Problem Solving

UNIT III
PROBLEM SOLVING AND CREATIVITY
MISSION VISION CORE VALUES

CHRIST is a nurturing ground for an individual’s holistic development to Excellence and Service Faith in God | Moral Uprightness
make effective contribution to the society in a dynamic environment Love of Fellow Beings
Social Responsibility | Pursuit of Excellence
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Deemed to be University
4 aspects of a problem
I. Understanding the problem

II. Problem solving strategies
III. Factors that influence problem solving
IV. Creativity
Excellence and Service

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Components of a problem:
1.Initial state
2.Goal state
3. Obstacles

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I. Understanding the problem:
a. Paying attention to relevant information

b. Methods of representing the problem
c. Situated cognition and embodied cognition

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a. Paying attention to relevant information
competing thoughts
effective problem solvers

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b. Methods of representing the problem

problem representation
working memory correlation
symbols, matrices, diagrams, visual images.

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Symbols:
eg: algebra,
translate each sentence into a formula ,
challenges – translate words into symbols, translate
sentences into symbols.
Mayer and Hegarty (1996)

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Matrices :
grid consisting of rows and columns that shows all possible

combinations of items
Adv: track of items if the problem is complex, and if info is

categorical.
Steven Schwartz and his colleagues

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Diagrams:
Novick and Morse(2000)
eg: origami projects, amazon – manuals, hierarchial tree
diagram, graph, visual information

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Visual images :
Buddhist Monk

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Situated cognition:
Its tempting to focus only on the info inside your head which
you acquired by reading or listening.(acquired by reading or
listening)
There are additional factors that help us think more quickly

and accurately.

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Situated cognition approach: we use helpful info in our

immediate environment to create spatial representations.
Eg: (mental maps)we make decisions about up-down the

up-down dimension more quickly than left-right dimension.

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We use both situated cognition and embodied cognition

when we try to solve problems

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Eg: studies in Brazilian cities.

10 yr olds – sold candy to people passing by
no formal education
demonstrated a sophisticated undg of maths
box of candy – 20000BRC
they figured how to compare 2 ratios involving large no.
2 candy for 500 BRC
instead 5 for 1000
buyer may be tempted to pay less for each bar.

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Our ability to solve a problem is tied into specific physical

and social context in which we learned to solve that
problem.
Abstract tests fail to reveal how competent a person would

be in solving problems in real life settings.

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The traditional cog approach to thinking emphasizes

that

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SC
- cognition is a social and situated activity
- we learn by doing what experts in the field do
- knowledge remains inert if we separate learning from
doing

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Nature of SC
- what we think and do develops in a fundamentally social

context. (manners)
- Knowledge is a lived practice - learning – practicipation
in community of practice.

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- Our cognitive processes take adv of an info rich envt.
- In real life we also interact with people who provide info

and help us clarify our cog processes.(eqilibirium – Piaget)
- All these factors help us become more competent in undg

and solving problems.

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Has more implications for education:
- it suggests that children should have experience in solving

authentic math problems that they are likely to encounter
outside a school setting.
- Internships /practical settings

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Ecological validity :
A study if the conditions in which we research is conducted

are similar to the natural setting in which the results will be
applied.
Eg: math skill in selling candy would have greater EV than

math skill on paper-pencil, standardized examination.

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Everyday cognition – PS in everyday life

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Isomorph
- is an organism that does not change in shape during
growth.
- a substance or organism that exactly corresponds in

form with another.
- procedure and structure is the same BUT details are

different.

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People pay attention to the obvious surface

features(specific objects and terms used in the question).
They fail to emphasize the structural features, the

underlying core that they must understand in order to solve
the problem correctly.
Eg: Rutgers University – keep track of the status of
college applicants - other univ – same surface structures.
Federal express – solved the problem of tracking the
location of its packages.
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Factors that encourage appropriate use of analogies :
1. people are likely to use the analogy strategy correctly

when they try several structurally similar problems before
they tackle the target problem.
2. students solve math problems more accurately if they are
trained to sort problems into categories on the basis of
structural similarities.

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This heuristic has 2 important components:
1. Divide the problem into subproblems/smaller problems.
2. Reduce the difference between the initial state and goal

state for each subproblem.

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Most effective and flexible PS strategies.
Eg: stapler – edge of skirt (Subproblems)

1. Identifying the object that could fix the hem(even though
not traditional hem-fixer).
2. Locating this object.

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Most straight forward PS strategy.
Useful when: not enough info about alternatives.
Disadv: can lead you astray.
Eg: student career goal – to earn high salary after 12th,

instead more salary after graduation – long tern benefits.

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Sometimes the best solution to a problem requires us to

move temporarily backward – away from the goal.
It encourages short-term goals, rather than long-term

goals.

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Lets Recap

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1.With algorithms, such as exhaustive search, the

problem solver eventually reaches a solution. However,
this method is often very time consuming.
In contrast, heuristics are faster because they examine

only a few of the alternatives; unfortunately, they do
not guarantee an appropriate solution.

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2. One important heuristic is the analogy approach, in

which people solve a new problem by referring to an
earlier problem.
They may be distracted by superficial similarity, but

several precautions can encourage people to emphasize
structural similarity.

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The means-ends heuristics requires dividing a problem

into subproblems and then reducing the difference
between the initial state and the goal state for each of the
subproblems. The General Problem Solver(GPS) is a
computer simulation that was designed to use means-
ends analysis.

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One of the simplest problem-solving strategies is the hill-

climbing heuristic; at every choice point, you select the
alternative that seems to lead , most directly to the goal.
However, this strategy may not produce the best long-
term solution.

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Factors that influence PS:
1. Expertise
2.Mental Set
3.Functional Fixedness

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Introduction:
BUP – emphasizes the info about the stimulus, as registered
on our sensory receptors.
TDP – emphasizes our concepts, expectations, and memory,
which we have acquired from past experience.
These 2 types of processing help us understand how
several imp factors can influence our ability to solve a
problem.
Effective PS requires an ideal blend of both BUP and
TDP
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An individual with expertise demonstrates consistently

exceptional skills and performance on representative
tasks for a particular area.
Research – an expert needed at least 10 years of experience
in a particular area of expertise.
No of years was not correlated with excellent performance
in many fields.

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How expertise facilitates performance in problem solving.

Experts differ from novices on a variety of dimensions
that are crucial to problem solving.
1.Knowledge Base
2.Memory
3.PS strategies
4.Speed and accuracy
5.Metacognitive skills.

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Knowledge Base :
Michelene Chi 1981 in her study found that novices simply
lacked important knowledge about the principles of physics.
Need schemas to understand a topic.
Experts may solve problems – when there is detailed

feedback.
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Memory:
Experts
– have memory for info related to their area of expertise. Its
specific, eg: chess players – only if it fits into a particular
schema.

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PS strategies:
Experts
- use means end heuristics
- they approach the problem systematically
- the way they use the analogy approach
- they look for structural similarities between problems.

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Speed and Accuracy:

Experts
- are faster and accurate
their operations become more automatic , and a
particular stimulus situation also quickly triggers a
response.
- they use parallel processing than serial processing
- solve anagrams in less than 2 seconds (Novick and
Cote 1992)

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Fixed mindset: you believe that you possess a certain

amount of intelligence and other skills, and no amount
effort can help you perform better.
Growth mindset: you believe that you can cultivate your

intelligence and other skills.

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Reasoning and Decision Making

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Deductive reasoning :
you begin with some specific premises that are true, and you
need to judge whether those premises allow you to draw a
particular conclusion, based on the principles of logic.

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In DR, you will often make an argument for a certain idea.
You make an inference, or come to a conclusion, by

applying different premises.
A premise is a generally accepted idea, fact, or rule, and

it’s a statement that lays the groundwork for a theory or
a general idea.

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Due to its reliance on inference, DR is at high risk for research

biases, particularly confirmation bias and other types of
cognitive bias like belief bias.

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Example:
Premise: all insects have exactly six legs.

Premise: spiders have eight legs.
Conclusion: therefore, spiders are not insects.

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DR tasks
- provide you with all the info you need to draw a
conclusion.
- Premises are either T or F and
- must use the rules of formal logic in order to draw
conclusions.

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In decision making :
- you must assess the info and choose among 2 or more

alternatives.
- compared to DR – DM is much more ambiguous
- some info may be missing/contradictory
- no clear-cut rules that tell you how to proceed from info to
conclusions.

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In real-life, the uncertainty of DM is more common than

the certainty of DR.

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When contemporary Psyts study reasoning and DM, they

may adopt a dual-process theory.
It distinguishes 2 types of cognitive processing:

1. Type 1 processing
2. Type 2 processing

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What is the dual-process theory in decision-making?
According to dual process theories of decision-making,

some decisions are made quickly and automatically.
Other decisions are made after someone makes a slower and
reasoned evaluation.

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What is an example of dual process theory?
Developmental psychologists have proposed a dual

processing account of early language comprehension.
Some children may judge that they know a word because
it sounds familiar.
Other children may decide that they know a word based

on their ability to recall the word's meaning.
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The theory tells us - How a mental process or

psychological behaviour can be influenced in 2 different
ways.
They provide a comprehensive explanation for

psychological phenomena that might otherwise appear
contradictory or difficult to understand.

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Type 1 processing Type 1 processing
Is fast and automatic Relatively slow and controlled
Requires lil conscious attention Requires more focused attention
Eg: we use during depth perception: recognition of facial expression and Eg: we use when we think of expectations
automatic stereotyping. to a general rule, when we realize that we
made a stereotyped response and we
acknowledge that our T1P response may
have been incorrect.

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DR
one of the most common kinds of DR task is Conditioned Reasoning(CR)
(also called propositional reasoning task)
CR – describes the relationship between conditions.

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Eg: 410

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Another kind of DR task is called syllogism
- consists of 2 statement that we must assume to be true

plus a conclusion.
- Syllogisms refer to quantities so they use the words –
all, none, some.
Eg: 410

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In a syllogism you must judge whether the conclusion is

valid, invalid or indeterminate.
Everyday experience tempts you to conclude – “Yes the

conclusion is valid”

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Cognitive factors - 411

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4 basic kinds of conditional reasoning tasks
how reasoning is influenced by 2 factors:

1. whether the statements include negative terms.
2. whether the statements are concrete or abstract.

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2 cognitive errors that people make when they solve reasoning tasks

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Overview of CR
table 12.2 page 411

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Difficulties with linguistically negative info

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Difficulties with abstract reasoning problems:

people are more accurate when they solve reasoning
problems that use concrete examples about everyday
categories, rather than abstract, theoretical examples.
Peoples accuracy typically increases when they use

diagrams to make the problem more concrete.
We make errors on concrete reasoning tasks if our everyday
knowledge overrides the principles of logic.
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The Belief-Bias Effect
- occurs in reasoning when people make judgements based

on prior beliefs and general knowledge, rather than on the
rules of logic.
- People make errors when the logic of a reasoning problem

conflicts with their background knowledge.

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The BBE is one more example of top-down processing.
Our prior expectations help us to organize our experiences

and understand the world.
People vary widely in their susceptibility to the BBE.

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People with low scores on an intelligence test and test of

flexible thinking are likely to demonstrate the BBE.
Eg: an inflexible person is likely to agree with the statement

such as, “No one can talk me out of something I know is
right.”

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Flexible thinkers are more likely to solve the reasoning

problems correctly, without being distracted by the BBE.
- they block their everyday knowledge
- they tend to carefully inspect a reasoning problem,
trying to determine whether the logic is faulty.

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https://youtu.be/Pel4AmtMvTM?feature=shared
BBE

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https://youtu.be/jOjIAiJCNIk?feature=shared
Confirmation bias

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These biases contribute to overconfidence in personal

beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face
of contrary evidence.
For example, confirmation bias produces systematic errors

in scientific research based on inductive reasoning (the
gradual accumulation of supportive evidence).

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A confirmation bias is cognitive bias that favors information that

confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases.
For example, imagine that a person believes left-handed people are more
creative than right-handed people. Whenever this person encounters a person
that is both left-handed and creative, they place greater importance on this
"evidence" that supports what they already believe.
This individual might even seek proof that further backs up this belief while
discounting examples that don't support the idea.

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Impact of the Conformation Bias
The confirmation bias happens due to the natural way the brain
works, so eliminating it is impossible.
While it is often discussed as a negative tendency that impairs logic

and decisions, it isn't always bad. The confirmation bias can
significantly impact our lives, both positively and negatively.

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On the positive side, it can help us stay confident in our beliefs and values and
give us a sense of certainty and security.
Unfortunately, this type of bias can prevent us from looking at situations

objectively. It can also influence our decisions and lead to poor or faulty
choices.

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During an election season, for example, people tend to seek positive

information that paints their favored candidates in a good light.
They will also look for information that casts the opposing
candidate in a negative light.
By not seeking objective facts, interpreting information in a way
that only supports their existing beliefs, and remembering details
that uphold these beliefs, they often miss important information.
These details and facts might have influenced their decision on
which candidate to support.

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https://youtu.be/Kho5KvPBDSw?feature=shared
CB

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https://youtu.be/x1uCimKtPyY?feature=shared
framing effect
https://youtu.be/hGWMhV_Myd8?feature=shared

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https://youtu.be/V_qbczO3wYs?feature=shared
FE

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https://youtu.be/qsQIrjtmIsA?feature=shared
Hindsight bias

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https://youtu.be/-tbwrUYqytQ?feature=shared
eyewitness testimony
https://youtu.be/DLiMHJFD7YU?feature=shared

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Cognitive Impairment in clinical practice.
How cognitive deficits affect a persons ability to understand

cues in social settings
strategies to help them with psychological, social skills

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"Cognitive deficit" is an inclusive term used to describe the

impairment of different domains of cognition. Cognitive
deficit is not limited to any particular disease or condition
but may be one of the manifestations of someone's
underlying condition.

Problem Solving

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UNIT III

PROBLEM SOLVING AND CREATIVITY

MISSION VISION CORE VALUES

I. Understanding the problem

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

I. Understanding the problem:

a. Paying attention to relevant information

Excellence and Service

I. Understanding the problem:

a. Paying attention to relevant information

Excellence and Service

I. Understanding the problem:

b. Methods of representing the problem

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

grid consisting of rows and columns that shows all possible

Adv: track of items if the problem is complex, and if info is

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

There are additional factors that help us think more quickly

Excellence and Service

Situated cognition approach: we use helpful info in our

Eg: (mental maps)we make decisions about up-down the

Excellence and Service

We use both situated cognition and embodied cognition

Excellence and Service

Eg: studies in Brazilian cities.

Excellence and Service

Our ability to solve a problem is tied into specific physical

Abstract tests fail to reveal how competent a person would

Excellence and Service

The traditional cog approach to thinking emphasizes

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

- what we think and do develops in a fundamentally social

Excellence and Service

- Our cognitive processes take adv of an info rich envt.

- In real life we also interact with people who provide info

- All these factors help us become more competent in undg

Excellence and Service

Has more implications for education:

- it suggests that children should have experience in solving

- Internships /practical settings

Excellence and Service

A study if the conditions in which we research is conducted

Eg: math skill in selling candy would have greater EV than

Excellence and Service

Everyday cognition – PS in everyday life

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service

Excellence and Service