Week 10: Problem Solving

• Problem-Solving


  Trying to craft intelligent response using limited information and own general knowledge
• Difference between well-defined and ill-defined problems?

  Method of solving may be clear or unclear depending on whether it is well-defined or ill-defined.
• What is the difference between knowledge-rich and knowledge-lean problems?

  Describe the extent to which prior facts are needed to answer the problem. Knowledge-rich if it requires a lot of knowledge and knowledge-lean if it requires little prior knowledge.
• Insight

  Approach used to problem solve where PP imagines a scenario mentally allowing a sudden solution.
• Representational Change Theory

  Explains how insight. First, mental representation of a problem is formed by accessing mental operators and then an impasse when mental representation is wrong, causing a change in mental representation.
• How do we change mental representations?

  Relax constraints, reinterpreting parts of the problem and elaborate by adding new information.
• According to Newell and Simon, why do we use heuristics to solve problems?

  Due to hill climbing and means-ends analysis.
• What is hill climbing ?

  An example of heuristic is where PP work towards short-term goals without knowing the next move and there is no clear understanding of the problem strategy.
• What is means-ends analysis?

  PP has more awareness on how to do problem by using subgoals to work it out.
• Meta reasoning

  Methods used to monitor progress during problem-solving which influences which methods to use.
• Does means-ends analysis always work?

  No, when doing a blindfolded finger maze with goal information, PP were impaired compared to controls.
• Analogue Problem Solving?

  Solving novel problems by seeing similarities especially structural similarities
• Types of analogue problem-solving similarities?

  Superficial, structural and procedural.
• Superficial similarity?

  Solution irrelevant details shared by both problems
• Structural similarity

  Causal relations between problem components
• Procedural similarity


  Procedures for solution into actions is shared.
• Incubation


  Taking time away from problem
• Mental Set


  Solving is misled by previous experience
• Functional Fixedness


  A specific semantic type of mental set
• What brain area shows evidence that insight is a separate process?

  Prefrontal cortex
• Aside from neuroimaging, what study showed that there is a separate insight process?


  Webb et al. 2016 - More aha experiences for insight problems than non-insight problems.

  Warmth is a gradual feeling of non-insight and sudden in insight problems.
• Counter point to Webb's Aha experience study findings?

  Aha experiences are associated with incorrect solutions
• Describe how incubation helps/facilitates insight.


  R: incubation has stronger effects on creative problems than visual or linguistic problems

  R: prep time beforehand causes stronger incubation as impasse is reached quicker and more likely to exhaust search in one domain of knowledge

  Allows forgetting of misleading info
• Evidence showing that mental set inhibits insight?

  Luchins - Water Jar - PP trained in complex problems struggled with easier problems
• Evidence showing functional fixedness inhibits problem-solving?

  R1: When attaching candle to wall to avoid dripping, PP missed a box could be used as a holder and instead fixated on a box being a container

  R2: Deciding object can be used for one purpose reduces chances of being used for another
• What is planning for problem-solving?

  Solving problems using PFC / prefrontal cortex
• What games are used to illustrate planning in problem-solving?

  Tower of Hanoi and Tower of London
• Describe neuroimaging evidence for planning on complex problems? (abbrev.)

  • R1: PFC damage PP struggled with ToH and water-jar problems as they make moves away from the goal
  • R2: Higher activation of PFC in ToL task
  • CP: ID in planning ability like number of errors shown in ToH
• Evidence for progress monitoring in problem-solving?

  Water Jar - Some tasks unsolvable - PP more quicker to give up when the problem had more intermediate moves to consider (easier to monitor if its unsolvable), but if it had more possible moves it would take longer to give up as it is harder to monitor
• Factors that affect insight?

  Mental set, functional fixation and incubation.
• What is Gick and Holyoak's study about?


  Analogue problem solving - When told analogy helped solving, higher % solved problem rather when analogue was presented. Lack of superficial similarity hindered solution transfer.
• Factors and strategies that improve analogical problem solving?


  Good working memory, noticing similarities and differences in problem structure and prompting PP to use analogies.
• How does PFC and left rostrolateral PFC play in analogical problem-solving?

  PFC allows PP to avoid distractors as PP with PFC brain damage are more likely to pick distractors.