Problem Solving, and

Calculation are Hard

WE HAVE THREE BRAINS
• We really have three brains, or if you prefer, a brain with three main
parts, each of which affects different aspects of our thought and
behavior
1. The old brain:This is mainly the brain stem, where the spinal cord
enters the base of the brain. The old brain classifies everything into
three categories: edible, dangerous, or sexy. It also regulates the
body’s automatic functions, such as digestion, breathing, and
reflexive movement.
Eg: Reptiles, amphibians, and most fish have only the old brain
• The midbrain:This part of the brain is “middle” in two ways:
(1) physically, because it is located above the old brain and beneath the
cortex, and
(2) evolutionarily, because it evolved after the old brain and before the
new brain.
The midbrain controls emotions; it reacts to things with joy, sadness,
fear, aggressiveness, apprehensiveness, anger, etc.
Eg:Birds and lower mammals have only an old brain and a midbrain.
• The new brain:This part of the brain mainly consists of the cerebral
cortex. It controls intentional, purposeful, conscious activity, including
planning.
• Most mammals have a cortex in addition to their old brain and
midbrain, but only a few highly evolved mammals—elephants;
porpoises, dolphins, and whales; and monkeys, apes, and humans—
have a sizable one.
WE HAVE TWO MINDS
• Cognitive psychologists these days usually lump the functions of the
midbrain and old brain together, separate from the functions of the
new brain
• They view the human mind as consisting of two distinct “minds”:
1. an unconscious, automatic mind operating largely in the old brain
and midbrain,[System one,Emotional mind]
2. a conscious, monitored mind operating mainly in the new brain.
[System two,Rational mind]
Which one will control our perception and behaviour?
• One noteworthy fact about our conscious, rational, monitored mind
(system two) is that it is us—it is where our consciousness and self-
awareness are.
• Of course, it thinks it is in charge of our behavior. It believes it runs
the show because it is the only one of the two minds that has
consciousness. But in fact system two is rarely in charge.
• System one (the unconscious, automatic, emotional mind) operates
quickly compared to system two—10 to 100 times as fast—but it does
so by operating based on intuition, guesses, and shortcuts, which
makes everything it does an approximation.
• We all have both system one and system two, but system two is often
lazy: it accepts the quick estimates and judgments of system one even
though they are often inaccurate.Why?
• Because the perceptions and judgments of system one come quickly,
and are usually good enough to allow us to get by in most situations.
• Also, operating system two takes conscious will and mental effort,
while system one is always running in the background and takes no
conscious effort.
• When is system two needed? When our goals require getting
something not just sort of right but exactly right, when we are in
situations system one does not recognize and therefore has no
automatic response, or when system one has multiple conflicting
responses and no quick-and-dirty way to resolve them.
• Because system one is the primary controller of human perception
and behavior.
• Since system one reacts faster than system two, we sometimes act
based on what it tells us before we (i.e., our system two) reach a
conscious decision or are even aware that action is required.
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE IS
(USUALLY) EASY
• People are pretty good at generalizing from specific experiences and
observations to extract conclusions. We generalize constantly
throughout our lives.
• Eg:
1. Stay away from leopards.
2. Don’t eat bad-smelling food.
3. Ice cream tastes good, but it melts quickly in hot weather.
4. Wait a day before replying to an email that makes you mad. l Don’t
open attachments from unfamiliar senders.
Our ability to learn from experience
is limited in several ways.
1. complex situations that involve many variables or that are subject
to a wide variety of forces are difficult for people to predict, learn
from, and generalize about.
• Experienced stock market investors still aren’t sure what stocks to sell or buy
now.
• People who have lived in Denver, CO, for years still have trouble predicting the
weather there.
• Even after interacting with your sister’s boyfriend on several occasions, you
may still not be sure he is a good guy.
2. Second, experiences from our own lives or those of relatives and
friends influence our conclusions more than experiences we read or
hear about.
3. when people make a mistake, they don’t always learn the right
lesson from it.
4. people have in learning from experience is that they often
overgeneralize—that is, make generalizations based on incomplete
data.
• A cortex is certainly necessary to be aware that one has learned from
experience, and only creatures with the largest new brains.
• Even though there are limits on how well we learn from direct
experience and from the experience of others, learning and
generalizing from experience are relatively easy for the human mind.
PERFORMING LEARNED ACTIONS IS
EASY
• When we go somewhere we have been many times before, or do
something we have done many times before, we do it almost
automatically, without much conscious thought.
1. Riding a bicycle after many years of practice.
2. Backing out of your driveway and driving to work for the 300th time.
3. Brushing your teeth as an adult.

In fact, “automatic” is how cognitive psychologists refer to routine, well-learned

behavior. Automatic activities can even be done in parallel with other activities.
How does an activity become automatic? practice, practice, practice
PERFORMING NOVEL ACTIONS IS
HARD
• When a person first tries to drive a car—especially a car with a stick shift
—every part of the activity requires conscious attention.
• To demonstrate to yourself the difference in conscious attention required
by well-learned (automatic) versus novel (controlled) tasks, try these :
1. Recite the letters of the alphabet from A to M. Then recite the letters
of the alphabet from M to A
2. Drive to work, using your normal route. The next day, use a very
different, unfamiliar route.
3. Hum the first measure of the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Then
hum it backwards.
• How can designers of interactive systems make the tasks that they
support faster, easier, and less error-prone?
PROBLEM SOLVING AND
CALCULATION ARE HARD
• Reptiles, amphibians, and most birds get along in their world quite
well with just an old brain and a midbrain.4 Insects, spiders, and
mollusks survive in their environments with even less. Animals
without a cortex (or its equivalent, as in a few birds) can learn from
experience, but it usually takes a lot of experience and they can only
learn minor adjustments to their behavior.
• Most of their behavior is stereotyped, repetitive, and predictable
once we understand the demands of their environment (Simon,
1969). That may be just fine when their environment requires only
the behaviors they already have automated.
• But what if the environment throws a curve ball: it requires new
behavior, and requires it right now? What if a creature faces a
situation it has never encountered before, and may never encounter
again? In short, what if it is faced with a problem?
• In such cases, creatures with no cortex or its equivalent cannot cope.
• However, problems that system one cannot resolve and require the
engagement of system two, exceed our short-term memory limits,
require certain information be retrieved from long-term memory, or
in which we encounter distractions, strain our brains.
Example 1
• I need to move the washing machine out of the garage, but the car is
in the way, and my car keys are … hmmm … they’re not in my pocket.
Where are they? … [Search car.] They’re not in the car. Maybe I left
them in my jacket. … Now where did I leave my jacket? [Search house;
eventually find jacket in bedroom.] Okay, found the keys. … Boy is this
bedroom messy—must clean it before wife gets home. … Hmmm.
Why did I need the car keys? [Return to garage, see washer.] Oh,
yeah: to move the car so I can move the washing machine out of the
garage. (Interim subgoals grabbed attention away from higher-level
goals in short-term memory.)
Example 2
• You have to measure exactly four liters of water, but you only have a
three-liter bottle and a five-liter bottle. How do you do it?
• When solving such problems, people often use external memory aids,
such as writing down interim results, sketching diagrams, and
manipulating models of the problem.
• 93.3 × 102.1 = ?
• SOLVING TECHNICAL PROBLEMS REQUIRES TECHNICAL INTEREST AND
TRAINING
IMPLICATIONS FOR USER-INTERFACE
DESIGN
• People often intentionally challenge and entertain themselves by
creating or solving puzzles that strain—or “exercise”—their minds
• Interactive systems should minimize the amount of attention users
must devote to operating them (Krug, 2005), because that pulls
precious cognitive resources away from the task a user came to the
computer to do. Here are some design rules:
• Prominently indicate system status and users’ progress toward their
goal.
• Guide users toward their goals.
• l Tell users explicitly and exactly what they need to know.
• Don’t make users diagnose system problems.
• Minimize the number and complexity of settings.
• Let people use perception rather than calculation.
• Make the system familiar
• Let the computer do the math.