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25 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Problem
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When there is an obstacle between a present state and goal and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle.
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Distinguish between well defined and ill-defined problems?
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Well defined problems usually have a single correct answer that has certain procedures that when applied properly will lead to a correct answer --> whereas an ill-defined problem does not necessarily have one single correct answer and the procedures used to arrive at a correct answer are often unclear.
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What is the basic principle behind the Gestalt approach to problem solving?
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A perceptual approach about how people represent a problem in their minds and how problem solving involves reorganizing or restructuring of this representation in the mind.
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Describe how the circle radius problem illustrates the principle behind the Gestalt approach to problem solving?
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The circle radius problem is solved once someone realizes that the x in the rectangle is the same length as the radius. Getting to this point requires someone to change the problem's representation in their mind a process known as restructuring; the second principle in the Gestalt approach to problem solving.
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Fixation
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The tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution.
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Functional Fixedness
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Restricting the use of an object to its familiar functions
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Describe how the candle problem illustrates the principles behind the Gestalt approach to problem solving?
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The candle problem involves participants trying to mount a candle so the wax will not drip on the floor while burning. They are given some candles, tacks and matches with a matchbox (one group with the matches in the box, the other group with the matches outside the box).
Those who were given the matchbox and matches separately were able to overcome the functional fixedness of the box as a container and solve the problem faster using the box as a stand. This illustrates the second step to the Gestalt approach to problem solving which is being able to restructure the problem. |
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Describe the water jug problem and what aspired?
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Participants are given three jugs of different capacities and are required to use these jugs to measure out a specific quantity of water. They split the participants into two groups. ONe group the mental set group, were instructed to do questions 1 through 8 in order. This created a set schema on how to answer later problems because they know their method work after practice. The other group the non-mental set group were only given problems 7 and 8 to complete. The times in group 2 (non-mental set group) were faster than groups 1 when it came to answering problems 7 and 8.
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How does water jug problem illustrate the principles behind the Gestalt approach to problem solving?
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This illustrates that the mental set group were consistently representing the problems in a specific way in their minds because of their prior knowledge. This prevented them from realizing a simpler method. The no mental set group showed that they were capable of reorganizing the representation of problems 7 and 8 an thus were able to come up with simpler ways to solve them.
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What problem is similar to the Candle Problem and why?
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The two sting problem because it shows how difficult it can be to overcome a mental set; a preconceived notion about how to approach a notion seen with many experts. Often some type of aid or hint is required to surpass the fixed state.
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What is insight and how does it usually come about?
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The sudden realization of a problems solution.
Usually brought on by reorganizing or restructuring a problem in the mind. |
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What is the evidence that insight, does in fact, occur as people are solving problems?
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An experiment that establishes the differences between insight problems and non-insight problems establishes that insight does in fact occur. The general idea behind their experiment was that there should be a difference in how people feel when working towards a solution in these two types of problems. They predicted that participants working on an insight problem should not be very good at predicting how near they are to a solution and those working on non-insight problems, involving methodological steps would be more likely to know when they were getting closer to the solution.
There results showed that warmth ratings on how close people felt towards solving problems remained low until 2-3 sec before solving an insight problem while those working on non-insight problems felt a gradual increase in warmth towards resolving their problem, thus supporting the experimenters hypothesis. |
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Describe Newell and Simon’s approach to problem solving in which “search plays a central role.”
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This approach to problem solving is seen as a search process that occurs between the posing of the problem and it’s solution. How does one get from an initial state to a goal state.
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Initial State
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Condition at the beginning of a problem
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Goal state
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The solution to the problem
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Means-end Analysis
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A process that directs the search by working on reducing the difference between the initial and goal states through a sequence of steps.
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Sub-goals
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Desired intermediate states that get us closer to our goal state, which is achieved by applying a number of different operations (actions).
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Problem Space
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The initial, goal state and ALL the possible intermediate states for a particular problem.
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What is the Tower of Hanoi problem
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The Tower of Hanoi problem has an initial state of three different sized discs stacked on a left peg arranged in height order. The goal state of the problem is to get these discs stacked on a right peg in the same height order. However there are rules that limit how you can complete the problem which restrict the operations (actions) you are allowed to employ. They are; 1 you can only move one disc at a time, 2 You can move a disc only when there are no discs on top of it and 3 a larger disc cannot be placed on top of a smaller disc.
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How does means-end analysis as applied to the Tower of Hanoi problem illustrate Newell and Simon’s approach?
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It does so displaying an initial state and a goal state and that to get to the goal state, sub-goals like freeing up the medium sized peg and large peg to move them onto the right peg, must be achieved first. Actions or operators to freeing up the pegs are limited by the rules of the Tower of Hanoi problem.
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What is the acrobat problem?
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The acrobat problem involves three acrobats of different sizes (one 40 pounds, 200 and large 400). Their trick is to get themselves in size order on the pegs from an initial state of being jumbled in the order of medium, large, small. This was a difficult task because they could only move one at a time, without a larger acrobat going on top of a smaller acrobat. And an acrobat may not jump if there is another one on top of them. On average it took participants an average of 5.63 minutes to solve this problem.
The reverse acrobat problem is the same except in this scenario smaller acrobats cannot stand on top of a larger one, but larger ones must stand on top of smaller ones. Participants in this group took an average of 9.52 minutes to solve the reverse acrobat problem. |
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How does the acrobat problem illustrate the way a problem is stated can affect a persons ability to solve the problem?
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This demonstrates that to in order to solve a problem it is important that the problem is consistent with our knowledge of the real world or at least previous schema’s. It also demonstrates that when it comes to problem solving it is easier when we can visualize a problem which is harder to do w/ the reverse acrobat problem, an explanation to the longer time.
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How does the mutilated checkerboard experiment illustrate the way a problem is stated can affect a persons ability to solve the problem?
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Participants in the bread and butter group solve the problem twice as fast as the blank board and other board groups because the way their board was presented emphasized the differences between the adjoining squares. This allowed them to notice faster that if 2 tiles that were the same were removed and 2 tiles that were covered were different they would not be able to completely cover the board by the 31 dominos.
This shows again that when a problem is presented in a way that makes it easier to make connections to previous schemas then a problem is more likely to be solved in a timely fashion. |
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Think aloud protocol
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When participants are asked to say out loud what they are thinking while doing a problem. They are instructed not to describe what they are doing but to verbalize new thoughts as they occur.
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What does the think aloud protocol allow experimenters to do?
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It allows for the documentation of how the person perceived elements of the problem, ie how they restructured it in their minds acc. The gestalt approach.
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