- the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge through thought, experience, and the senses
- a perception, sensation, or intuition resulting from this
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when did cognitive psychology emerge?
after WW2
- new discoveries in information handling
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what are the new types of cognitive theories?
- must be able to generate testable hypotheses
- box and arrow diagrams
- computational models
- cognitive neuropsychology
- cognitive neuroscience
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What is a problem?
a problem arises when a living organism has a goal but does not know how this goal is to be reached
- Duncker (1945)
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What is problem solving?
- purposeful (goal directed)
- involves cognitive (not automatic) processes
- only exists when someone lacks the relevant knowledge to produce an immediate solution
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What is the two-string problem (Maier, 1931)?
• Task is to tie one string to the other
• Cannot reach one string while holding the other
• Room contains objects such as poles, pliers
and extension cords
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what are insight problems?
- solutions require a one-off insight
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what is a non-insight problem?
- require incremental and sequential problem solving
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what did Jung-Beeman et al. (2004) find?
Right anterior superior temporal gyrus was activated only when solutions involved insight
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what is representational change theory?
Ohlsson (1992)
- insight problems permit several mental representation
- current representation is used to search memory for relevant information
- a block occurs when the problem representation is inappropriate
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How can representational change theory occur?
1. elaboration: new information (e.g. a hint)
2. constraint relaxation: extend ideas of what actions are possible
3. re-encoding (e.g. pliers can act as a weight)
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What did Kaplan and Simon (1990) find?
• Participants thought aloud whilst solving the problem – Most mentally covered the board
• Each domino covers one white and one black square (re-encoding)
• The board has lost two white squares (re- encoding/elaboration)
• So 31 dominos cannot cover the
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what is the matchstick problem?
Knoblich, Ohlsson & Raney (2001)
IV = III - I
move a single stick to produce a true statement
- participants spent more time fixating the values than the operators
- suggests their representation of the problem specified that the values needed to change
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What did Newell & Simon (1972) find?
- In complex problems, operators are chosen using heuristics (‘rules of thumb’)
- These approaches were based on participants ‘thinking aloud’ during problem solving
- Problem-solving involves a range of different
knowledge states between initial state an
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What did Luchins (1942) find?
• Well practiced strategies are often used in inappropriate situations
• Past experience can be detrimental to performance on some tasks
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what is transfer?
Previous experience can lead to positive or negative transfer
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What did Holyoke and Koh (1987) study and find?
- they looked at surface vs structural similarity
- they used four different source stories
- stories vary in their surface and structural similarity to the target problem
- they found that the surface similarity had a greater relative impact on analogue
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
when did cognitive psychology emerge?
Back
after WW2
- new discoveries in information handling
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