PSY 324: Chapter 11: Problem Solving & Chapter 12:Decision Making

What is the probability that the cab involved in the accident was blue?

15%

Chase and Simon (1973, 1974) showed that expert chess players are superior to novices in their memory for chess arrangements. They found that experts were able to remember more pieces in actual game arrangements. However, when the arrangement was a random placement of pieces:

Experts did no better than novices

Being unable to think about a hammer as anything else than a tool used to pounds nails into a wall means that you are focusing on a specific characteristic of the hammer referred to as a __________.

Fixation

Unlike heuristics, in theory, algorithms _____________ the correct solution.

Guarantee

Experts _______ novices.

Have a slower start but quickly catch up to

What hint did Maier (1931) give to participants working on the Two String Problem when he was interested in studying insight?

He bumped into one of the ropes, causing it to swing back and forth.

______are 'rules of thumb' type shortcuts to solving problems.

Heuristics

In order to quantify creativity, we count the number of different ideas an individual can generate. This is called _________.

Ideational fluency

_______-defined problems refer to problems that do not have a direct path to achieving the desired goal.

Ill

A productive process involves:

The restructuring of information

Which is the best example of functional fixedness?

Using a hanger to hang your clothes

___________-defined problems have correct answers, and certain procedures lead us to them

Well

These types of problems have correct answers and certain procedures will reveal them.

Well-defined

Luchin's water jug problem (1942) is considered a(n):

Well-defined problem

Behaviorist Edward Thorndike used _________to study problem solving.

a cat

What is the term for acquiring and processing information about the world in order to make behavioral decisions?

cognition

Chase and Simon (1973a, 1974b) studied the memories of expert and novice chess players for the arrangement of chess pieces on a chess board. They found that:

experts did better than novices only when pieces were in actual game arrangements.

An __________ problem is one in which the solution occurs suddenly onto your consciousness, while a __________ problem is distinguished by the process of consciously working through each step of a problem to arrive at a solution.

insight; non-insight

Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that people are often predictably__________.

irrational

To do this to information, you have to actively manipulate it and change its representation in your mind

restructuring

Shortcuts that usually get you to your goal based on simple properties of problems are called:

these are called Heuristics

Jessica always leaves a 20% tip when she pays her restaurant bills. She is trying to figure out how much money she needs to pay if her bill is $12. Jessica is working on a(n):

this is an example of a Well-defined problem

Deciding what parts of a problem are irrelevant to solving it tends to be more difficult when you are dealing with what type of problem?

when you are dealing with Ill-defined

The expected utility hypothesis states that given the right information, people will generally:

Choose the action that is most likely to lead to the highest expected value

The final step in problem solving is:

Choosing a solution and taking steps toward solving the problem

Decision making is

Choosing a specific course of behavioral actions from among many possibilities

Ideational fluency is

The number of ideas a person can generate about a particular topic

Maier (1931) provided participants with useful and useless hints to solve the two string problem. Some of the participants who correctly solved the problem mentioned the useless cues as helping them. This demonstrates a lack of _____________ of the nature of insight!

Consciousness

Problem solving is the process of _____________.

Achieving a goal when you do not know the solution right away

_________ should always produce the correct solution.

Algorithms

When TV announcers say something like, "How much would you pay? $200...how about $150...if you call now, we'll give it to you for the amazing price of just....", they are trying to get people to focus and rely on an initial piece of information (i.e., the price being $150-$200). This is related to which heuristic?

Anchoring

Which of the following is supposed to help experts conserve processing power but in certain cases creates a barrier to problem solving?

Automatic responses

Rank this in order of least likely to be true to most likely to be true.

Linda is a teacher in elementary school. Linda works in a bookstore and takes Yoga classes. Linda is active in the feminist movement. Linda is a psychiatric social worker. Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters. Linda is a bank teller. Linda is an insurance salesperson. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement

Why is it that most people will not take a bet unless the amount they can win is almost double what they could lose?

Loss aversion

When people notice similarities between past problems and current ones and use the same problem-solving techniques that have worked in the past they are creating:

Mental sets

Why do people rate tornadoes to be a greater cause of death than asthma when, in fact, asthma kills 20 times more people than tornadoes?

People have a tendency to rely on information that quickly comes to mind.

According to Sternberg's triarchic theory, people who are 'street smart' have a high level of _______ intelligence.

Practical

Metcalfe and Wiebe (1987) gave participants insight and non-insight problems. Participants reported every 15 seconds how close they felt they were to a solution by indicating their feeling of warmth. It was found that when solving non-insight problems, participants:

Predicted with some accuracy how close they were to solving the problem

_________ refers to a cognitive process that involves discovering, analyzing and solving problems.

Problem solving

Before we can make a decision, we need to determine what information we can bring to bear on the situation based on the information we currently have. This is referred to as:

Reasoning

The solution to Duncker's candle problem is to:

Remove the matches from their box and tack the matchbox to the wall

Problem solving by using previous experiences and what is already known is referred to as a:

Reproductive process

Gestalt Psychologists think of problem solving as a process that involves:

Restructuring

According to Kahneman, there are two reasoning systems: a ________ system that engages in the serial, analytical processing of information and a ________system that relies on heuristics.

Slow; fast

Which of these is not part of Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence?

Social intelligence

The tendency to rely on information that quickly comes to mind when trying to make a decision is called...

The availability heuristic