Psychology 2135A/B Lecture 19: Problem Solving Part 1

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2135A/B
• Professor: John Paul Minda

Document Summary

A gap or barrier between current state &goal state. Problems can be simple or complex: how to withdraw money from the bank, how to invest money wisely at the bank. Goal: on (cid:498)chopped(cid:499) the initial state givens are the ingredients, cookware, expertise, etc, explicit or implicit eg. clearly stated or not clearly stated. No immediate recall of previous solution (obstacles: no clear path, unfamiliar domain, cognitive limitations, busy doing other (cognitive) things, confusion. Means/operators: constraints to change the original state and move closer to the goal state. Problem solving often relies on changing an ill-defined problem into a well- defined problem. Problem solving is finding the correct route through problem space. Problem space: problem state, problem operators. Algorithm: guaranteed solution, take longer, no guarantee of right answer. Heuristic: general rules &guidelines, better searching, solution from memory, save time, mostly right answer. Algorithm: guaranteed, math formula or a recipe. Exhaustive search: checking every possible solution, good sometimes.