9. COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING AND INTELLIGENCE EMPIRICAL RELATION AND CAUSAL DIRECTION Dorit Wenke, Peter A.Frensch, and Joachim Funke

Goal  Individual difference in CPS vs. individual difference in Intelligence

Evaluation Criteria 1. Problem-solving competence and intelligence need to be explicitly defined and must not overlap at theoretical and/or operational levels. 2. The presumed relation between intelligence and problem solving competence must have a theoretical explanation. 3. The direction of the presumed causality must be demonstrated empirically

What is Complex Problem Solving?  Complex Problem Solving(CPS)  To overcome barriers between a given state and desired goal state By means of behavioral/cognitive, multi-step activities.

Barriers to study CPS  If two states(given and desired) are changing ?  Experiments in lab reflect CPS well?  Real situation vs. Structured Exp in lab  Rather than Simple Problem Solving  Complex interconnection among high-level cognitive function can be separated well ?  What is the things we want to examine?  Specifically defined object. We have?

Important intelligence components  Implying  Processing capacity or Reasoning ability  Learning Potential Not knowledge but acquisition of knowledge  Mediator : semantic content

Specific intelligence components  CEPS performance vs. specific intelligence component  Rather than CEPS vs. general IQ  To theoretically understand CEPS in terms of the underlying intellectual abilities, 1. More detailed Models of knowledge acquisition process in CEPS situations 2. More detailed theoretical accounts of the links between the proposed abilities and CEPS performance 3. Research designs that allow inferences about the direction of causality

Conclusion in text 1. No convincing evidence that support the relation  But just non-existence of evidence, not a lack of theoretical relation 2. Specific component of intelligence is related to specific component of CPS.  Not between global concepts.  No causal direction between subcomponents 3. In future research, 1. more specific and narrower intellectual abilities that reflect cognitive system’s architecture and functioning 2. Not correlation, but relation Relation between Intelligence and CPS performance might be moderated by complex interaction between individuals, tasks, and situations.

How to do in future? (personal view)  Too many sub-type cases for Brick Stacking style research.  Don’t divide CPS into individual sub-task  Or thoroughly divide into unit component for measure of integrative compensation among them.  Overview the whole cognitive processing or networking.