Cognitive Psychology: Problem solving

Dr Jinger Pan
What is a problem?
• You are in a current state or situation (start state)
• You want to be in a different state (goal state)
• There is an obstacle between the current state and the goal
state
• It is not obvious to you how to get from the start state to goal
state
There can be more than one solution
What is not a problem?
• When it is obvious to you how to reach the goal state
▫ If you are hungry and at home
 Start state: being hungry
 Goal state: not being hungry
 Start state  Goal state
▫ What might be obvious to you, might be a problem for others
Types of problems
• Well-defined problem
▫ All aspects of the problem are clearly specified
 All aspects of the problems are clearly laid out
 Start State
 Goal state
 Methods that can be applied to make moves to reach the goal
 Examples: Finding the way out of a maze; Playing chess
Types of problems
• Ill-defined problem: The problem is not clearly specified
▫ Start state, goal state, and/or strategies may be unclear
▫ E.g.,
 How to be happier?
 How to write a novel?
 How to measure creativity?
 All lack of a concrete and visualizable goal-state
 Methods that can be applied are limitless
Types of problems
• Knowledge-lean problems:
▫ No specific knowledge is required
 E.g., finding a parking space in the mall

▫ Most of necessary information is given in the problem statement

▫ Most traditional research on problem solving has involved the use of

knowledge-lean problems
Types of problems
• Knowledge-rich problems
▫ Can only be solved if you have a considerable amount of specific
knowledge
▫ Studies in expertise often use knowledge-rich problems
▫ Example: repair an electronic device/solve a calculus problems
Types of problems
• Well-defined vs. Ill-defined problems
• Knowledge-rich vs knowledge-lean problem
• Both types are independent of each other
Theories of problem solving
• Problem solving
▫ Gestalt Psychology
▫ Information Processing Approach
▫ Analogical Problem Solving
Gestalt Approach
• Problem Solving:
▫ First Step: representing a problem in the mind
▫ The key to solving the problem is to have the right representation
▫ If representation is not right, restructuring occurs
▫ The solution comes all of a sudden.
• Insight
 A sudden realization of a problem’s solution
 Often requires restructuring the problem
Gestalt Approach
• Representing a problem
▫ Your representation of the problem might be different
from others
▫ The key to succeed in solving a problem is influenced by
how it is represented in the person’s mind

• Restructuring for a new representation

▫ If the length of the circle’s radius is r, what is the length
of line x?
▫ How would you solve this problem?

▫ The solution is reached by perceiving the object then

representing it in a different way.
Insight Problem Solving
• Why is it difficult to have the right representation during the
initial problem solving attempt?
▫ Fixation: People’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristics of
the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution
Insight Problem Solving
• Functional Fixedness: focusing on familiar functions or use of an
object, thus restricting use of an object to its familiar functions
How can the individual tie two strings together?
(you have a chair, and a pair of pliers)
 How would you fix the lighted candle to the
wall without the wax dripping onto the table

More examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksgaup4zqz0&ab_channel=MichaelBritt

▫ Mental set
 A preconceived notion about how to approach a problem
 Based on a person’s past experiences with the problem (or similar
problems)
 Functional fixedness is a type of mental set
Insight Problem Solving
Water jug problem (Luchins, 1942)
• How to use the cups with these capacities to measure out the
desired quantity.
Cup A Cup B Cup C Desired Answer
Quantity
1 21 127 3 100 B-A-2C
2 14 163 25 99 B-A-2C
3 18 43 10 5 B-A-2C
4 9 42 6 21 B-A-2C
5 20 59 4 31 B-A-2C
6 20 50 3 24 B-A-2C
7 15 39 3 18 B-A-2C A+C
8 28 59 3 25 B-A-2C A-C
Insight Problem Solving
• Different stages of insight problem solving
▫ Mental impasse
▫ Restructuring
▫ An “Aha!” feeling of suddenness and obviousness of the solution
Gestalt Approach
• The importance of the representation of the elements of the
problem

• However, Gestalt Psychology did not provide explanations in

terms of theories, models, mechanisms
Information Processing Approach
• In everyday life, most problems do not involve the element of
insight/restructuring
• Example: You have a date and the car does not start
▫ Try to fix it yourself.
▫ Call a friend to drive you there.
▫ Use public transport.
▫ These solutions do not involve insight
Information Processing Approach
• Problem solving: a search through a problem space
• Initial state
▫ Starting point of a problem, includes information given at the start of a
problem
• Goal state
▫ Desired end state/solution
• Operators
▫ The set of permissible operations that can be performed
• Problem space
▫ All possible states in a problem (can be very large)
▫ Intermediate states created by each operation
Information Processing Approach
• Example: Tower of Hanoi (Newell & Simon, 1972)

https://www.mathsisfun.com/games/towerofhanoi.html
Information Processing Approach
• Problem Solving: All the possible moves
Information Processing Approach
• Problem solving: a search through a problem space
• Problem space
▫ All possible states in a problem (can be very large)
▫ In general, the larger the problem space, the more difficult the
problem
▫ Do you generate and hold the entire
problem space in mind?
 Often it is impossible to generate and
hold the entire problem space in mind,
becuase it is very costly in terms of
cognitive load
 Information Processing Approach
• How is a solution found:
Means-end analysis
▫ Finding means to reach Initial State
an end
▫ Reduce the problem into
sub-goals
▫ Identify moves that can
Sub-goal
reduce differences
between initial and sub-
goal states
Goal State
Importance of how a problem is stated
• A checkerboard consists of 64
squares which can be
completely covered by placing
32 dominos on the board so that
each domino covers two squares.
• If we eliminate two corners of
the checker-board, can we now
cover the remaining squares
with 31 dominos?
Kaplan & Simon (1990)
Analogical Problem Solving
• In a small Russian village, there were 64 people: 32 unmarried
women and 32 unmarried men.
• The village matchmaker succeeded in arranging 32 highly
satisfactory marriages. The village was proud and happy.
• Then one drunken night, two men, in a test of strength, stuffed
each other with dumplings and died.
• Can the matchmaker, through some quick arrangements, come
up with 31 heterosexual marriages through 62 survivors?
Analogical Problem Solving
• There were 64 people: 32
unmarried women and 32 • A checkerboard consists of 64 squares
unmarried men  32 • which can be completely covered by
heterosexual couples placing 32 dominos on the board so
• Two men died  30 men and that each domino covers two squares.
32 women • If we eliminate two corners of the
• Can we, through some quick checker-board, can we now cover the
arrangements, come up with remaining squares with 31 dominos?
31 heterosexual couples
through 62 survivors?
Analogical Problem Solving
• Can we learn from the past?

• Can we learn something by solving a problem?

▫ Will we be able to solve similar problems
▫ It is not a function of recalling previous information, because two
situations are not identical.

• Analogical problem solving

▫ Making analogies is actually very hard
▫ People are poor at transferring solutions from a previously attempted
(source) problem to novel but related (target) problems: we are not good
at analogical transfer
Analogical Problem Solving
• Gick and Holyoak (1983)
 Noticing relationship (the most difficult step among the three steps)
 Mapping correspondence between source and target
 Applying mapping
Analogical Problem Solving
• Fortress-Problem (Gick and Holyoak, 1980)
▫ A small country was ruled from a strong fortress by a dictator. A
rebel general has to capture the fortress.
▫ Numerous roads lead to the fortress but each of them contains
mines. Any large force would detonate the mines, Yet, preventing
the whole army from using one single road.
▫ To capture the fortress, the entire army must attack the fortress at
the same time. How to attack?
Analogical Problem Solving
• Spreading the army on all the roads leading to the fortress
avoids losing soldiers to mines and enables to attack with full
power.
Analogical Problem Solving
• Tumour problem
▫ A surgeon needs to operate on a patient with a tumour
in the stomach.
▫ The tumour can be removed by directing a kind of ray
towards it.
▫ However, a ray strong enough to destroy the tumour
would also destroy the healthy tissue around it.
▫ A ray that will not harm the tissue, on the other hand,
would be too weak to destroy the tumour. How would it
be possible to destroy the tumour without damaging
the healthy tissue?
Analogical Problem Solving
▫ The surgeon needs to spread the rays by using several weak rays
so that he does not harm healthy tissues while still converging on
the tumour with full power.
Analogical Problem Solving
• Fortress and Tumour Problems are analogical
Source Target

Analogical Transfer
Analogical Problem Solving
• Without any help, 10% solve the tumour problem.

• When given the fortress story first, 30% (still quite low) solve the
tumour problem.
▫ Stories do not share surface similarities.
▫ They only have the same deep structure.
▫ This makes drawing an analogy very hard.

• When participants are told that the fortress story is relevant to

the tumour problem, almost all find the correct solution.
Additional learning materials
• Problem solving at a glance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-
sVnmmw6WY&ab_channel=CrashCourse

• Information-processing theory:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/information-
processing-
theory#:~:text=Information%2Dprocessing%20theories%20of%20pr
oblem,state%2C%20and%20all%20intervening%20states.
Readings
• Goldstein, E. B. (2019). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting mind,
research and everyday experience (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Chapter 12