Cog: Problem solving and creativity

Problem solving

• used when you want to reach a certain goal, but the solution is not immediately obvious

• missing information and/or obstacles block the path

Components of a problem

• initial state

  • Point A

• goal state

  • Point B

• Obstacles

  • What comes in-between

understanding the problem

• construct a well-organized mental representation of the problem

• based on the information provided in the problem and previous experience

Paying attention to important information

• identify and attend to the most relevant information

• effective problem solvers read the description of a problem very carefully, paying particular attention to inconsistencies

  • bad decisions sometimes come from working/deciding too fast

Methods of representing a problem

• problem representation

  • how you represent the problem in your mind

• working-memory capacity

  • if you can keep a lot of things online at once, do not need to worry

• symbols

  • algebra, translating words into symbols

  • oversimplification

    • do not want to leave out important pieces

• matrices

  • matrix- grid showing all possible combinations of items

  • most useful for complex, stable, categorical information

Diagrams

• instructions for assembling objects

• represent abstract information in a concrete fashion

• reduce large amount of complicated information into a concrete form

• hierarchical tree diagram

• Graphs

Situated Cognition approach

• We often use helpful information in our immediate environment to create spatial representations; importance of external situation/context.

  • You kind of had to be there… taking in all of the situation to solve a problem

• Our ability to solve a problem is tied into the specific physical and social context in which we learned to solve that problem.

• An abstract intelligence test often fails to reveal how competent a person would be in solving problems in real-life settings.

• Problem solving doesn’t only take place inside a person’s head.

• Real life provides info needed to solve complicated problems.

• Other people also provide information.

  • Adjusting and problem-solving on the fly based off of the situation and the context

• implications for education

• ecological validity

  • If it is applicable to a setting outside of a lab in the real-world

Embodied Cognition approach

• We often use our own body and our own motor actions, in order to express our abstract thoughts and knowledge; importance of own body as context.

• Embodied Cognition

  • People solve certain kinds of problems more quickly or more accurately if allowed to move parts of their bodies.

    • Motor patterns used to solve a problem

  • mental-rotation tasks

    • Question about turning shapes

  • swinging rope problem

    • If you can get the rope to swing, you can get further than you previously thought you could to solve a problem

Problem-solving strategies

• algorithm

• exhaustive search

• heuristic/general rule

• analogy approach

Algorithm

• always produces a solution; sometimes inefficient

  • Not as quick; tend to do short cuts

  • Will do algorithm if decision comes with heavy cost (ex: buying a house)

Exhaustive search

try all possible answers

Heuristic- General rule

• strategy in which you ignore some alternatives and explore only those alternatives that seem especially likely to produce a solution

  • See if you could do something on your own (building a coffee machine versus a couch; less daunting)

  • Will use heuristic when faced with a problem you are familiar with, when you are stressed (be careful of that)

    • Scams rush time so that you take short cuts in your decision making

  • weigh the costs and benefits of using heuristics

The analogy approach

• using a solution to a similar, earlier problem to help in solving a new problem

• Engineers, cross-cultural research, creative breakthroughs

The structure of the analogy approach

• Determining the real problem

• Often distracted by surface features

• Need to focus on structural features

• Often failure to see analogies or solving

A problem in a new setting

• Cancer and war

  • Come at the castle from all sides

  • Hit cancer from all sides avoiding damaging the important tissues with the chemo

• Need to sit back and figure out how problem solving strategies relate and work for different scenarios

Factors that Encourage Appropriate Use of Analogies

• overcoming the influence of context

• trying several structurally similar problems before the target problem

  • Making connections: using creativity

• training to sort problems into categories based on structural similarities

  • Watson study and sport injury

    • Extinction (extinguish relationships)

      • Separate the association between two variables

      • Separating the injury from the technique or from the sport

        • Relationship of learned pain and fear to movement/context

The Means– Ends Heuristic

• important components

  • 1. divide the problem into subproblems

    • With each subproblem, how are you getting there

  • 2. try to reduce the difference between the initial state and the goal state for each of the subproblems

• identify the “ends” you want and then figure out the “means” to reach them

  • Doesn’t seem as daunting when you break it down

• one of the most effective and flexible problem-solving strategiesR

Research on the Means-Ends Heuristic

• People pause at points in the problem when they begin to tackle a subproblem and need to organize a sequence of moves.

• Working memory is active during planning.

• Sometimes the correct solution requires moving backward, temporarily increasing the distance to the goal.

  • Ex: to go forward, need to take a step back

• People are reluctant to move away from their goal state.

The Hill-Climbing Heuristic

• When you reach a choice point, choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly toward your goal.

• useful when only the immediate next step can be seen; not enough information about alternatives

  • Could miss the other ways you could have gone about achieving goal

• The less direct alternative may have greater long-term benefits.

• doesn’t guarantee the goal will be reached

• encourages short-term goals, rather than long-term solutions

  • Getting a job right out of high school (just want to make money and not do a side-ways route)

Factors that influence problem solving

• Mental set

• functional fixedness

• insight versus noninsight problems

Factors that influence problem solving: Mental Set

• using the same solution from previous problems, even though the problem could be solved by a different, easier method

  • Mindset gets rigid, limit you creativity and finding new ways to solve problems

• close mind prematurely; stop thinking

  • Self-imposed limitations; at least let your head go there, does not hurt to think about it

  • Barriers can come from upbringing, culture, experience, etc.

    • Ex: deciding to live in a bus

• breaking mental set associated with greater change in event-related brain potentials (ERPs)

• overactive top-down processing

• Fixed mindset

Factors that influence problem solving: Functional Fixedness

• assign stable uses to an object

  • Hard time seeing different, creative ways to use objects

• fail to think about the features of the object that might be useful in helping solve a problem

• overactive top-down processing

• Duncker’s candle problem

  • Have them figure out how to put up candle when given tacks in the box

  • Many of them thought the box could not be used (already holding the tacks); until the tacks were dumped out of the box

Insight Problem

• seems impossible until sudden solution appears; light bulb, “aha”

  • Mentally stuck and then doing something different; and solutions randomly comes to mind

Noninsight problem

• gradual solution

  • Data gathering, try different alternatives, heuristics, etc.

The Nature of Insight

• The Nature of Insight

  • begin with inappropriate assumptions that need to be discarded

  • inappropriate use of top-down processing

    • Have to get away from how we thought of it before

Metacognition during Problem Solving

• Janet Metcalfe (1986)—People’s confidence builds gradually for noninsight problems, but shows a sudden leap in solving insight problems.

• A stranger approached a museum curator and offered him an ancient bronze coin. The coin had an authentic appearance and was marked with the date 544 B.C. The curator had happily made acquisitions from suspicious sources before, but this time he promptly called the police and had the stranger arrested. Why? 

  •  If they let themselves question whether or not it was correct, then got the answer

• Problem solvers typically report a dramatic increase in their confidence when they believe they have located the correct solution to an insight problem.

Advice about Problem Solving

• think about previous experience with similar problems

• consider whether the problem might require insight.

• If a problem seems to be an insight problem:

  • try to represent the problem in a different way

  • think about a different meaning for an ambiguous word

  • draw sketches, work with physical objects, use gestures

  • be willing to think “outside the box”

Creativity

• finding solutions that are novel and useful

• Psychologists disagree as to whether creativity involves ordinary thinking or exceptional people.

Guilford’s Classic Approach to Creativity

• divergent production—measure creativity in terms of the number of different responses made to a test item

  • How many different approaches to a problem

• Divergent Production Tests

  • moderate correlations between divergent production test scores and other judgments of creativity

  • number of solutions doesn’t indicate novelty and/or usefulness

The Nature of Creativity

• 1. Creativity includes convergent thinking as well as divergent thinking. (In contrast, convergent production asks test-takers to supply a single, best response.)

  • Kids are not as locked in in thinking

  • Come at things from a new angle

• 2. Creativity is associated with many regions within the left hemisphere as well as many regions within the right brain. (tend to hear it is from right brain but it is from both)

• 3. Creativity can occur when we use focused attention (conscious attention) as well as defocused attention (altered states of consciousness).

  • Research on creativity is limited; not really measurable

  • Creativity can show up in many domains

Extrinsic Motivation and creativity

• extrinsic motivation—desire to work on a task to earn a promised reward

  • People often produce less creative projects if working on these projects for external reasons.

  • Creativity can be enhanced if the extrinsic factors provide useful feedback.

Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity

• People more likely to be creative when working on a task that they truly enjoy.

• The more self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation the better the work produced.