The areas in the brain to do with problem solving
The Dorsal prefrontal cortex
The anterior prefrontal cortex
The Bilateral prefrontal cortex
Goal directed behavior
Behavior organised towards achieving a goal
Subgoal decomposition
Making a step-by-step subgoal “description” of the problem
Operator application
Making/finding an operator
Operator
Operation refers to an action in which you go from one subgoal to another
The aurthors behind “The Eight Puzzle”
Allan Newel and Herbert Simon (Human Problem Solving, 1972)
The 5 states of the Problem Solving Process:
Problem space (State space)
State
Start state
Goal state
Search
Köhler´s Ape (1930)
Problemsolving in Chimpansees: The chimpansees, Sultan, had to try reach food outside his cage be different stick/sticks.
The Pyramid Expression
They tested two different ways of mathematical learning. And saw that participants did equally good compared to how they learned, but the activated areas in the brain is different.
Who was behind The Pyramid Expression
Anderson and Fincham, 2014
Analogy
Process of taking a operator from one problem and applying it to another
The 3 different operator selection
Backup avoidance
Difference reduction
Means-ends analysis
Backup avoidance
Biases the problem solver against any operator effect of one or more previous operators
Difference reduction
Refers to the human tendency to select the operator that reduces the distance between the current state and the end state
Means-ends analysis:
Descriping the creation of new subgoals (ends) to enable operators (means) to apply.
Who is behind and what is “Hobbits and orcs problem”
Jefferies, Polson, Razran and Atwood (1977): You have to movie 3 orcs and hobbits arcoss a river following specific instructions
Whats seems to happen when the difference between current state and the goal state increases?
The problem solver experience more difficulty in solving the problem
Who can do analogical problemsolving?
Analogical problemsolving seems to be a nearly unique to humans, because it requires advanced development of the prefrontal cortex.
Patient P.F.
Because of damage to his right anterior prefrontal cortex caused by a stroke, his behavior appears normal, but in reality he presents profound intellectual deficits: he was an architect and he lost the ability to design, meaning he could describe the projects but not draw them or be able to resolve structural problems that should be easy for an architect.
Acquisition of operators → happens in 3 ways:
- Discovery → through trial and error. Can involve complex reasoning in humans, but it can also be done by animals with no such skills.
- Being told about them or learning by example → New operators are learned by being told about them (only specific to humans) and by observing someone else use them. These are both examples of social learning.
What is a stereotype threat?
A phenomenon where one has overly pessimistic estimates of their solving-problem skills because they fear behaving according to a negative stereotype.
The mutilated-checkerboard problem
Researchers Kaplan and Simon in 1990 wanted to test the importance of correct representation when problem-solving.
The problem consists of a checkerboard with 2 corners cut out and participants had to find a way to arrange the 31 dominoes on the board covering all the squares.
The solution is that dominoes cannot cover the checkerboard because there’s no way to place a domino on two squares without covering one black and one white.
Most participants weren’t able to solve the problem, but when it was posed as a novel problem, it was easier for participants to find a solution. This means that we tend not to represent the checkerboard in terms of matching squares, like checking for parity (a critical operator).
What is functional fixedness?
Fixation on representing an object according to its conventional function and failing to represent it as having a novel function, tested first by Maier (1931) and then by Duncker (1945) and by McCaffrey (2012).
Set effect
People’s experiences can bias them to prefer certain operators.
