1. Cognition and Intelligence

2. Find the answer to the question  In the Thompson family there are five brothers. Each brother has one sister. Counting the mother, how many females are there in the family?  Fifteen percent of the people in Topeka (the capital of Kansas) have unlisted phone numbers. You select 200 names at random from the phone book. How many of these people can be expected to have unlisted phone numbers?

3.  You have three containers that hold 127, 21, and 3 ounces of water.  How can you manage to get exactly 100 ounces in the large container?

4. Types of Problems  Problem Solving refers to active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable. Three basic types: 1. Problems of inducing structure- --series completion and analogy problems 2. Problems of arrangement- --string problems and anagrams (burst of insight) 3. Problems of tranformation- --hobbits and orcs (water jar)

5. Barriers to Effective Problem Solving  Functional Fixedness: the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use. Young children are less vulnerable to this trait due to less experience. Example:  Rachel’s car breaks down while she is driving through the desert. She is terribly thirsty. She finds several soda bottles in the trunk but no bottle opener. She doesn’t think of using the car key to open the bottles because of functional fixedness.

6. Barriers to Effective Problem Solving: continued  Irrelevant Information: Often problems include information that is not necessary to the solving of the problem. It is distracting to the solver. You must figure out what information is relevant BEFORE solving. Example:  A familiar children’s riddle goes like this: As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, every cat had seven kits. How many were going to St. Ives? People may think of this as a complicated math problem, but in reality, only one person, the “I,” is headed to St. Ives. The seven wives and their respective entourages are headed the other way.

7.  Mental Set: Also a rigid thinking problem, mental set is when people continue to use old previously successful patterns to solve new problems. Example:  When Matt’s flashlight hasn’t worked in the past, he’s just shaken it to get it to work again. One day when it doesn’t come on, he shakes it, but it still doesn’t work. He would be subject to mental set if he keeps shaking it without checking whether it needs new batteries.

8. Barriers to Effective Problem Solving  Unnecessary Constraints: Occurs when the solver places unnecessary boundaries on the problem. Sometimes you must be innovative to be able to solve the problem by thinking without boundaries. Example:  Another familiar riddle goes as follows: A father and his son are driving on a highway and get into a terrible accident. The father dies, and the boy is rushed to the hospital with major injuries. When he gets to the hospital, a surgeon rushes in to help the boy but stops and exclaims, “I can’t operate on this boy—he’s my son!” How can this be? If people have a hard time answering, they may be making a false assumption. The surgeon is the boy’s mother.

9. Approaches to Problem Solving  People employ a variety of strategies to solve problems.  Trial and Error: Involves trying possible solutions sequentially and discarding those that are in error until one works. Example:  It’s dark, and a man is trying to figure out which button on the dashboard of his newly rented car switches on the headlights. He might press all the available buttons until he finds the right one.

10. Approaches to Problem Solving  Heuristic: A shortcut; a guiding principle or “rule of thumb” used in solving problems or making decisions. They can be: ---forming sub goals, searching for analogies, and changing the representations of the problem Example:  A useful heuristic for finishing a timed exam might be “Do the easy questions first.”

11. Culture, Cognitive style and Problem Solving  Cross cultural differences impact on people’s ability to solve problems.  Witkin’s discovery of dimensions in cognitive style include:  Field dependence-independence refers to individuals’ tendency to rely primarily on external versus internal frames of reference when orienting themselves in space.

12. Field Dependence  A person relies on external frames of reference ad tend to accept the physical environment rather than try to analyze or reconstruct it.  Research has shown that some cultures encourage field dependent cognitive style. They are agricultural, sedentary societies and in societies that stress strict child rearing practices and conformity.

13. Field Independence  Contrary to dependence, people with field independent styles rely on internal frames of reference and tend to analyze and try to restructure the physical environment rather than accepting it as it is.  These ideas tend to be promoted by Western societies educational practices and more likely to be shown in nomadic societies that depend on hunting and gathering for subsistence. Also they are found in societies that promote autonomy.

14. Research into Field dependence and independence  Witkin & Goodenough, (1981): Relates to diverse aspects of cognitive, emotional and social functioning with strengths and weaknesses.  In problem solving, field-independence seems better.  Richard Nisbett (2001) argued that people from Eastern Asian cultures (China, Japan and Korea) display holistic cognitive style that focuses on context and relationships among elements. But people from Western cultures (America and Europe) show an analytic cognitive style that focuses on objects and their properties rather than context.

15. Decision Making: Choices and Chances  Decision Making involves evaluating alternatives and making choices among them.  Even though people try to be systematic and rational in their choices, it does not always work that way.  Finding by Herbert Simon (1957) found that people have a limited ability to process and evaluate information on numerous parts of possibilities. People use simple strategies that can often result in “irrational” decisions.

16. Making Choices: Selecting and Alternative  Additive strategy: Compile a list of attributes that influence decision making. Example:  Choosing a college in which to attend, make a table with a series of attributes such as cost, program of study, social life and location. Then attribute ratings and compile a total and weight the factors as done in the example above.

17. Making Choices: Elimination by Aspect Method  People also make choice by eliminating the less attractive alternatives (Slovic, 1990)  This method assumes that alternative are eliminated by evaluating them on each attribute or aspect in turn.  When it lacks something required, it is discarded.

18. What do people actually use?  John Payne (1976) found that when decisions involve relatively few options that are evaluated on a few attributes, people tend to use additive strategies.  As more options and factors must be considered, people shift to elimination by aspects method.  As decision get more complex, the method used becomes simpler.

19. Taking Chances: Factors Weighed in Risky Decisions  Risky decision making involves making choices under conditions of uncertainty. This exists when people don’t know what will happen.  To weigh the decision, people figure out the expected value of participation in the venture.  However, people often behave in a manner that is inconsistent with expected value (Slovic, 1988)  Example: Every time a value is negative, the gambler should expect to lose, but they continue to play.