Apr 02 Problem Solving

• Analogical Problem Solving: Making comparisons between two situations and applying the solution from one of the situations to the other situation
• Analogical Problem Solving

  • Target Problem: The problem the person is trying to solve 
  • Source Problem: The problem that shares similarity with the target problem 
• Steps for Solving Analogical Problems:

  1. Notice a Relationship: there is an analogous relationship between source problem (familiar) and target problem (unfamiliar)
  2. Mapping the Correspondence: what is similar between the target and source problems

  • Requires inferences and generalization

  1. Apply the Mapping: generating a parallel solution for the target problem
• • Surface Details: Content of scenarios 
  • It is easier to use a school-related problem to solve a current school-related problem than a related current relationship-related problem
• Source & Target Similarity; An Example 

  • Target problem: Babysitting your niece, and you need to swaddle a baby, but you don’t know how 
  • Focus more on surface similarity, source scenario confined to past baby problem
  • Focus on structural similarity, source scenario expands to burrito folding scenarios
• • Cognitive Trap: An inability to seek out a better method to solve a given problem
  • Mental obstacles that prevent individuals from solving problems efficiently or from seeing situations in a broader, more flexible way
  • Can significantly impact decision-making processes, learning, and adaptation to new information or environments
• Structural Similarity: generalized underlying relationship between probleem and solution

  • more important than surface details
• Analogies make unfamiliar problems become familiar

  • can help us navigate new problems & lead to more solutions
• Mental simulations can be important for thinking of solutions for ill-defined problems
• Einstellung Effect: you will sit in familiar way to solve a problem & won't move from traditional way of solving something

  • the bias to use familiar methods to solve a problem
• Cognitive Trap: an inability to seek out a better method to solve a given problem

  • can impact decision making processes, learning, and adaptation to new information or environments
• Functional Fixedness: the inability to see beyond the most common use of a particular object

  • "fixed" on the known function of an object
  • this bias restricts the problem solver's ability to use objects in novel ways to solve a problem
• Mental Fixedness: refers to a predisposition to approach a problem in a particular way, often influenced by what has worked in the past

  • tendency to respond inflexibly to a particular type of problem and not alter your response
  • can create a form of cognitive "tunnel vision", where problem solver is unable to see the problem from a new perspective
• too much experience leads to fixedness and the Einstellung effect
• Overusing Mental Sets: rely on a rigid mental set to solve a problem & thus stops you from thinking of another approach

  • responding with previously learned rule sequences even when they are less productive
• Insight Problem Solving: a productive thinking process of forming new patterns or ways to view a problem

  • "aha!" moment
  • restructuring a problem in a new way leads to a sudden solution
  • leads to productive thinking
• Gestalt Switches: the experience of having a sudden switch in how you see something
• Mental Impasse: refers to the state where an individual feels stuck and is unable to progress towards a solution

  • have to restructure problem to overcome impasse
• Insight: intuitive understanding or realization that emerges suddenly, and unexpectedly

  • overcome impasse by restructuring the problem
• 4 features on impasse:

  1. Suddenness: the solution pops into mind with surprise
  2. Ease: the solution comes quickly and fluently
  3. Positive: a pleasant experience, even before assessing if the solution is effective
  4. Confidence: the solution is believed to be the right one
• Metacognitive Assessments: what you know about what you know

  • is not accurate for insight problems
• Non-Insight Problem: solving comes with awareness

  • require incremental steps and conscious application of strategies
  • are more aware of how we're solving the problem
• Insight Problem: solving feels like it happens suddenly
• Experts focus on the more global, holistic elements of a problem

  • likely because they spend more time defining what's more relevant & important than non-experts
• There are NO anatomical brain differences between experts and non-experts

  • experts recruit more brain areas that process information related to their expertise
• Experts chunk information when encoding based on prior knowledge
• Problem space: refers to how a problem is represented, including the goal to be reached and the various ways of transforming the given situation into the solution

  • The problem space includes all the steps involved in solving a problem
  • Including the goal to be reached and the various ways of transforming the given situation - subgoals