Problem Solving

Front 1

Define problem.

Back 1

A situation in which there is an obstacle between a present state and a goal state and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle.

Front 2

Define well-defined problem.

Back 2

A problem that has a correct answer. There are usually procedures that, when applied correctly, will lead to a solution.

Front 3

Define ill-defined problem.

Back 3

A problem in which it is difficult to specify a clear goal state and specific operators. Many real-life problems are ill-defined problems.

Front 4

Problem solving, for theGestalt psychologists, was about (1) how people ________ a problem in theirmind and (2) how solving a problem involves a ____________ or ___________ of this __________.

Back 4

represent; reorganization; restructuring; representation

Front 5

Give an example illustrating how people can represent a problem in their mind differently than others.

Back 5

Crossword

- Forexample, as people try to solve this problem, they may choose to represent onlya small part of the puzzle at a time. Some people might focus on filling in horizontalwords and then use these words to help determine the vertical words.Others might pick one corner of the puzzle and search in their mind for bothverticals and horizontals that fi t together.

- Each of these ways of going aboutsolving the problem involves a different way of representing it in the mind.

Front 6

Define restructuring.

Back 6

The process of changing a problem’s representation. According to the Gestalt psychologists, restructuring is the key mechanism of problem solving

Front 7

What is insight, according to Gestalt psychologists?

Back 7

The sudden realization of a problem's solution.

Front 8

What does the solution to most of the problems posed by Gestalt psychologists involve?

Back 8

Suddenly discovering a crucial element that leads to the solution (insight).

Front 9

Describe the hypothesis of Metcalfe and Wiebe's (1987) experiment designed to distinguishbetween insight problems and noninsight problems.

Back 9

They predicted that participants working on an insight problem should not be very good at predicting how near they are to a solution. Participants working on a noninsight problem would be more likely to know when they are getting closer to thesolution.

Front 10

Describe the procedure used in Metcalfe and Wiebe's (1987) experiment.

Back 10

Metcalfe and Wiebe gave participants insight problems and noninsight problems and asked them to make“warmth” judgments every 15 seconds as they were working on the problems. Ratings closer to “hot” (7 on a 7-point scale) indicated that they believed they were getting closeto a solution; ratings closer to “cold” (1 on the scale) indicated that they felt that theywere far from a solution.

Front 11

Describe the results of Metcalfe and Wiebe's (1987) experiment.

Back 11

For the insight problems, warmth ratings remain lowat 2 or 3 until just before the problem is solved.

For the algebra problems, the ratings gradually increased until the problem was solved.

Front 12

What is fixation?

Back 12

In problem solving, people's tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at the solution.

Front 13

Define functional fixedness.

Back 13

An effect that occurs when the ideas a person has about an object's function inhibit the person's ability to use the object for a different function.

Front 14

What is the candle problem?

Back 14

A problem, first described by Duncker, in which a person is given a number of objects and is given the task of mounting a candle on a wall so that it can burn without dripping wax on the floor.

Front 15

Describe the two conditions in Duncker's candle problem.

Back 15

One group of participants was presented with small cardboard boxes containing the materials (candles, tacks, and matches).

The other group was presented with the same materials, but outside the boxes, so the boxes were empty.

Front 16

Describe the results of Duncker's candle problem.

Back 16

The group thathad been presented with the boxes as containers found the problem more difficultthan did the group that was presented with empty boxes.

Front 17

What is the two-string problem?

Back 17

A problem first described by Maier in which a person is given the task of attaching two strings together that are too far apart to be reached at the same time. This task was devised to illustrate the operation of functional fixedness.

Front 18

What was the solution to the two-string problem?

Back 18

Participants needed to tie the pliers to one of the strings to create a pendulum, which could then be swung to within the person’s reach.

Front 19

Describe the results of Maier's (1931) two-string problem.

Back 19

60 percent of the participants did not solve the problem because they focused on the usual function of pliers and didnot think of using them as a weight.

Front 20

What happened when Maier set the string into motion by“accidentally” brushing against it?

Interpret this result.

Back 20

23 of 37 participants who hadn’t solved the problemafter 10 minutes proceeded to solve it within 60 seconds.

Seeing the string swingingfrom side to side apparently triggered the insight that the pliers could be used as a weight to create a pendulum. In Gestalt terms, the solution to the problem occurred once the participants restructured their representation of how to achieve the solution (get the strings to swing fromside to side) and their representation of the function of the pliers (they can be used as a weight to create a pendulum).

Front 21

1) What is a mental set?

2) Can this affect problem solving?

Back 21

1) A preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person's experience or what has worked in the past.

2) Yes

Front 22

Name and briefly describe an experiment demonstrating the effects of mental sets in problem solving.

Back 22

Water-jug problem

- Each problem specifies the capacities of jugs A, B, and C, and a final desired quantity.

- The task is to use the jugs to measure out the final quantity.

- All problems can be solved using the same pattern of pourings, but there are more efficient ways to solve 7 and 8.

Front 23

Describe the two conditions in the water-jug problem.

Back 23

Some participants began with problem 1 and did each problem in sequence through problem 8 (the mental set group).

Other participants solved only problems 7 and 8 (the no mental set group).

Front 24

Describe the results of the water-jug problem.

Back 24

All of the participantsin the no mental set group used the shorter solution for problems 7 and 8, whereas only 23 percent in the mental set group used this solutionfor these problems.

Front 25

Interpret the results of the water-jug problem.

Back 25

The mental set created by solving problems 1 to 6 inhibited them from using the simpler solution for 7 and 8.

Front 26

Newell and Simon described problemsolving as a _______ that occurs between the posing of the ________ and its ________.

Back 26

search; problem; solution

Front 27

Describe the Tower of Hanoi problem.

Back 27

A problem involving moving discs from one set of pegs to another. It has been used to illustrate the process involved in means-end analysis.

Front 28

In their Tower of Hanoi problem, Newell and Simon defined problems in terms of an______ state and a ______ state.

Back 28

initial; goal

Front 29

Differentiate between the initial state and the goal state.

Back 29

Initial state: conditions at the beginning of the problem.

Goal state: the solution to the problem.

Front 30

What was the initial and goal state in the Tower of Hanoi problem.

Back 30

Initial state: three discs stacked on the leftpeg

Goal state: these discs stacked on the right peg.

Front 31

In addition to specifying initial and goal states of a problem, Newell and Simon also introduced theidea of _________ —actions that take the problem from one state to another.

Back 31

operators

Front 32

Operators are usuallygoverned by rules.

Name the three rules in the Tower of Hanoi problem.

Back 32

1. Discs are moved one at a time from one peg to another.

2. A disc can be moved only when there are no discs on top of it.

3. A larger disc can never be placed on top of a smaller disc.

Front 33

Newell andSimon conceived of problem solving as involving a sequence of choices of steps, witheach step creating an ___________. Thus, a problem starts with an initial state,continues through a number of _________, and finally reaches the goal state.The initial state, goal state, and all the possible intermediate states for a particularproblem is called the ____________.

Back 33

intermediate state; intermediate states; problem space

Front 34

According to Newell and Simon, the person has to search theproblem space to find a solution.

Name and define one way to direct the search.

Back 34

Means-end analysis: A problem-solving strategy that seeks to reduce the difference between the initial and goal states. This is achieved by creating subgoals, intermediate states that are closer to the goal.

Front 35

What is a subgoal?

Back 35

In the means-end analysis approach to problem solving, intermediate states that move the process of solution closer to the goal.

Front 36

How a problem is stated can affect its difficulty.

Name two experiments that demonstrate this.

Back 36

1) Acrobat problem

2) Reverse acrobat problem

Front 37

Describe the acrobat problem.

Back 37

A problem involving acrobats that is similar to the Tower of Hanoi problem. Used to illustrate how the way a problem is stated can influence its difficulty.

Front 38

The acrobat problem can be solved by making just _____ moves. K. Kotovsky and coworkers (1985) foundthat it took their participants an average of _____ minutes to solve this problem.

Back 38

5; 5.63

Front 39

Describe the reverse acrobat problem.

Back 39

The reverse acrobat problem is the same as the acrobat problem, except that rule 4 above was changed to state that a smaller acrobat cannot stand on a larger one.

Front 40

Describe the results of the reverse acrobat problem.

Back 40

Although this version of the problem can be solved in the same number of steps as the original acrobat problem, Kotovsky’s participants took an averageof 9.51 minutes to solve the reverse acrobat problem.

Front 41

Give some possible reasons for why the reverse acrobat problem was more difficult that the acrobat problem.

Back 41

One possibility is thatthe idea of a 400-pound acrobat standing on the shoulders of a 40-pound acrobat is notconsistent with our knowledge of the real world, in which it would be highly unlikely that the small acrobat could support the large one.

In addition, it may be harder to visualize larger acrobats on top of smaller ones, which would make the problem more difficult by increasing the load on the problem-solver’s memory.

Front 42

Overall, what do the results of the reverse acrobat experiment suggest?

Back 42

To understand problem solving, we need to go beyond analyzing the structure of the problem space.

Front 43

1) Describe the mutilated checkerboard problem.

2) What has this problem been used for?

Back 43

1) A checkerboard consists of 64 squares. These 64 squares can be completely covered by placing 32 dominos on the board so that each domino covers two squares. If we eliminate two cornersof the checkerboard, can we now cover the remaining squares with31 dominos? A solution would be either a “yes” or “no” answer plus a statement of the rationale behind your answer.

2) To study how the statement of a problem influences a person’s ability to reach a solution.

Front 44

Describe the four conditions in the mutilated checkerboard problem.

Back 44

(1) blank—a board with all blank squares

(2) color—alternating black and pink squares as might appear on a regular checkerboard

(3) black and pink—the words black and pink on the board

(4) bread andbutter—the words bread and butter on the board

Front 45

What was the key to solving the mutilated checkerboard problem?

Back 45

The key to solving the problem is to realize that when a domino is placed onthe board so it covers just two squares, it is always covering two squares that are different (pink and black, for example).

Front 46

Describe the results of the mutilated checkerboard problem.

Back 46

Participants who were presented boards that emphasized the difference between adjoining squares, found the problem tobe easier to solve. The bread-and-butter condition emphasized the difference the most, because bread and butter are very different but are also associated with eachother. The blank board had no informationabout the difference, because all squares were the same.

Participants in the bread-and-butter group solved the problem twice as fast as those in the blank group and required fewerhints.

The performanceof the color and the black-andpinkgroups fell between these two.

Front 47

Describe the think- aloud protocol.

Back 47

Participantsare 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.

One goal of a think-aloud protocol is to determine what information the person is attending to while solving a problem.

Front 48

By recording people’s thoughtprocesses as they are solving the problem, the think-aloud protocol reveals a _____ inhow the person perceived elements of the problem. This is very similar to the Gestaltpsychologists’ idea of ________.

Back 48

shift; restructuring

Front 49

1) What is an analogy?

2) Name the analogy that could have been used to make the mutilated checkerboard problem easier o solve.

Back 49

1) Making a comparison in order to show a similarity between two different things.

2) The Russian marriage problem

Front 50

What is analogical problem solving?

Back 50

The use of analogies as an aid to solving problems. Typically, a solution to one problem, the source problem, is presented that is analogous to the solution to another problem, the target problem.

Front 51

What is the starting point for much of the research on analogical problem solving?

Back 51

To first determine how well people can transfer their experience from solving one problem to solving another, similar problem.

Front 52

What is analogical transfer?

Back 52

The application of problem-solving strategies experienced in solving oneproblem to the solution of another, similar problem.

Front 53

To study analogical transfer, participants who are trying to solve a ______ problem are presented with a problem or a story, called the ______ problem or _______ story, that shares some similarities with the target problem and that illustrates away to solve the target problem.

Back 53

target; source; source

Front 54

Differentiate between a target problem and a source problem.

Back 54

Target problem: A problem to be solved. In analogical problem solving, solution of this problem can become easier when the problem-solver is exposed to an analogous source problem or story.

Source problem: A problem or story that is analogous to the target problem and which therefore provides information that can lead to a solution to the target problem.

Front 55

True or false:

Good analogicaltransfer always occurs.

Back 55

false

Front 56

What is the radiation problem?

Back 56

A problem posed by Duncker that involves finding a way to destroy atumor by radiation without damaging other organs in the body. This problem has been widely used to study the role of analogy in problem solving.

Front 57

True or false:

When Duncker originally posed the radiation problem,most of his participants could not solve it.

Back 57

True

Front 58

Name an analogy that was used in Gick and Holyoak's study to help participants solve the radiation problem.

Back 58

The fortress story

Front 59

Describe the results of Gick and Holyoak's study.

Back 59

Thirty percent of the people in this group were able to solve theradiation problem, an improvement over the 10 percent who solved the problem whenit was presented alone.

However, 70 percent of the participants were still unable to solve the problem, even after readingan analogous source story.

Front 60

What do the results of Gick and Holyoak's study suggest?

Back 60

Even when exposed to analogous source problems, most people do not make the connection between the source problem and the target problem.

Front 61

What happened when Gick and Holyoak told participants to think about the fortress story while solving the radiation problem?

Back 61

Their success rate more than doubled, to 75 percent

Front 62

Name the three steps to enological problem solving, according to Gick and Holyoak.

Back 62

1) Noticing that there is an analogous relationship between the source story andthe target problem.

2) Mapping the correspondence between the source story and the target problem.

3) Applying the mapping to generate a parallel solution to the target problem.

Front 63

What is one thing that makes noticing difficult?

Back 63

Surface features: specific elements that make up the problem (e.g., rays and the tumour).

Front 64

Name the problem that Holyoak and Koh created to test the idea that making the surface features more similar might help participantsnotice the relationship between the source story and the target story.

Back 64

the lightbulb problem

Front 65

The lightbulb problem is a problemwith surface features similar to the _______ problem.

Back 65

radiation

Front 66

Describe the procedure used in Holyoak and Koh's (1987) study on surface features.

Back 66

They used the radiation problem as the source problem and the lightbulb problem as the target problem.

Participants in one group were taught about the radiation problem and its solution in an introductory psychology class, just prior to being given the lightbulb problem.

Participants in the control group did not know about the radiation problem.

Front 67

Describe the results of Holyoak and Koh's (1987) study on surface features.

Back 67

81 percent of participants who knew about the radiation problem solved the lightbulb problem, but only 10 percent of the participants in the control group solved it.

Front 68

What was Holyoak and Koh's interpretation of the results of their study on surface features.

Back 68

Holyoak and Koh hypothesized that this excellent analogical transfer from the radiation problem to the lightbulb problem occurred because of the high surface similarity between rays (radiation problem) and lasers (lightbulb problem).

Front 69

What are structural features?

Back 69

The underlying principle that governs the solution

Front 70

Analogical transfer is better when the _______ features of the source andtarget problems are more similar.

Back 70

structural

Front 71

What is analogical encoding?

Back 71

A technique in which people compare two problems that illustrate a principle. This technique is designed to help people discover similar structural features ofcases or problems.

Front 72

Describe the procedure used in Gentner and Goldin-Meadow’s experiment, which investigated enological encoding.

Back 72

In the first part of the experiment, participants were taught about the negotiation strategies of trade-off and contingency.

After being familiarized with these negotiating strategies, one group of participants received two sample cases, both of which described trade-off solutions.The participants’ task was to compare these two cases to arrive at a successful negotiation. Another group did the same thing, but their examples involved the contingency principle. Then both groups were given a new case, which potentially could be solved by either negotiating principle.

Front 73

Describe and interpret the results of Gentner and Goldin-Meadow’s experiment.

Back 73

When presented with the new test problem, participants tended to use the negotiating strategythat was emphasized in the sample cases they had read previously.

Gentner concluded from these results that having people compare source stories is an effectiveway to get them to pay attention to structural features that enhance theirability to solve other problems.

Front 74

What is the analogical paradox?

Back 74

Participants in psychological experiments tend to focus on surface features in analogy problems, whereas people in the real world frequently use deeper, more structural features.

Front 75

What technique did Dunbar use in his experiment investigating the enological paradox?

Back 75

in vivo

Front 76

Some people can become very good at solving certain kinds ofproblems because they become _______ in an area.

Back 76

experts

Front 77

Name 3 ways that experts and novices differ when solving a problem.

Back 77

1) Experts possess more knowledge about their field.

2) Experts' knowledge is organized differently from novices.

3) Experts spend more time analyzing problems.

Front 78

True or false:

Expertise is only an advantage in the expert's specialty.

Back 78

True

Front 79

Name a potential disadvantage of expertise.

Back 79

Knowing about the established facts and theories in a field may make experts less open to new ways of looking at problems.

Thus, it has been suggested that being an expert may be a disadvantage when confronting a problem that requires flexible thinking—a problem whose solution may involve rejecting the usual procedures in favor of other procedures that might not normally be used

Front 80

What is divergent thinking?

Back 80

Thinking that is open-ended, involving a large number of potential “solutions” and no “correct” answer.

Front 81

What is convergent thinking?

Back 81

Thinking that works toward finding a solution to a specific problem that usually has a correct answer.

Front 82

Divergent thinking is mostclosely associated with _____-defined problems and convergent thinking with _____-definedproblems

Back 82

ill; well

Front 83

Describe the procedure used in Jansson and Smith's (1991) study on the effect of fixation on creativedesign.

Back 83

Presented engineering design students with design problems and telling them to generate as many designs as possible in 45 minutes.

One of the problems was to design an inexpensive, spill-proof coffee cup. It was specified that the design couldnot include a straw or mouthpiece.

Half the students were assigned to the “fixationgroup” and were presented with a sample design which they were told illustrated what not to do. The sample design included a mouth piece and straw—two features specifically forbidden by the design specifications.

Another group of students, the control group, was given the same task and specification, but did not see a sample design.

Front 84

Describe and interpret the results of Jansson and Smith's (1991) study.

Back 84

The average number of designs per person was approximately the same for thetwo groups, but the fixation group’s designs included many more instances of cupswith straws and mouthpieces .

Apparently, participants were influenced by thesample design, even though they were told not to include straws or mouthpieces.

Front 85

Define design fixation.

Back 85

Presenting a sample design influences the creation of new designs.

Front 86

What is creative cognition?

Back 86

A technique developed by Finke to train people to think creatively.

Front 87

1) What did Finke demonstrate in his experiment investigating creative cognition.

2) How does this relate to memory?

Back 87

1) Not only that you don’t have to be an “inventor” to be creative, but also that many of the processes that occur during creative cognition aresimilar to the cognitive process from other areas of cognitive psychology. For example, Finke found that people were more likely to come up with creative uses for preinventive objects that they had created themselves than for objects created by other people. This occurred even though participants were instructed not to consider uses for the forms as they were creating them.

2) This result is similar to the generation effect —people remember material better when they generate it themselves. This advantage for self-generated material also occurs for retrievalcues.

Front 88

A study showed that stimulation of the left __________ resulted in subjects reporting more uncommon uses for tools.

Stimulation resulted in ______ (i.e., decreased activity) in this brain area.

This indicates that suppressing memory unitscan decrease the effect of ________ or _________

Back 88

pre-frontal cortex; hypoactivity; fixation; mental set