Language and Thought L5

Question 1

What is problem solving?

Answer 1

• Overcoming an obstacle to reach a goal
• Includes a beginning and end state
• Includes procedures to get from start to end

Question 2

What are the four general steps for problem solving?

Answer 2

1. Understand the problem
2. Generate possible solutions (hypotheses)
3. Test these solutions
4. Evaluate results, and revise if necessary

Question 3

What are some general strategies to try and solve a problem?

Answer 3

• Trial and error
• Algorithm
• Heuristics
• creative problem solving

Question 4

What is the trial an error approach to solving a problem? What are the pitfalls with this?

Answer 4

• Random (often how children solve problems)

- Pitfalls that it is not efficient also could be dangerous if stakes are high

Question 5

What is the algorithm approach to solving a problem?

Why/when is it useful?

Answer 5

• A rule that guarantees a solution e.g. recipe reading, algebra
• Useful for a well-defined problem where the rules are clear

Question 6

Why are algorithms sometimes hard to implement?

Answer 6

Most problems are ill-defined so don’t suit this method, therefore need alternative

Question 7

What’s an alternative strategy for problems solving?

Answer 7

Heuristics: a strategy that doesn’t guarantee a solution, but they often work and they save time. They will push you in the right direction but not get a clear cut solution.

Question 8

What’s an example of a heuristic?

Answer 8

An anagram. You don’t try all possible solutions of sound combinations. Use knowledge of English to derive solution.

Question 9

What are the two types of heuristics?

Answer 9

• Means-End analysis

- Hill climbing

Question 10

What is the Means-End analysis?

Answer 10

• Work step-by-step to get closer to your goal as you solve the problem
• Monitor each step to see how much closer you are to your goal

Question 11

In the Means-End analysis heuristic why is breaking a big goal up into small sub goals more effective?

Answer 11

The small goals are cognitively simple and thus easier to accomplish rather than tackling the whole thing at once.

Question 12

What experiment shows the method of Means-End analysis to solve problems?

Answer 12

The Tower of Hanoi:
-Set of discs that increasingly get smaller have to move
them to pole on far side.
-Cannot have large disc sitting on small at any time while transferring
-Therefore, you break up the task into a series of smaller steps
-Doing all at once wouldn’t be able to hold all the information in your head required to do the task(short term memory not big enough)
-Participants perform a series of several moves,
followed by long pause after they reach a sub goal, then another series of moves

Question 13

What is the method of Hill climbing to solve problems?

Answer 13

-Change the present state of the problem so that you
are one step closer to solving the problem
-What results is a sense that you are moving forward towards a solution

Question 14

What experiment shows the method of hill climbing to solve problems?

Answer 14

Farmer problem:

• Wants to transport a chicken, fox and grain to other side of the river but can only take one thing at a time in his boat.
• The chicken and fox can’t be left together, the grain and fox can’t be left together.
• To solve there is a point in problem where have to take the chicken back (work against goal) so isn’t left with grain.
• People find this hard as inconsistent will hill climbing method therefore, evidence that this method is usually used.

Question 15

What is an alternative to heuristics to solve problems?

Answer 15

• Creative thinking, for this we need to use divergent thinking where we generate many solutions some of which may be unusual.
• The idea is to change the representation of the problem by thinking outside the box. Having to think of 3D arrangements of shapes is also creative.

Question 16

What is the Remote association task?

Answer 16

• It tests creativity
• Are given 3 words (e.g. Jump, Kill, Bliss) and have to think of a forth that related semantically (e.g. joy)
• This is hard to do as you need to converge on a word in your semantic network that joins them together (it will be distant in relation to all of them)
• You can practice to make connections stronger

Question 17

What area of the brain is better at making distant connections between words? What does that mean for the remote association task?

Answer 17

Right hemisphere is better, therefore if you are presented the words in the left visual field may be able to identify the connection easier.

Question 18

What is a specific way to use creative problem solving?

Answer 18

• Search for an analogy
• Can we think of a way we have solved a problem in the past?→ use the same way for present problem
• The problem may be similar in terms of structure of content

Question 19

What was Duckner’s radiation problem? What did the experiment demonstrate?

Answer 19

-Doctor needs to destroy a malignant tumour
-It can be destroyed using a type of ray,
-But the ray will destroy the healthy tissue
-At low levels, the rays will not destroy healthy tissue,
but will not be strong enough to destroy the tumour

One participant group was told a story that was about an army breaking into a castle they needed to spilt up in order to avoid triggering mines and causing damage to themselves. Participants need to be able to see the analogy in order to solve the problem (spilt the radiation source). The group given the story were better at solving the problem that those who weren’t.

Question 20

How can calculating the area of shapes by children demonstrate using analogies to solve problems?

Answer 20

-Children were shown a rectangle and told that area = base x height
-GROUP 1: ½ of the children were then shown a parallelogram and told that the area of this was also base x height
-GROUP 2: The other ½ were shown how a parallelogram was a rectangle with a bit moved from one place to another
-In a novel problem group 2 then did better as teaching allowed them to understand problem at a deeper level and form an analogy between parallelogram and novel
shape

Question 21

What is a mental set?

Answer 21

-Habits and assumptions you bring to solving a
problem
-You can get stuck in a certain way of trying to solve a problem

Question 22

What experiment demonstrates how a mental set can hinder problem solving?

Answer 22

Luchins water jar problem:

• 3 jars hold different amounts of liquid, the task is to measure out exactly 100
• Participants are shown a way to solve the problem by removing 1 of jug A and 2 of jug C so what is left in jug B remains
• They then get so caught up in this way of doing things that they neglect easier options later on and even can’t solve some of the problems that require different thinking

Question 23

What is functional fixedness? What experiment demonstrates it?

Answer 23

Candle Problem (Duncker, 1945):

• How can you mount a candle on a wall and light it, without burning the wall?
• Pins outside box= more easy to solve
• Pins in the box= less likely as function of box is fixed (also strong semantic relationship between pin and box reinforces this)

Question 24

How do you overcome obstacles in solving problems?

Answer 24

• Take a break as it might release you from a mental set
• Practice divergent thinking. Creativity can be fostered. Play games such as “how many uses can you think of for a 5 cent coin?”

Question 25

What is particularly good as a break from a problem and why?

Answer 25

• Sleep, gives ample break to remove block.

- Also particularly good for the remote association task as sleep helps build distant connections

Question 26

To sum up how do you solve problems successfully?

Answer 26

• Practice and expertise
• Analyze, plan, and evaluate
• Thinking of different ways to represent a problem
• Look for analogies
• Watch out for pitfalls such as functional fixedness and mental set