PSYC200 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity What will be covered in this chapter? 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) What Is a Problem? Gestalt Approach The Information-Processing Approach Using Analogies to Solve Problems Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Credit: Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience (5th E) by E. Bruce Goldstein What is a problem? Is a situation in which you need to accomplish a goal and the solution is not immediately obvious. 1) 2) Gestalt Approach The Information-Processing Approach The Gestalt Approach • Gestalt psychologists introduced the study of problem solving to psychology in the 1920s. Problem solving, for the Gestalt psychologists, was about 1. 2. how people represent a problem in their mind how solving a problem involves a reorganization or restructuring of this representation. The Gestalt Approach Representing a Problem in the Mind • Success in solving a problem is influenced by how it is represented in the person’s mind. • The solution is obtained by first perceiving the object and then representing it in a different way. • The Gestalt psychologists called the process of changing the problem’s representation restructuring. The Gestalt Approach The Idea of Insight • The Gestalt psychologists noted that restructuring is often the outcome of a process called insight. • Insight: any sudden comprehension, realization, or problem solution that involves a reorganization of a person’s mental representation of a stimulus, situation, or event to yield an interpretation that was not initially obvious. • This definition contains the central ideas behind the Gestalt approach: • “Reorganization of a person’s mental representation” corresponds to restructuring, • “sudden comprehension” corresponds to the Gestalt emphasis on suddenly realizing the problem’s solution. The Gestalt Approach Insight Problems Prediction: 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 the solution. Solve for x: (1/5)x + 10 = 25 Solutions for insight problems occur suddenly. The Gestalt Approach Functional Fixedness and Mental Set • Gestalt psychologists described various obstacles to problem solving. • Fixation: people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution. • Functional fixedness: focusing on familiar functions or uses of an object Seeing the boxes as containers İnhibited using them as supports. The candle problem The Gestalt Approach Functional Fixedness and Mental Set • Gestalt psychologists described various obstacles to problem solving. • Fixation: people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution. • Functional fixedness: focusing on familiar functions or uses of an object • 37 of the 60 participants could not solve the problem. • After the string is ….., 23 of the 37 who hadn’t solved the problem solved it within 60 seconds. The Two-string Problem The Gestalt Approach Functional Fixedness and Mental Set • Both the candle problem and the two-string problem were difficult because of people’s preconceptions about the uses of objects. • These preconceptions are a type of mental set, a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person’s experience of what has worked in the past. • In these experiments, mental set was created by people’s knowledge about the usual uses of objects. The Gestalt Approach Functional Fixedness and Mental Set • Mental set can arise out of the situation created as a person solves a problem. Water Jug problem: • Task: obtain a required volume of water, given three empty jars for measures. • Three jugs had the following capacities: A : 21 quarts, B: 127 quarts, C: 3 quarts, • desired volume: 100 quarts. Only 23% of the participants in the mental set group used the simpler solutions. The Information-Processing Approach Newell and Simon’s Approach: Tower of Hanoi problem - Described problem solving as a process that involves search - Saw problems in terms of : • initial state: conditions at the beginning of the problem • goal state: the solution of the problem. • operators: actions that take the problem from one state to another. • For the Tower of Hanoi problem, the operators are moving the disc to another peg. The Information-Processing Approach Newell and Simon’s Approach: Tower of Hanoi problem • There are a number of possible ways. • Newell and Simon conceived of problem solving as involving a sequence of choices of steps, with each action creating an intermediate state. • The initial state, goal state, and all the possible intermediate states for a particular problem make up the problem space. The problem space for the Tower of Hanoi problem The Information-Processing Approach Newell and Simon’s Approach: Tower of Hanoi problem Given all of the possible ways to reach the goal, how can we decide which moves to make, especially when starting out? • According to Newell and Simon, the person has to search the problem space to find a solution. • One way to direct the search is to use a strategy called means–end analysis. • The primary goal of means–end analysis is to reduce the difference between the initial and goal states. • This is achieved by creating subgoals: intermediate states that are closer to the goal. The Information-Processing Approach Newell and Simon’s Approach: Tower of Hanoi problem Why is the Tower of Hanoi problem important? • It illustrates means–end analysis, with its setting of subgoals, and this approach can be applied to real-life situations. • One of the main contributions of Newell and Simon’s approach to problem solving is that it provided a way to specify the possible pathways from the initial to goal states. • They demonstrated how people solve some problems in a stepwise manner using subgoals. Using Analogies to Solve Problems A person is faced with a problem and wonders how to proceed. • One tactic is whether another problem that the person has solved before is similar to the new problem. • “Can I apply the same methods to solving this problem?” • This technique of using an analogy that is, using the solution to a similar problem to guide solution of a new problem is called analogical problem solving. Using Analogies to Solve Problems Research on analogical problem solving has considered some of the conditions in which using analogies to solve problems is effective or ineffective. - Analogical Transfer How well can people transfer their experience from solving one problem to solving another, similar problem? • Transfer from one problem to another is called analogical transfer. Two key terms • target problem: the problem the participant is trying to solve • source problem: another problem that shares some similarities with the target problem and that illustrates a way to solve the target problem Using Analogies to Solve Problems Analogical Transfer In a small Russian village, there were 32 bachelors and 32 unmarried women. The village matchmaker succeeded in arranging 32 highly satisfactory marriages. The village was proud and happy. Then one drunken night, two bachelors, in a test of strength, stuffed each other with pierogies and died. Can the matchmaker, through some quick arrangements, come up with 31 heterosexual marriages among the 62 survivors? target problem source problem Using Analogies to Solve Problems Analogical Transfer The process of analogical problem solving involves three steps: 1. Noticing that there is an analogous relationship between the source problem and the target problem. 2. Mapping the correspondence between the source problem and the target problem. 3. Applying the mapping to generate a parallel solution to the target problem. How Experts Solve Problems • Expert problem solvers (and better students) tend to devote more of their mental resources to global (big-picture) planning than do novice problem solvers. • Novices (and poorer students) tend to allocate more time to local (detail-oriented) planning than do experts. • For example, better students are more likely than poorer students to spend more time in deciding how to solve a problem, and less time actually solving it. • By spending more time in advance deciding what to do, effective students are less likely to fall prey to false starts, winding paths, and all kinds of errors. Can Novices Have an Advantage over Experts? Creative Problem Solving What is creativity? • Producing original answers or as being able to come up with multiple solutions to a problem • Many examples of creativity focus on divergent thinking: thinking that is open- ended, involving a large number of potential “solutions” (although some proposals might work better than others). • In addition to being original, a creative response to a problem must be useful. Anything made by people that is in some way novel and has potential value or utility. Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain 1. Will deactivating an area in the brain that might inhibit our openness to creative thinking increase creativity? 2. Are there different brain states that favor insightful versus analytical problem solving? 3. What is the connection between brain networks and creativity? Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Opening the Mind to Think “Outside the Box” Draw four straight lines that pass through all nine dots without lifting your pen from the paper or retracing a line. The nine-dot problem Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Opening the Mind to Think “Outside the Box” • When we look at the nine dots we see a square, so we don’t consider the possibility of extending the lines outside the square. • Left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is associated with grouping lower level information into meaningful patterns, just as the nine dots are grouped into a square. • Chi and Snyder (2012) wondered whether deactivating the left ATL might open up people’s thinking about patterns like the nine-dot problem. • To test this idea, they deactivated the left ATL and activated the right ATL using transcranial direct current stimulation while their participants attempted to solve the nine-dot problem. Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Opening the Mind to Think “Outside the Box” • Chi and Snyder (2012) deactivated the left ATL and activated the right ATL using transcranial direct current stimulation while their participants attempted to solve the nine-dot problem. Results: • 40 percent of the participants were able to solve the nine-dot problem. • This matches the 40 percent who can solve the problem if they are told that the solution involves drawing lines outside the square. • Deactivating an area of the brain that causes us to interpret the world in certain ways can help us to think “outside the box”. Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Brain “Preparation” for Insight and Analytical Problem Solving What is happening in the brain just before we solve a problem or make a creative discovery? • John Kounios and coworkers (2006) showed that whether a problem is solved by an insight-driven process or an analytical process is associated with the state the brain is in just before the problem is presented. • The EEG was measured for two seconds, followed by presentation of a compound remote-associate problem, in which three words are presented, such as pine, crab, and sauce, and the task is to determine one word that, when combined with each of these words, forms a new word or a phrase. • Participants indicated whether their solution was by insight or noninsight. • EEG activity increased in the frontal lobe just before the insight solutions and increased in the occipital lobe just before the noninsight solutions. Creative Problem Solving Creativity and the Brain Brain “Preparation” for Insight and Analytical Problem Solving What is happening in the brain just before we solve a problem or make a creative discovery? • EEG activity increased in the frontal lobe just before the insight solutions and increased in the occipital lobe just before the noninsight solutions. • Conclusion: the status of your brain before you begin a problem can influence the approach you take to solving the problem.
