psychology of planning and insight

Question 1

what constitutes planning?

Answer 1

• conscious cognitive processes

- hardest problems are those requiring a move that takes you (temporarily) further away from the goal state.

Question 2

define planning.

Answer 2

• deciding on the order and intensity of decomposition of problem, and determining consequences of alternative plans.
• involves search through the problem space
• search guided by heuristics
• planning is constrained
• planning is mediated by external environments

Question 3

list the problem components of planning.

Answer 3

• initial state
• goal state
• operators
• constraints

Question 4

problem decomposition is complex and multi-faceted and involves…

Answer 4

sub-goal specification - reduce goal down until and operator can be composed.

Question 5

list the decomposition orders.

Answer 5

• breadth first - minimal commitment
• depth first - lower cognitive load
• opportunistic - current state

Question 6

mental representation of the problem includes…

Answer 6

state space, task env, information-processing system.

Question 7

describe the state space.

Answer 7

• all possible paths between initial and goal states

- the larger it is, the harder a problem will be to solve

Question 8

describe the task env.

Answer 8

• the way a problem is presented to the solver

e. g. format, thematic content, conditions

Question 9

describe the information-processing system.

Answer 9

• working memory

- constraint on planning steps.

Question 10

state ways of searching for heuristics.

Answer 10

means-end analysis.

operator selection - select operator that maximises reduction of distance between initial and goal states.

Question 11

what happens when we don’t plan?

- act first, think later…

Answer 11

effects of maximisation, minimisation and lookahead on inferential planning in problem-solving.

Question 12

what was the two common outcomes of the nine ball problem?

what was the solution?

Answer 12

• 4 vs 4 - 42%
• 4 vs 5 - 37%
• solution = three by three

Question 13

define insight.

Answer 13

a change in conceptual understanding that allows a solution to a problem to be discovered and repeated in the future.

Question 14

state phenomenas of the 9 dot problem.

Answer 14

• simple to state, hard to solve
• fixation
• impasse
• ‘aha’
• incubation

Question 15

describe the importance of insight.

Answer 15

• practice

- theory - consciousness, determinism, modularity

Question 16

state theories of insight.

Answer 16

• representational change theory
• criterion of satisfactory progress
• multiple factor theory

Question 17

how can you test the effect of knowledge.

Answer 17

solving equations only moving one stick to make the sum work (matchstick algebra).

Question 18

how can you test knowledge and strategy together.

Answer 18

• eight coin problem

- transform an initial array so each coin touches three others, moving two coins only.

Question 19

when testing knowledge and strategy using the eight coin tests, which hints were most beneficial?

Answer 19

verbal hints and where there was no moves ( search strategy).

Question 20

how is insight enhanced through analogy?

Answer 20

• transferred from example to new problem (training phase to transfer phase in nine ball task)

Question 21

what constitutes incubation?

Answer 21

• divergent thinking
• linguistic insight
• visual insight

Question 22

give evidence that sleep affects verbal problems.

Answer 22

more difficult verbal task ‘broad, mail, magic = black’ = most correct responses in sleep, whereas easy task = most correct responses in incubation.