PSYCH 3312 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Problem Solving
17 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
A person is confronted w/ a problem when he wants something and does not know immediately what series of actions he can perform to get it . Present (or initial) state - not satisfactory. Operators (or moves) - change one state into a diff state. Solution - a sequence of valid moves from the initial state to the goal. Goal state: all disks on peg 3. Constraints: only move one disk at a time, may not place a larger disk on top of a smaller one. Solution: a path to the goal state. Well-defined problem - the initial state, goal state, possible operators, and constraints are all known. Ill-defined problem - one or more components are not specified at the onset. Part of the problem is to figure out the missing elements. Emphasizes the role of knowledge, algorithms, and heuristics. Endpoints on a continuum, not sharp divisions. Strong methods: top-down, domain-specific approaches (expertise); apply directly to the problem.
