PROBLEM SOLVING

• Problem-solving


  The process of finding a solution to a problem
• Creativity


  The process of creating something that is original and worthwhile
• Creativity


  • May refer to the product, the person/personality creating the product, the process, the environment, or a synthesis of all of these
• Problem-solving cycle


  1. Problem representation

  2. Strategy formation

  3. Implementation

  4. Monitoring and evaluation

  
• Problem representation


  The importance of determining what information is relevant and what information is irrelevant
• Strategy formation


  1. Analysis (breaking into subgoals)

  2. Divergent thinking (generate multiple solutions)

  3. Convergent thinking (narrow down to best answer)
• Types of problems


  • Well-structured problems (clear path to solution)
  • Ill-structured problems (dimensions not specified or easy to infer)
• Errors people often make in well-structured problems:
• Initial state


  Current situation, define the problem
• Goal state


  Desired objective
• Obstacles


  Choices made about limitations, strategy choices, limited resources
• Algorithms


  Systematic procedure guaranteed to find a solution
• Heuristics


  Useful rule of thumb based on experience, efficient but does not guarantee a correct solution
• Problem space


  All possible actions that can be applied to a problem, consists of states and operators
• Gestaltist view of insight: Sudden rearrangement of elements creates "insight", productive thinking goes beyond previously learned associations
• Neural activity associated with insight: Right hippocampus active during problem-solving, spike in right anterior temporal lobe just before insight
• Mental set


  Seeing a problem in a particular way instead of other plausible ways due to experience or context
• Functional fixedness


  Inability to assign new functions and roles to elements of a problem
• Negative transfer


  Solving prior problem makes it more difficult to solve later problem
• Positive transfer


  Solving earlier problem helps to solve later problem
• Incubation


  Time away from a problem provides new insights or otherwise facilitates the problem-solving process
• Frontal lobe active in problem-solving, prefrontal cortex active in planning, greater bilateral prefrontal activation with incorrect than correct responses, both problem-solving and planning ability decline following traumatic brain injury
• Expertise


  Not a general ability, experts have extensive knowledge that is used to organize, represent, and interpret information, affecting their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems
• Experts differ from novices: Better schemas, well-organized knowledge in specific domain, less time to set up problem, select more appropriate strategies, faster at solving problems, more accurate
• Expertise requires acquired skill, but some performance is not explainable by knowledge level alone
• The process approach to creativity

  Nothing innately special about people, hard work and dedication leads to creativity
• The personality approach to creativity

  Way of looking at things, intrinsic motivation is important