Problem Solving, Reasoning and Decision Making

Question 1

What is problem solving?

Answer 1

Solving a problem where the situation is not immediately available or obvious, to achieve this you need several intermediate steps. Therefore, searching a sequence of states in a problem space that goes from start state to the goal state.

Question 2

What is the problem space?

Answer 2

This consists of various states of the problem

Question 3

What is a problem state?

Answer 3

A representation of the problem in some degree or solution

Question 4

What is an operator?

Answer 4

An action that will transform the problem state into another problem state

Question 5

How do you define the problem space?

Answer 5

The amount of operators in the sequence will determine this space.

Question 6

How does a problem solver select a particular operator?

Answer 6

This is determined by the path the problem solver will take.

Question 7

What are the three ways to acquire new operators?

Answer 7

Discovery
Direct Instruction
Analogy/imitation

Question 8

In operator acquisition and selection, what is the direct instruction of acquiring new operators?

Answer 8

This is where you acquire an operator directly from either a person or say a manual. It tells you what to do, you understand, you do it.

Question 9

In operator acquisition and selection, what is discovery in acquiring new operators?

Answer 9

This is where you acquire a new operator by chance. E.g. Thorndike’s cat had to trial many different solutions until it accidentally found the string in its box that opened the door. It was able to use this in subsequent trials.

Question 10

In operator acquisition and selection, what is the concept of analogy/imitation?

Answer 10

This is a problem where the solution is unknown, however due to a similar problem that has risen in the past you trial that solution to this new but similar problem. Therefore, operator by analogy. E.g. learning a new synthesiser, you know the basic ADSR envelopes and use previous problem solving to use the new machine.

Question 11

Previously in imitation research we thought that this was an ability exclusive to humans, what study shows this change?

Answer 11

Subiaul et. al. (2014) showed that rhesus monkeys can learn how to perform a certain task by looking at other monkeys performing it.

Question 12

When selecting which operator to use, there are three relevant criteria for this selection when solving a problem, what is backup avoidance?

Answer 12

The tendency in problem solving to avoid operators that take one back to a state already visited

Question 13

When selecting which operator to use, there are three relevant criteria for this selection when solving a problem, what is difference reduction?

Answer 13

The tendency to select operators that eliminate a difference between the current state and the goal state. “This is what I have, this is what I want to achieve, eventually if I use the operator the problem state will look more like the goal”.

Question 14

What is means-ends analysis and thus the third criteria for operator selection?

Answer 14

Creates a new subgoal to enable an operator to apply. An operator is not abandoned even if it cannot be applied immediately. This identifies the biggest difference between the current state and the goal state and tries to eliminate it first.

Question 15

In problem representation, how do states of a problem effect the outcome of a solution?

Answer 15

Successful problem solving depends on representing problems in such a way that appropriate operators can apply. The way you represent a problem in your mind can have a significant impact on how you solve that problem.

ie. the 63 squares using 31 dominoes task.

Question 16

What are set effects in problem representations and an example?

Answer 16

The biasing of a solution to a problem as a result of past experiences in solving that kind of problem.

e.g. the water jug problem. There is a set pattern or formula in the set that is easily solvable in problems 1 to 5, 5 - 8 changes the formula to something more difficult, 8 to 10 are impossible to solve. This demonstrates biased thinking in sequenced problems.

Question 17

What is the incubation effect?

Answer 17

The phenomenon that sometimes solutions to a particular problem come easier after a period of time in which one has ignored trying to solve the problem.

Question 18

How do incubation effects occur?

Answer 18

The occur because people forget inappropriate ways of solving problems.

Question 19

Humans can struggle with logical reasoning when trying to problem solve tasks, what is an example of a statement that challenges our reasoning?

Answer 19

The If A, then B statement.

The Wason Selection tasks challenges logic by asking this conditional statement. When presented with neutral material, people have difficulty in recognising the importance of exploring the negation of the consequent.

Question 20

In conditional statements, how can performance on tasks be enhanced - what is the phenomena behind this?

Answer 20

Performance on selection tasks can be enhanced when the material has meaningful content.

When a logical structure is embedded in a realistic context in particular the context where we are given permission to do something then this makes sense to us.

Question 21

What is conditional reasoning?

Answer 21

Making inferences based on a conditional statement of the form “If A, then B”, which is called the major premise in a conditional reasoning task.

Question 22

Why do we perform so poorly on the Wason selection task?

Answer 22

People tend to select cards that will be informative under a probabilistic model, not a strict logical model.

If A, then B - B will probably occur when A occurs

Question 23

Why do we interpret conditional statements on the basis of a probabilistic model and not a strict logical model?

Answer 23

Because probability is a natural approach to understanding many real life situations. Sometimes, the logical outcome of B being true is not binary, there are many situational factors and contexts that influence these statements.

Question 24

In reasoning about probabilities, what affects our judgements of probability/frequency?

Answer 24

Our reasoning tends to be biased by what is available on the surface. We rely on similarity judgements and memory recall when assessing outcomes.

Question 25

What is an explanation as to why we have bias in probability/frequency?

Answer 25

Because we attune to familiarity and easily accessible information, we tend to think that things are more likely based on internal metallisation, these are not always accurate.

Question 26

How does bias effect our decision making abilities when logic is a second thought?

Answer 26

We tend to support objective bias in decision making process where we tend to evaluate the subjective merit of things.

Question 27

What is subjective utility how does this effect decision making?

Answer 27

The subjective value someone places on something. It usually forms a non-linear function. People make decisions under uncertainty in terms of subjective utilities and subjective probabilities.