Problem Solving

• Problem Solving

  How to solve problems that arise in your relationships with other people
• Problem

  There is a problem when a goal is not immediately able to be achieved
• Problem-solving

  The identification and selection of solutions to the problem

  
• Problem-solving

  • Directed thinking towards a goal solution
  • The task is to choose the best process that will lead to a goal
• Four Characteristics of Problem Solving

  • Problem solving is goal directed
  • It involves a series of operations
  • It involves cognitive processes
  • It involves sub-goal decomposition - reaching overall goal requires reaching sub-goals

  
• 3 Steps in Problem Solving

  1. Representing or defining exactly what the problem is to solve

  2. Generating possible ways of solving the problem and choosing the best solution

  3. Evaluating the solution – is it the best solution?
• The Problem-Solving Cycle

  1. Problem identification: Do we actually have a problem?

  2. Problem definition and representation: What exactly is our problem?

  3. Strategy formulation: How can we solve the problem?

  4. Organization of information: How do the various pieces of information in the problem fit together?

  5. Resource allocation: How much time, effort, money, etc., should I put into this problem?

  6. Monitoring: Am I on track as I proceed to solve the problem?

  7. Evaluation: Did I solve the problem correctly?

  
• Role of emotions in problem-solving cycle

  Our emotions can influence how we implement the problem-solving cycle
• Types of Problems

  • Well-structured problems - have clear paths to solutions
  • Ill-structured problems - lack clear paths to solutions
• Well-structured problem

  • How do you find the area of a parallelogram?
• Ill-structured problem

  • How do you decide on which house to buy if each of the potential houses in which you are interested has advantages and disadvantages?
• The Tower of Hanoi experiment is an example of a well-defined problem
• Problem-Solving Strategies

  A plan of action to find a solution
• Trial and Error

  The most commonly used problem-solving strategy, despite not being the most-time efficient
• Well-Structured Problems

  These problems have clear paths, but not necessarily easy paths, to their solutions
• Algorithms

  Step-by-step instructions used to achieve a desired outcome, a mathematical formula or other procedure that guarantees a correct solution if followed correctly
• Heuristics

  Choosing a strategy that looks like it will work and trying it - a short cut sometimes called a problem solving protocol
• Types of Heuristics

  • Working forward - start at the beginning and try to solve the problem from the start to the finish
  • Working backwards - start at the end and try to work backward from there
  • Hill climbing heuristic - follow the route that seems to get you closer to the goal
  • Means-ends analysis - compare the current situation to the end goal and ask what means do I have to get from here to there?
  • Generate and Test - generate alternative courses of action and then test whether each one will work
• Anchoring Heuristics

  Using an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments
• There is a relationship between working-memory capacity and the ability to solve analytic problems
• Ill-structured Problems

  Problems that have no clear, readily available paths to solution
• Insight

  A distinctive and sudden understanding of a problem or of a strategy that aids in solving a problem, involving the reconceptualisation of a problem/strategy in a totally new way
• Insight problems require seeing a problem in a novel way, restructuring the representation of the problem to solve it
• Insight

  • May feel as sudden, but they are often the result of much prior thought and hard work
  • Detecting and combining relevant old and new information to gain a novel view of a problem or of its solution
• Sleep has been shown to increase the likelihood that an insight will be produced
• The right hemisphere has a special role in insight processes, and the right hippocampus is critical in the formation of an insightful solution
• Mental Set

  A strategy that has worked in the past but that does not work for a particular problem that needs to be solved in the present
• Functional Fixedness

  The inability to see that something that is known to have a particular use also may be used for serving other purposes
• Negative Transfer

  Solving an earlier problem makes it harder to solve a later one
• Positive Transfer

  The solution of an earlier problem makes it easier to solve a new problem
• Analogies

  Identifying the relationship between two concepts or two problems to solve
• Incubation

  Laying a problem to rest for a while and then returning to it, allowing subconscious work to continue on the problem while it is consciously ignored
• Common Errors in Problem Solving

  • Inaccuracies in reading
  • Inaccuracy in thinking
  • Weakness in problem analysis
  • Lack of perseverance
• Proficient Problem Solvers

  • Have a positive attitude - confident
  • Great concern for accuracy
  • Break problems into parts that can be accomplished
  • Avoid guessing and jumping to conclusions
  • More active - do more things and put in more effort
• Improving Problem Solving Ability

  • Increase knowledge base
  • Automate some components through expertise
  • Follow a systematic plan of attack
  • Draw inferences from information given and memory
  • If solution not obvious look at possible heuristics
  • Reformulate problem - have you defined the problem correctly
  • Draw a picture