COGSCI 1 Lecture 17 - Problem Solving

Problem Solving

Studies have found that college education improves people’s problem solving/reasoning ability

• Ability to reason is developed through learning about rules of reasoning

• Those with a college education have been found to handle stress better than those who have not gone to college

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees a solution to a particular problem

Heuristic

A rule-of-thumb strategy that allows one to reduce the number of operations that are tried in solving a problem

Means-end Heuristic

divide problem into sub-problems and try to reduce difference between initial state and goal state for each of sub-problems

Analogy Approach

problem solving is often a matter of finding a useful analogy between the present problem or situation and some other problem or situation with which you are more familiar

Foster Insight

finding a solution is a matter of perceptual reorganization — any conditions that would allow your thought and perceptual processes to run more freely might help

Confirmation Bias

tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions

Watson Card Problem

• Statement: “If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has a even number on the other side”

  • Which card or cards would you need to turn over in order to find out whether this rule holds?

• Accuracy is enhanced when task describes a concrete social situation

• 73% of students who tried drinking-age problem made correct selections, as opposed to 0% in the standard, abstract form of task

Deontic Conditionals

Relating to permissions, prohibitions etc

• Research has found that humans tend to be much better at reasoning with deontic conditionals

Cheater Detection Module (Cosmides and Tooby)

Theory that when we solve problems with deontic conditionals, we are using a specialized module for monitoring social exchanges and detecting cheaters

Confirmation Bias and Social Judgements

Study in which participants asked to interview other student to determine if interviewee was an introvert or extravert

• Participants who tested for extraversion tended to find
  interviewees extraverted and vice versa because of tendency
  to ask questions that confirmed traits

Rosenhan Study

• Confirmation bias may have important implications for medical diagnosis/psychotherapy

  • Therapist may form a less than accurate first impression of a patient and then only ask questions geared toward confirming that view

Mental Set

tendency to approach a problem in a particular way; especially a way that has been successful in the past but may not be helpful in solving a new problem

Functional Fixedness

Tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

Insight

A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem

• Contrasts with strategy-based solutions

Insight Problems

Solved when answer appears suddenly

Non-insight problems

Solved gradually

Neural Basis of Insight

Associated with the right cerebral hemisphere

• EEG shows a burst of high-frequency gamma-band EEG activity over the right anterior temporal lobe

• fMRI shows a corresponding