PSYC 213 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Structural Similarity, Functional Fixedness, Electric Light
16 May 2018
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Lecture 020 - 03/29
Last class:
• Well defined problems
o A set goal & solution path, they have many task constraints
o Ie: sudoku puzzles
• Ill defined puzzles:
o May not be a clear solution, fewer task constraint and more cognitive load,
ie: navigating awkwards situations in life
▪ Ie: seeing someone at the end of the hallway
• Gestalt views: insight is restructuring a problem so you see it form a new
perspective
• Insight is overcoming blocks in problem solving
o Functional fixedness
o Mental fixedness
▪ Mental sets and negative transfer
• Insight recruits diff brain regions than non insight problem solving
o More right hemisphere involvement
• Why some problems linger: Zeigarnik effect → unfulfilled tasks linger in mind
and this creates a need to finish a task once it is started
o We have a cognitive need to finish this because we don’t like not finishing
• A situation that is incomplete will remain active in one’s mind
o Zeigarnik noticed that waiters could remember complex orders without
writing them down but forgot them once the food was delivered
▪ She studied this in the lab where P did simple tasks where some of
the time they were interrupted or not and then she asked them if
they remembered the puzzles and they were more likely to
remember the puzzle if they had been interrupted
• May explain work related stress → the number of unfinished tasks at work relates
to stress levels
• Analogical transfer: using past stories or solutions to solve a current problem
• Ie: archimedes: he was trying to figure out if the crown was pure gold or not: he
knew the weight of silver and gold but couldn’t figure out the volume
o He took a bath and noticed that the water levels rose and he found his
solution: the volume of the crown could be determined by how much the
water would rise when he put it in the bath
• Analogical problem solving:
• 1. Notice a relationship between 2 things: the target problem and the source
problem
• 2. Map the correspondence between the source and target problem
• 3. Apply the mapping by generating a parallel solution for the target problem
• Ie: radiation problem → the target problem: how can the patient be saved?
o They will given them a story that might be similar in some respect to help
them solve this
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o Ie: the fortress story where the P realise that you need small and multiple
low intensity attacks and it helped them solve the radiation problem
• 2 forms of similarity:
o Surface similarity: the surface details are similar aka the parts of the
problem looks the same
▪ Ie: people with similar haircut
o Structural similarity: the relations are similar but not how they are
represented, like the fortress and radiation problem (the underlying
relation is similar but not how they are represented)
▪ Ie: 2 people who get a haircut at the same barber
• Surface similarity seems to benefit analogy more than structural similarity
o Researchers used the lightbulb story which had a structural similarity to
the fortress and radiation story + had surface similarity to the radiation
problem
• In an experiment they gave the lightbulb story or a control story (no surface
feature or similarity)
o If people saw light bulb: 69% people solve the lightbulb problem
spontaneously VS for control only 10% correctly solved the radiation
problem
• Analogies in the real world: brings familiarity to unfamiliar situations or objects →
they can help us navigate new territories and make us see new/parallel things
o Steve Jobs used a desktop as an analogy to create the personal computer
This class:
• The info processing approach to problem solving
o A computer program
• How do experts solve problems
• Creativity
• The hobbits and orcs problems:
o 3 hobbits & orcs on one side of the river where they all want to cross to
the other side: there is one boat that holds up to 2 people but if there are
more orcs than hobbits in one place the orcs eat the hobbits
▪ How do you get everyone safely? You can do this in 11 steps
• There are problems that are best solved in step by step fashion: often have
strongly defined features + a lot of task constraints
• Problem solving as a problem space (= the representation of a problem that
includes)
o Initial state & goal state (aka start and end)
o Intermediate states aka subgoals
o Operators (transition or transformation when you move from a state to a
state)
o Task constraints which limits the allowable moves
• The tower of Hanoi: move the 3 discs from peg A to peg C so the discs are in the
same initial order:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Last class: well defined problems, a set goal & solution path, they have many task constraints. Ill defined puzzles: may not be a clear solution, fewer task constraint and more cognitive load, ie: navigating awkwards situations in life. Ie: seeing someone at the end of the hallway: gestalt views: insight is restructuring a problem so you see it form a new perspective. Insight is overcoming blocks in problem solving: functional fixedness, mental fixedness, mental sets and negative transfer. Notice a relationship between 2 things: the target problem and the source problem: 2. Map the correspondence between the source and target problem: 3. Apply the mapping by generating a parallel solution for the target problem. Ie: radiation problem the target problem: how can the patient be saved: they will given them a story that might be similar in some respect to help them solve this.
