PSYCH 2H03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 57: Problem Solving, Deep Structure And Surface Structure, Functional Fixedness

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 2H03
• Professor: Ellen Maclellan

Document Summary

Ability to draw analogies is a central intellectual tool. Training problems: two groups, group 1: memorize the problems, group 2: understand each problem. Results: test problems, group 1: 64, group 2: 90% Experts tend to think about the deep structure of problems (more than novices do) Experts are better at knowing what information is irrelevant: not following so many blind alleys. Experts have: more info, different info, ex: knowledge of patterns, etc, cross-referenced, info, more connections linking info in memory, automatized procedures. Memory advantage leads to problem solving advantage. Being able to see the larger structure also helps problem solving: don"t get bogged down in irrelevant details, able to more efficiently break down problems and create subgoals. Experts sometimes don"t remember details of problems very well: understood the gist, forgot the rest, also likely to make intrusion errors, assumptions based on prior knowledge.