Lecture 6 - Problem solving

Question 1

Definition of problem - Duncker 1945?

Answer 1

a situation where a living organism has a goal but does not know how this goals is to be reached

Question 2

What are the 3 characteristics of problem solving?

Answer 2

1. goal-directed
2. requires cognitive processes
3. lack of relevant knowledge to produce an immediate solution

Question 3

What is a well defined problem?

Answer 3

• problems in which the initial state, the goal and the methods available for solving them are clearly laid out
• e.g. assembling flat pack furniture

Question 4

What is an ill defined problem?

Answer 4

• problems in which the problem is imprecisely specified for example the initial state, the goal state and the methods available to solve the problem may be unclear
• e.g. how do I get a 1st class degree

Question 5

What is knowledge rich problem?

Answer 5

• problems that can only be solved by those having considerable relevant background knowledge
• e.g. solving a crossword

Question 6

What is a knowledge lean problem?

Answer 6

• problems that can be solved by individuals in the absence of specific relevant prior knowledge

Question 7

Gestalt approach?

Answer 7

• German psychologists who distinguished between reproductive and productive thinking
• reproductive thinking:
  -> relies on experience to solve the problem
  -> e.g. trial and error learning
• productive thinking:
  -> coming up with new response or strategies for solving a problem, requires re-structuring of the problem by mentally simulating possible solutions
  -> problem can be solved by engaging in mental simulation
  -> the problem must be restructured so that the solution suddenly becomes clear, an insight
  -> is mostly required on ill-defined problems

Question 8

What is insight?

Answer 8

• any sudden comprehension, realisation or problem solution that involves a reorganisation of the elements of a persons mental representation of a stimulus, situation or event to yield a non-obvious or non-dominant interpretation
• the gestalists argued problems requiring productive thinking are often solved using insight

Question 9

Evidence of insight?

Answer 9

• Kohler (1925)
  -> Sultan the ape
  -> Has to get a banana from outside his cage
  -> Provided with two bamboo sticks that can be joined
  -> demonstrated insight as he learned to put the 2 sticks together to get the banana
• Birch (1945)
  -> Apes raised in captivity can’t solve the task
  -> May be that sultan had experienced trial and error learning in the wild

Question 10

Evidence of insight in humans - Maier 1931?

Answer 10

• problem of how to tie 2 strings together
• p’s told to keep trying until they get the desired solution
• p’s would experience a flash of insight

Question 11

Does experience of problems help with problem solving?

Answer 11

more experience should lead to better/ faster solutions

Question 12

What is functional fixity?

Answer 12

• failure to perceive new uses for old objects
• is a specific form of mental set (effect of experience)

Question 13

Luchin - effect of mental set on problem solving?

Answer 13

• Water jar study
• Controlled the past experience
  -> ½ trained on complex 3-jar problems
  -> Rest given no training
• New problem with 2 jar solution
  -> 95% of no training group used 2 jars
  -> 64% of trained group failed to solve the problem

Question 14

What is einstellung (mental set)?

Answer 14

• the tendency to use a familiar problem solving strategy that has proved successful in the past even when it is no longer appropriate
• experience can make you worse
• mental set can often be useful as it allows successive problems of the same type to be solved rapidly with fewer processing demands

Question 15

Evaluation of Gestalt approach?

Answer 15

• Introduced and investigated insight as a method of solving problems
• Emphasised restructuring and ‘representational change’ – very influential concept
• Showed that experience does not always help problem solving
• Focus on knowledge-lean, well specified problems
• Insight and restructuring very vague
  -> Describes what happens during problem solving, but not how it happens

Question 16

Cognitive approach?

Answer 16

• problem solving involves a series of cognitive operations that transform information from 1 state to another
• problem space = an abstract description of all the possible states that can occur within a given problem
  -> we move from the initial state to the goal state by changing the way in which we represent the problem in different ways using different operations

Question 17

Computational approach- Newell & Simon?

Answer 17

• developed a computer stimulation of human problem solving = ‘general problem solver’
• designed to solve well defined problems
• assumptions of the general problem solver:
  -> information processing is serial
  -> we have limited short term memory capacity
  -> relevant information can be retrieved from LTM

Question 18

What are the 2 heuristics (rules of thumb) for selecting operations identified by Newell and Simon?

Answer 18

1. means end analysis
   -> identify difference between current state and goal
   -> form a subgoal that reduces this difference
   -> perform operation that will attain subgoal
   -> e.g. following instructions to assemble IKEA furniture by making sub-components
2. Hill-climbing
   -> change current state to a state that more closely resembles the goal
   -> used if you don’t really know how to solve the problem
   -> e.g. assembling IKEA furniture without instructions

Question 19

Representational change theory?

Answer 19

• Ohlsson developed the Gestalist approach in his representational change theory
• According to this theory the initial stage of problem solving involves forming a mental representation of the problem
• After that we access various mental operators that might be applied to this representation only 1 which is selected and used at any given time

Question 20

What are the 3 ways to change representation of problems?

Answer 20

1. Elaboration: Adding more information about the problem
2. Constraint Relaxation: changing what is permissible to solve the problem
3. Re-encoding: changing how some aspect of the problem is interpreted
   - Similar to Gestalt theory, but more specific about how insight is achieved

Question 21

Evaluation of cognitive approach?

Answer 21

• Ideas of problem space and heuristic search appear critical to understanding problem solving
• Works well with well defined, knowledge poor problems
• Restructuring does appear to help with many insight problems
• General Problem Solver may not always operate in the same way as humans
• Not a general theory of problem solving
• Cannot account for phenomenological experience of insight
• May ultimately be specific to certain types of problem