Thinking and Problem Solving

Main Topics
• Thinking: definition and nature
• Components of thoughts
• Reasoning
• Problem solving and steps
• Obstacles in problem solving
• Creativity in problem solving
• Decision making
 Thinking Topics
• Thinking: definition and nature
• Components of thoughts:
– Mental image
– Concepts
– Prototypes and reasoning
• Reasoning:
• Syllogistic reasoning, inductive or deductive
reasoning
• Algorithm
• Heuristics: Representative and Availability
• Artificial intelligence
 Problem Solving Topics
• Meaning
• Types of problems: Well defined or ill defined
problems, novel or familiar problems,
arrangement problems, inducing structure
problems, transformation problems
• Steps in problem solving: Understanding and
diagnosing problem, generating solutions,
selecting and evaluating solutions
• Decision Making
Thinking
 Thinking involves
• Mental activity that goes on in the brain
• Processing of information which includes
organizing, understanding, decisions making,
making comparisons and solving problems
• Manipulation of mental representations i.e.
mental images
• May include mental images, concepts and
prototypes
• What is the role of language in that?
 Components of thoughts
– Mental Images
– Concepts
– Prototypes
 Mental Image
• Mental Image – mental representation of an
object, a person or event not physically present in
front of us i.e. picture like quality
• Mental imaging works similar to actual visual
images
• Mental images are constructed and therefore
subject to error
• They can be visual or auditory i.e. a tune in your
head also relies on a mental image
 Try to mentally rotate one of each pair of patterns to see if it is the same as the
other member of that pair. It’s likely that the farther you have to mentally rotate a pattern,
the longer it will take to decide if the patterns match one another.
 Mental images
• Mental images are used by people every day.
• It helps them remember where they parked
the car, find furniture that fits in their
apartment, and play sports.
• It allows people to find their way home and to
other places by using their learned “mental
maps” of how to get to familiar locations and
solve other day to day problems
 Mental images
• Longer time taken to scan mental images of
large objects than small ones
• Production of mental images as a way to
improve various skills i.e. in your profession, in
sports, in stage performance, in facing
interviews
 Concepts
• Concepts are mental category we form to group
objects, people, events, or situations that share
common characteristics or features.
• Concepts enable us to organize complex
phenomena
• Help us to form categories
Concepts can be of different types
– Classes or categories (dogs, books,
etc.,)
– Attributes or characteristics (red,
tall, painful)
– Abstractions or non-tangible ideas
(love, hate)
 Prototype
• A model
• A typical best example of a concept
• What is the best example of these concepts in your
mind ???:
• Food
• Furniture
• Vehicle
• Vegetable
• House
• Temple
• Does a culture have an impact on it??
 Reasoning

• Reasoning is the process by which information

is used to draw conclusions and make decisions
• Reasoning also helps in problem solving
• Processes Involved in Reasoning
– Syllologistic, inductive or deductive reasoning
– Heuristics
– Algorithm
– Artificial intelligence
 Syllogistic Reasoning
• Syllogistic reasoning is a formal reasoning in which people
draw a conclusion from a set of assumptions, for example:
– Premise 1 All Nepalese have Mongolian faces (false
assumption???)
– Premise 2 Mr. Dipesh is a Nepali
– Conclusion: Therefore, Mr. Dipesh should be having a
Mongolian face
Alternative
– Premise 1 Nepalese are mix of different ethnicity and races
– Premise 2 Mr. Dipesh is a Nepali
– Conclusion: Therefore, Mr. Dipesh might not be having a
Mongolian face
 Algorithm
• Algorithm is a rule that, if applied appropriately,
guarantees a solution to a problem
• Predefined set of procedures if carried out
outcome is predictable
• Works best for routine problems
• For many problems no algorithm is available
• At such time Heuristics may be useful
Heuristic
• Heuristic is a thinking strategy that may lead
us to a solution to a problem but unlike
algorithms may lead to errors
• A simple thinking strategy; usually speedier
but also more error prone to error than
algorithms
• General rule that may work most of the time
• Rules that typically apply to most problems
• Analogies—finding a similar situation
 Types of Heuristics
• Representative Heuristic
• Availability Heuristic
 Representative Heuristics
• A representativeness heuristic is a rule we
apply when we judge people by the degree to
which they represent a certain category or
group of people.
• For example, are all Nepali very brave??
• how a lecturer looks like???
Availability Heuristic
• The availability heuristic involves judging the
probability of an event on the basis of how easily the
event can be recalled from memory
• We assume that events we remember easily are
likely to have occurred more frequently in the past
and are more likely to occur in the future
• For example, travel by road dangerous or travel by air
 Artificial Intelligence
• Artificial intelligence
examines how to use
technology to imitate the
outcome of human
thinking, problem solving,
and creative activities
• True flexibility of human
thought processes has yet
to be developed in a
machine.
 Problem Solving Topics
• Meaning
• Types of problems: Well defined or ill defined
problems, novel or familiar problems,
arrangement problems, inducing structure
problems, transformation problems
• Steps in problem solving: Understanding and
diagnosing problem, generating solutions,
selecting and evaluating solutions
• Decision Making
 What is Problem Solving?

Problem Solving is a
process of working out or
discovering how to reach
a goal by overcoming
obstacles
Some puzzles
 Tower of Hanoi problem
• The initial state is the original configuration,
the goal state is to have the three disks on the
third peg, and the method is the rules for
moving the disks: one disk at a time and no
big disk should be ever over small ones, solve
it in fewer moves as far as you can
The Tower of Hanoi Puzzle
 Types of problems
• Novel or familiar problems
• Well defined and ill defined problems
• Arrangement problems
• Problems of inducing structure
• Transformation problems
 Types of problems
• Novel problems- particular attention to for newer types
of previously not known problems
• Familiar problems- we spend considerably less time in
preparation stage for such problems
• Well-Defined Problem: Both the nature of the problem
itself and the information needed to solve it are available
and clear i.e. which is the shortest route to home??
• Ill-Defined Problem: Not only the specific nature of the
problem is unclear, but the information required to solve
the problem is less obvious i.e. what are the reasons
behind poor grades??
 Types of problems
• Arrangement problems require the problem
solver to rearrange or recombine elements in
a way that will satisfy a certain criterion
• Anagram problems and jigsaw puzzles are
examples of arrangement problems
 Types of problems
• Inducing structures: is a type of problem
where a person must identify the existing
relationships among the elements presented
and then construct a new relationship among
them
• Only after identifying the relationship
between elements of the problem a person
determines the solution rule
 Types of problems
• Transformation problems: consist of an initial
state, a goal state, and a method for changing
the initial state into the goal state
 Steps in problem solving
1. Understanding and diagnosing problems
2. Generating solutions
• Trial and error method
• Means End Analysis
• Forming Sub-goals
• Using Insights
3. Evaluating solutions
Steps in Problem Solving

41
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Step 1: Understanding and diagnosing problems
• Problem solving depends up on our preparation
plus nature and types of the problems i.e. novel
problems, familiar problems, well-defined
problem, ill-Defined Problem and so on
• Solving each type requires somewhat different
kinds of psychological skills and knowledge
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Step 2: Generating solutions
• After preparation, the next stage in problem
solving is the production of possible solutions.
• If a problem is relatively simple, we may already
have a direct solution stored in long-term
memory
• If we cannot retrieve or do not know the
solution, we must generate possible solutions
and compare them with information in long
and short-term memory 43
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Trial and Error method but some problems are so
complicated that it would take a lifetime to try out
every possibility
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Means-end Analysis involves repeated tests for
differences between the desired outcome and
what currently exists; and we most frequently
apply heuristic in problem solving
• For example, if you are planning for abroad,
learning languages, learning driving, visa process,
financial resources
• In a means-end analysis, each step brings the
problem solver closer to a resolution
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Forming subgoals: dividing problems into
parts
• Another heuristic commonly used to generate
solutions is to divide a problem into
intermediate steps, or subgoals, and solve
each of those steps
• In some cases forming subgoals is not all that
helpful and may actually increase the time
needed to find a solution
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Insight: sudden awareness
• Insight is a sudden awareness of the
relationships among various elements that
had previously appeared to be independent of
one another
• Prior experience and trial-and-error practice in
problem solving must precede “insight.”
 Steps in Problem Solving
• Step 3: Judgment: evaluating solutions
• Where there is no single correct solution, evaluating
solutions becomes more difficult …
• Through logic and appropriate heuristics and valid
information we can make good decisions
• Obstacles to and biases affect in problem solving and
quality of the decisions and judgments
 Decision Making
• Decisions are choices made from two or more
alternatives.
• Decision making occurs as a reaction to a
problem
 Steps in decision making
1. Define the problem
2. Identify the decision criteria
3. Allocate weights to the criteria
4. Develop the alternatives
5. Evaluate the alternatives
6. Select the best alternative
 Impediments/Obstacles/Barriers to
Problem Solving (Factors affecting
problem solving)
• Functional Fixedness
• Mental Set
• Confirmation bias
• Representative bias
• Availability bias
• Hindsight bias
• Anchoring bias
• Escalation of commitment 51
 Functional Fixedness
– It is the tendency to think of an object only in terms
of its typical use
– Your problem solving skills depend upon clarity of
what you see
– Mounting candle puzzle is the example of functional
fixedness

52
 Mental Set: Nine dots problem
• Without lifting your
pencil or re-tracing
any line, draw four
straight lines that
connect all nine
dots
 Nine dots
• Most people will not
draw lines that
extend from the
square formed by the
nine dots
• To solve the problem,
you have to break
your mental set
• Out of the box
thinking???
 Mental Set
• Mental set is the tendency for old patterns of
problem solving to persist
• It is a tendency to approach a problem in one
particular way, often a way that has been
successful in the past
• It often causes us to overlook other more efficient
ways to solve a problem
• It can prevent you from seeing beyond the
apparent constraints of a problem.
• Nine dots problem is the example of mental set
55
 Confirmation bias
• The tendency to seek out and weigh more heavily
information that supports one’s initial hypotheses
and to ignore contradictory information
• Think of- if anyone had suggested BBA/BCIS/BHM
is good for you and you reassured yourself in that
decision with many supportive reasons without
looking for other alternatives???

56
 Representative Bias
• A representativeness heuristic is a rule we
apply when we judge people by the degree to
which they represent a certain category or
group of people.
• For example, are all Nepali very brave??
• How a lecturer looks like???
• It may lead towards biases for some people or
events towards us
Availability bias
• The availability bias involves judging the probability
of an event on based on how easily we can
remember or how easily the information are
available to us
• We assume that events we remember easily are
likely to have occurred more frequently in the past—
and are more likely to occur in the future
• Travel by road dangerous or travel by air
 Anchoring bias
• A tendency to fixate on initial information,
from which one then fails to adequately adjust
for subsequent information.
 Escalation of commitment
• An increased commitment to a previous
decision in spite of negative information.
 Hindsight bias
• The tendency to believe falsely, after an
outcome of an event is actually known, that
one would have accurately predicted that
outcome.
 Creativity in Problem Solving
• Creativity is the ability to generate original
ideas or solve problems in novel ways
• Despite obstacles many people discover
creative solutions to problems
• What factors underlie creativity then???
• Sometimes stages of problem solving help us
but not always?
• How people can be creative???
• Out of the box thinking????
 Convergent and Divergent thinking
which helps in Creativity??
• Convergent thinking: Produces responses that are
based primarily on knowledge and logic
• Divergent thinking: Ability to generate unusual,
yet appropriate, responses to problems or
questions
 Steps for Thinking Creatively…..??
• Can we learn to be a better thinker?
– Redefine problems
– Use subgoals
– Adopt a critical perspective
– Consider the opposite
– Use analogies
– Think divergently i.e. incubation
– Use heuristics
– Use insights
– Experiment with various solutions i.e. trial and error,
means end analysis
64
A problem for you to think divergently

• Consider, how you might respond to the

question “How many uses can you think of for
a newspaper?”
 Now compare your solution with this one proposed by a 10-year-
old boy:
• You can read it, write on it, lay it down and paint a picture on it . . . You
could put it in your door for decoration, put it in the garbage can, put it on a
chair if the chair is messy.
• If you have a puppy, you put newspaper in its box or put it in your backyard
for the dog to play with. When you build something and you don’t want
anyone to see it, put newspaper around it. Put newspaper on the floor if
you have no mattress, use it to pick up something hot, use it to stop
bleeding, or to catch the drips from drying clothes.
• You can use a newspaper for curtains, put it in your shoe to cover what is
hurting your foot, make a kite out of it, shade a light that is too bright. You
can wrap fish in it, wipe windows, or wrap money in it . . .
• You put washed shoes in newspaper, wipe eyeglasses with it, put it under a
dripping sink, put a plant on it, make a paper bowl out of it, use it for a hat
if it is raining, tie it on your feet for slippers. You can put it on the sand if
you had no towel, use it for bases in baseball, make paper airplanes with it,
use it as a dustpan when you sweep, ball it up for the cat to play with, wrap
your hands in it if it is cold. (Ward, Kogan, & Pankove, 1972
Some other puzzles
 Water Lily Problem
• Water lilies are growing on Blue Lake. The
water lilies grow rapidly, so that the amount of
water surface covered by lilies doubles every
24 hours. On the first day of summer, there
was just one water lily. On the 90 th day of the
summer, the lake was entirely covered. On
what day was the lake half covered? (Reisberg,
1997)
Mounting candle puzzle: coming out of
functional fixedness
 Mounting candle puzzle: coming out
of functional fixedness
• Most people do not think of using the box for
anything other than its normal use (to hold the
tacks)
• To solve the problem, you have to overcome
functional fixedness
• Attach the candle to the bulletin board in such a
way that the candle can be lit and will burn
properly