Leture 4 - part: problem solving Flashcards
behaviorism approach - problem solving
- Edward Lee Thorndike
- > cat experiment, cat has to escape
- > problem solving by trial and error
- > criticism: random process (reproductive thinking)
gestalt psychology - importanant early result
- Wolfgang Köhler
- WW1 -> monkeys on island he experimented with
- > provided them with 2 sticks to reach a banana
- > sticks to short
- > sticks had to be sticked together to reach banana
- > understanding it -> insight
main hypothesis - gestalt
- problem solving requires productive thinking! (insight)
- > reorganzing/restructuring of problem situation’s elements to provide a solution
Barriers to problem solving
-gestalt
- mental set -> using familiar strategy with past success when it is inappropriate
- functional fixedness -> inability to detach form object’s usual function when needed (2 string tasks)
how to overcome barriers
-through getting hints
remote associates test
-gestalt
- having 3 words
- they have to link with a single word, that has something in common with the 3 words
strength gestalt approach
- interesting phenomena (e.g.insight etc.) which animated further research
- some concepts still applicable today (e.g. Design thinking)
weaknesses gestalt approach
- no explanations of underlying mechanisms (from example insights)
- focus on very artificial problem situations (string task)
- disregards intuitive, reproductive problem solving
problem space hypothesis -prior history
- Newell and Simon
- > information processing approach to problem solving
- mind works like computer
- developed problem solver (computer)
main hypothesis - problem space
- problem situation represented in problem space
- initial state, goal state, mental operators, intermediate states
- human mind: limited processing capacity!
- > use of heuristics
hill climbing VS Means-end analysis (heuristics)
hill climbing
- > strategy is very simple
- > doing everything that gets you closer to the hill/goal
- > works for ill defined problems
Means-end analysis
- > note difference to goal
- > form subgoal to reduce difference
- > select mental operator
- > for well-defined problems
progress monitoring
- monitor progress
- slow progress
- strategy change
- very adaptive
- good for ill defined problems
strengths problem space hypothesis
- proposes mechanisms how to solve problem -> detailed explanations
- applicable to many scenarios
weaknesses problem space
- cannot explain insight problem solving (from gestalt)
- general problem solver (computer) is very different from real world human problem solving
representational change theory
-insight through change of problem representation
