Problem Solving

Question 1

Define problem solving

Answer 1

Any situation where a person is confronted with a dilemma or a choice or an uncertainty in an action / belief

A problem is when someone lacks the relevant knowledge to produce an immediate solution

Question 2

What are the 4 types of problems

Answer 2

• Well defined: all aspects are clearly specified, the goal is well specified
• Ill-defined: underspecified, endless strategies you could adopt, hard to know what will be most effective
• knowledge rich problems: can only be solved by those having the high levels of relevant knowledge or expertise
• knowledge lean problems: do not require high levels of knowledge because most of the information needed to solve the problem is contained in the initial problem statement

Question 3

Exampe = tower of hanoi problem

Answer 3

Well defined
Knowledge lean

Question 4

Strategies of problem solving =

Answer 4

Hill climbing –> changing the present state within the problem into one closer to the goal (focus on short term goals), mostly used when the problem solver has no clear understanding of the problem structure

Means-ends analysis –> forming subgoals and continuously trying to achieve these (notes difference between current problem state and the goal state, forms subgoals to reduce this)

Planning
- presented with a complex problem, coming up with a preliminary plan
- execute that plan and either revise the plan or execute next step

Question 5

What is cognitive miserliness

Answer 5

Cognitive miser = someone who is typically economical with their time and effort on tasks requiring thinking –> relying on the unconscious problem solving, trying to be quick rather than optimal

Question 6

Gestalt approach? Insight and role of experience

Answer 6

Reproductive thinking: involves systematic reuse of previous experiences
Productive thinking: involves a novel restructuring of the problem and is more complex

Insight = sudden comprehension / realisation

aha moments leading to the solution

Question 7

Functinoal fixedness

Answer 7

we mistakenly assume that any given object has only a limited number of uses

Question 8

Representational change theory

Answer 8

• we encounter impasse when solving a problem because we have represented it wrong
• change the problem representation

Constraint relaxation: inhibitions on what is regarded as permissible are removed
Re-encoding: some aspect of the problem is reinterpreted
Elaboration: new problem information is added to the representation

Question 9

How to get expertise

Answer 9

• deliberative practice and lots of experience
• highly efficient at solving numerous problems in their area of expertise

Isn’t always due to deliberative experienec
Some things that people are better dealing with than others

multifactorial gene-environment interaction model

Question 10

What is the difference between judgement and decision making?

Answer 10

Judgement: making an assessment of something or the likelihood that something will happen

Decision: choosing or deciding one option from several possibilities

Question 11

define conjunction fallacy

Answer 11

the mistaken belief that the combination of two events is more likely than one event on its own (the linda problem)

Question 12

Theories of judgement and decision making: dual process theory

Answer 12

DPT propses that thinking is characterised by the action of two systems with distinctive cognitive processes

Type 1: fast, automatic, unconscious, implici and effortless, context dependent, heuristics used

Type 2: slow, controlled, conscious, effortful, demanding of working memory

Question 13

Strengths and limitations of the Dual Process Theory

Answer 13

Strengths
- Most judgements appear to be determined by something like system 1
- Explains individual differences in judgement performance (some use system 2 more than others)
Limitations:
- People make more use of base-rate information than assumed
- Error-prone performance may not relate to system 1
- Not very explicit about the processes involved in judgement
Processes may operate as parallel, rather than serial

Question 14

what is inductive reasoning

Answer 14

making a generalised conclusion from premises referring to particular instances

conclusions of inductively valid arguments are probably but not necessarily true

used in research experiments – prove that something is false (reject null hypothesis)
(hypotheses can’t be proven true through logical induction)

Question 15

what is deductive reasoning

Answer 15

drawing conclusions that are definitely valid provided the assumptions are true
- taking two true statements to form a conclusion

Question 16

syllogistic reasoning or logic

Answer 16

structure of a deductive statement in 2 parts
the premises (2)
the conclusion

Question 17

types of categorical syllogistic reasoning

Answer 17

affirmative universal: all
affirmative paritcular: some
negative universal: no
negative particular: some…no….

Question 18

deduction: conditional reasoning

Answer 18

consists of an antecedant and a consequence

Question 19

Induction: basis to hypothis testing

Answer 19

involves continuous adjustment of one’s beliefs
2 types of induction assertion, strong and weak

Question 20

myeside bias

Answer 20

• tendency to evaluate statements with respect to one’s own beliefs
• if there’s a conflict between beliefs and valid conclusions, a person will find it hard to accept that conclusion