Factors influencing problem

solving
Problem solving: Factors

effective problem solving requires an ideal blend of both top-down and bottom-up processing

people with expertise use top-down processing effectively when they solve problems; they
take advantage of factors such as their knowledge, memory, and strategies.

both mental set and functional fixedness can interfere when we try to solve a problem; both
of these factors rely too heavily on top-down processing.

Factors
• Expertise
• Mental set
• Functional fixedness
Factor: Expertise
An individual with expertise demonstrates consistently exceptional skill and performance on
representative tasks for a particular area

Experts in a particular discipline have

• superior long-term memory related to that discipline
• detailed structure of their concepts

Experts differ from novices on several dimension crucial for problem solving
• Knowledge base
• Memory
• Problem solving strategies
• Speed and accuracy
• Metacognitive skills
Expertise: Knowledge base & Memory

Knowledge • Experts and novices differ substantially in their knowledge base and schemas
• Compared to novices

base
• Experts have broader and deeper knowledge base
• Experts have detailed and specific schemas

• Experts differ from novices with respect to their memory for information related to their area of expertise
• The memory skills of experts tend to be very specific.

Memory
• They differ from novices in the time taken to retrieve information
• For example,
• expert chess players have much better memory than novices for various chess positions
• chess experts can remember about 50,000 ‘‘chunks,’’ or familiar arrangements of chess pieces
• chess experts are only slightly better than novices at remembering random arrangements of the chess pieces
Expertise: Problem solving strategies

When experts encounter They are more likely to Experts and novices
a novel problem in their approach a problem differ in the way they use
area of expertise, systematically the analogy approach
• they are more likely • whereas novices are • experts are more likely
than novices to use the more likely to have a to emphasize the
means-ends heuristic haphazard approach structural similarity
effectively between problems
• novices are more likely
to be distracted by
surface similarities
Expertise: Speed and accuracy
Experts are much faster than novices
and also solve problems very
accurately
• Their operations become more
automatic
• A particular stimulus situation also
quickly triggers a response
On some tasks (anagram solving),
experts may solve problems faster
because they use parallel processing,
rather than serial processing
• they typically solved the anagrams
so quickly that they must have been
considering several possible
solutions at the same time
• novices solved the anagrams so
slowly that they were probably using
serial processing
Expertise:Metacognitive skills

Experts seem to be better at judging the difficulty of a problem

They are more skilled at allocating their time appropriately when solving problems

Experts can also recover relatively quickly when they realize that they have made an error

Experts, however, perform poorly on one task related to metacognition

• underestimate the amount of time that novices will require to solve a problem in the experts’ area of
specialization
• the novices are more accurate in realizing that they will have trouble solving the problem
Factor: Mental set
• Water-jar problem
Factor: Mental set
When having a mental set
• Individuals keep trying the same
solution they used in previous
problems, even though they could
solve the problem by using a
different, easier method.
• People close their mind prematurely,
and stop thinking about how to solve
a problem effectively
• Top-down processing is more active
compared to trials when they keep
trying their customary problem-
solving strategy
• People have a greater change in their
event-related brain potentials (ERPs)
on trials when they break a mental
set
Mental sets are related to fixed and
growth mindset concept by Carol
Dweck (2006)
• In a fixed mindset
• People believe that they possess a
certain amount of intelligence and
other skills
• no amount of effort can help them
perform better
• They give up on trying to discover
new ways to improve abilities
• In a growth mindset
• People believe that they can
cultivate your intelligence and
other skills
• Challenge themselves to perform
better
Factor: Functional fixedness
• Duncker’s candle problem
Functional fixedness
functional fixedness
• Our tendency to assign • functional fixedness
stable or fixed functions
to an object
• Hence, we fail to think
about the features of this
object that might be
useful in helping us solve
a problem
But, functional fixedness
Like mental set refers to the way we think
about physical objects
• While mental set refers to
occurs when our top- problem-solving
down processing is strategies
overactive
In our everyday life, most
of us have access to a
variety of tools and objects
• so functional fixedness
does not create a
significant handicap.
Objects in our world
normally have fixed
functions
• For example,
• we use a screwdriver to
tighten a screw,
• we use a coin to
purchase something.
• Functional fixedness
occurs, however, when
we apply that strategy
too rigidly
• we may fail to realize
that—if we don’t have a
screwdriver—a coin
may provide a handy
substitute