your new roommate snores so loudly you can’t sleep, how do you solve this problem?
There are three kinds of strategies that people use to solve different kinds of problems
algorithms, insight, and thinking outside the box.
Algorithms
A step by step procedure or formula for solving a problem
Help create mental sets
Mental set
A tendency to continue to use problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past, even if better solutions are available
Eureka Insights/Insight Solutions
Sudden solutions that come to mind in a flash
“Eureka”= I have found it!
Ex: How velcro was invented by De Mestrel, went on hikes with dogs and were always caught with burrs. Realized that a fastener could be made to connect to loops
The two string problem
Thinking outside the box
Approach to problem solving that requires breaking free of self-imposed conceptual constraints and thinking about a problem differently in order to solve it
If you came up with a solution, it required to go outside the box
There is no such box there in reality, but you perceive one
Once you think outside the box, a couple solutions may come easily
Research Question
Are individuals or small groups better at breaking out of their mental sets to solve the water jar problem?
Conclusion
Mental sets are ways of thinking that help in some situations but blind us to simpler ways of solving problems in other situations
Because each person in the group received only one jar amount, the group had to cooperate in order to solve the problems. All jars had to be considered in the group in a way that was not true for individuals working on the problem
Group problem solving takes advantage of the groups “collective intelligence” and people are better able to break out of a mental set when solving a simple quantitative problem. All it takes is one person to come up with the more direct solution and the whole group benefits.
Fixation
The inability to break out of a particular mind-set in order to think about a problem from a fresh perspective
Prevents many people from seeing possible solutions to problems
Mental sets: provides solutions to problems but can also stand in the way of new ideas and novel solutions
Created by education and training
In school we learn how to solve problems using different strategies: sometimes algorithms, insights, and heuristics
Strategies can blind us to more efficient and creative solutions
Functional Fixedness
The mind-set in which one is blind to unusual uses of common everyday things or procedures
Examples:
When people try to solve the two-string problem
People are used to thinking of pliers as tools for cutting or bending metal wire
But pliers can also be used as a weight at the end of a string that causes it to swing like a pendulum
Figuring out a new way to use a set of pliers is an example of thinking outside the box
Creativity
The thought or behaviour that is both novel-original and useful-adaptive
Usefulness: requires that someone sees real value and usefulness in the creative accomplishment
Challenges surrounding how to measure it: earliest measures of creativity focused on divergent problem solving
Torrance Tests of Creativity
widely used divergent measure of creativity
The completed drawings would be scored for originality, evidence of motion, emotion, humour, and visual perspective among other things
Research has revealed 3 consistent findings:
1) Creative insight increases frontal lobe activity
2) Insights are processed more strongly in the right hemisphere rather than left
3) Creative people solving creative problems show more balanced activity between their right and left frontal lobes
Frontal lobes
active in abstract reasoning, planning, focused working memory, and the integration of sensory input
Takeuchi’s Research: Whether Greater Neural Connection in the Frontal Lobe is Associated with Greater Levels of Creativity
Measured creativity and neural connectivity in 55 college students
Creativity tasks involved generating unique ideas for how to use everyday objects
EX: Students were asked, “Other than reading, how can we use newspapers?”
Neural connectivity was measured with an MRI that assesses white matter connections in the brain
Found a direct and positive relationship between the student’s creativity scores and their neural connectivity, especially in the frontal lobe
Greater connectivity suggests more myelinated neurons, thus more efficient communication between the neurons
It may be that more creative people have both more connections between neurons and more myelin… need more research on this idea
Main Way to Study Creativity and the Brain
Administer a creativity problem to a person while they are lying down in a brain scanner or hooked up to an EEG
One kind of problem that has been used in such research is a remote associate word problem
Remote Associate problems
Display three words at one time to the participant
Participant must come up with a single word that could be used with all three words
Single word could be added to each of the words to create a compound word or it could modify one of the displayed words
Requires the participant to form a non-obvious or “remote” association in order to solve a problem
People often solve these problems with Eureka insights
EXAMPLE:
If three words were French, shoe, and car: could use the word horn
Pine, crab, sauce: apple
Presenting Remote Association Tests to the Right or Left Visual Fields
Participants were not selected for high or low levels of creativity
Researchers presented the information to the individual visual fields because they wanted to control which hemisphere of the brain processed the information
Found that sudden insights activated the right hemisphere more than the left
Hallmarks of Creative Thinking
Widening attention
Being able to shift ways of thinking easily and flexibly
Carlsson’s Study: Participants Who Scored High or Low on Creativity Problems
Participants in these two groups were given a non-creative and a creative task to complete while in a brain scanner
Compared the two conditions using brain scans
Highly creative participants showed a balanced in right and left frontal lobe activity
Creative thinking entails unique cognitive processes
visual thinking, fluency, flexibility, and originality.
Visual imagery
Occurs when we see a solution in our “minds eye”
Used by many scientists, artists, and writers when solving problems
EX: Einstein imagining a scenario like riding in an elevator travelling at the speed of light
Alternate Uses test
Developed by J.P Guilford
Used to measure creativity
Participants are given a common object, like a brick or pencil, and asked to write down all the possible uses they can think of for the object within a limited amount of time
Ideational fluency
The ability to produce many ideas
Central to creative thought
Highly creative people usually come up with more ideas for a given problem than less creative people
not all might be useful, but the more the better
Doesn’t by itself guarantee that one can break out of one’s mental set and think of unusual uses
Alternate Uses Test: An ideational fluent person can list many alternate uses for the object within a short period
