Week 11 - Problem solving, decision making and expertise Flashcards
discuss how decision-making paradigms relate to notions of expertise
People with expertise are often cognitive misers - they are typically economical with their time and effort on thinking tasks as they have been in similar contexts before and may more easily ‘think outside the box’.
Gestalt approach to problem solving - problems solved using insight (suddenly realising how to realign the problem and solve it)
describe different types of problems and different models of how problem-solving takes place
Well defined problem - situation laid out, including solutions
Ill-defined problem - problem underspecified/not enough resources
Knowledge rich problem - problems requiring considerable background knowledge to solve
Knowledge lean problem - all info required to solve problem contained within the problem statement.
Most complex real world problems are ill-defined, knowledge rich problems. That’s why problem solving and decision making are subjective and hard to measure.
Means>ends analysis - creating a sub-goal to reduce distance between ultimate goal
Progress monitoring - slow progress triggers a strategy change
Hill climbing - focusing on small moves getting them closer to the goal
Planning - active in pre frontal cortex
Analogical problem solving - Using a previous problem (even if slightly different) to solve a new one.
discuss the nature of expert skilled performance in a specific domain
Expertise - domain specific knowledge gained over many years
Routine expertise - using acquired knowledge to solve familiar problems efficiently using templates, schemas and scripts
Adaptive expertise - using acquired knowledge to develop strategies for dealing with novel problems
People with expertise have good system 2 (slow thinking) thinking and have well programmed shortcuts (can use their system 1 to make good decisions with little mental effort)
explain the role of ‘chunking’, pattern abstraction templates and schemas in domain specific expertise
Chunking - remembering a chunk/package of info by a pattern fragment key.
experts can expand working memory (7 +/- 2) by having fast retrieval and manipulating chunking.
outline the possible role of deliberate, effortful practice play in the acquisition of competence and expertise
Deliberate effortful practice - trying to build up patterns of info that will give us access to adaptive expertise
- task appropriate level
- learner given informative feedback about task
- chance to repeat task
- opportunity to correct errors
- repetition allows extraction of patterns of chunks.
