Another look at personal validation

Students' ability to validate the results from their own psychological tests was examined in two experiments. In Experiment I, sophomore, senior, and graduate students were presented with their actual and inverted profiles from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and the Students were asked to select their actual profiles. The senior and graduate students could reliably select their own profiles while the sophomore students could not. In Experiment 2, sophomore students were presented with their actual and inverted profiles from the CPI and the Differential Aptitudes Test (DAT) and the students were asked to select their actual profiles. The students were able to reliably select their actual profiles for both tests. The students were much more likely to select their own DAT profile than CPI profile, and they were more confident in their selection of the actual DAT profile.     

Pigeons and people select efficient routes when solving a one-way "traveling salesperson" task

The authors presented people (Experiment 1) and pigeons (Experiments 2 and 3) with a large number of 1-way traveling salesperson problems that consisted of 3, 4, and 5 identical stimuli (nodes) on a computer monitor. The sequence of nodes that each traveler selected was recorded, and the distance of the route was subsequently determined. The routes the pigeons and people selected were reliably more efficient than those used by a Monte Carlo model given the same problems. The pigeons' routes were significantly less efficient than a nearest neighbor model of performance, however. In Experiment 3, pigeons were required to select a route that was within the top 33% of all possible solutions for a given problem. The pigeons' solutions were significantly more efficient than those observed in Experiment 2, in which the behavioral criterion was not imposed. The mechanisms that pigeons and people may have been using to solve the traveling salesperson problems are discussed.     

Schema induction in problem solving: a multidimensional analysis

The present research examined the processes of schema formation in problem solving. In 4 experiments, participants experienced a series of tasks analogous to A. S. Luchins' (1942) water jar problems before attempting to solve isomorphic target problems. Juxtaposing illustrative source instances varying in procedural features along multiple dimensions promoted the construction of a general schema that facilitated solving an isomorphic problem requiring a novel procedure. Exposure to less variant problems led to faster initial learning, but narrower and fixed schemas (mental set), whereas exposure to variant procedures led to slower initial learning, but broader and more flexible schemas. The findings support the dimensional specificity hypothesis: Generalization along 1 dimension facilitates transfer to a target problem differing from the source problems in that dimension.     

Analogical problem solving

The use of an analogy from a semantically distant domain to guide the problemsolving process was investigated. The representation of analogy in memory and processes involved in the use of analogies were discussed theoretically and explored in five experiments. In Experiment I oral protocols were used to examine the processes involved in solving a problem by analogy. In all experiments subjects who first read a story about a military problem and its solution tended to generate analogous solutions to a medical problem (Duncker's “radiation problem”), provided they were given a hint to use the story to help solve the problem. Transfer frequency was reduced when the problem presented in the military story was substantially disanalogous to the radiation problem, even though the solution illustrated in the story corresponded to an effective radiation solution (Experiment II). Subjects in Experiment III tended to generate analogous solutions to the radiation problem after providing their own solutions to the military problem. Subjects were able to retrieve the story from memory and use it to generate an analogous solution, even when the critical story had been memorized in the context of two distractor stories (Experiment IV). However, when no hint to consider the story was given, frequency of analogous solutions decreased markedly. This decrease in transfer occurred when the story analogy was presented in a recall task along with distractor stories (Experiment IV), when it was presented alone, and when it was presented in between two attempts to solve the problem (Experiment V). Component processes and strategic variations in analogical problem solving were discussed. Issues related to noticing analogies and accessing them in memory were also examined, as was the relationship of analogical reasoning to other cognitive tasks.     

Solving problems by analogy: The benefits and detriments of hints and depressed moods

In Experiment 1, mildly depressed (dysphoric) and nondysphoric subjects tried to solve logic problems that were analogous to subsequent target problems; then they attempted target solutions with or without hints in the form of the anologues’ themes. Target solutions were impaired by the hints in the nondysphoric group alone. Experiment 2A was a no-training control to verify that transfer did indeed occur. In Experiment 2B, all subjects received hints in the transfer phase; the training phase was either problem oriented (as in Experiment 1) or memory oriented. Again, nondysphoric subjects solved fewer problems following problem-oriented training than did both dysphoric subjects in that condition and nondysphoric subjects with memory-oriented training. Experiment 3 replicated the previous results in the nondysphoric samples. We interpret these findings within the transferappropriate processing framework.     

Positive affect facilitates social problem solving

We conducted two experiments to test the impact of positive affect on social problem solving. In Experiment 1, participants induced to experience a positive (vs. neutral) affective state generated a greater number of relevant steps to solve fictitious interpersonal problems as well as more effective solutions to the problems. In Experiment 2, participants induced to experience a positive (vs. negative) affective state generated more functional solutions to their own social problems. The positive mood effects observed in Experiment 2 were moderated by dispositional optimism. Our findings have practical implications, as the extent to which individuals are able to generate effective solutions to social problems has far‐reaching consequences with respect to personal adjustment and social functioning.     

Evidence for abstract, schematic knowledge of three spatial diagram representations

Spatial diagram representations such as hierarchies, matrices, and networks are important tools for thinking. Our data suggest that college students possess abstract schemas for these representations that include at least rudimentary information about their applicability conditions. In Experiment 1, subjects were better able to select the appropriate spatial diagram representation for a problem when cued to use general category information in memory about those representations than when cued to use specific example problems given during the experiment. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the superior performance in the general category condition was not based on a comparison of the test problems with examples in memory. The results of Experiment 3 showed that the superior performance was not due to learning that occurred during the experiment or to transfer appropriate processing. The General Discussion section considers the nature of students' representation schemas and the question of why college students have only rudimentary schemas for common and widely applicable diagrammatic representations.     

Usefulness of Tables for Solving Word Problems

Our previous research on algebra word problems (Reed, Dempster, & Ettinger, 1985) revealed that students usually could not use one problem's solution to solve a similar problem that required a slight modification of the solution. In an attempt to improve their performance, we gave students practice on either filling in tables or using completed tables. Practice on entering values into tables usually did not improve performance on constructing equations because students often failed to enter the correct values. Students' use of completed tables resulted in improved performance when the tables were provided but did not result in transfer to isomorphic problems in which the tables were not provided. Encouraging students to use previous solutions resulted in partial success on the isomorphic problems, which was explained by using a task analysis based on Sternberg's (1977) model for four-term analogy problems.     

Types of college student-to-student learning: correlated interactions

209 college men and 327 college women took a 20-item Likert survey to assess the types of education-related information students may learn from other students during their informal interactions. Students were very likely to ask other students low level questions such as which professors were good and which classes to take. They were less likely to ask other students about concepts discussed in class and how to solve problems generated in class. If students asked about test taking, these students were also likely to ask about study skills and writing skills for the class. Other research suggests these higher level help-seeking behaviors seem to be related to classroom mastery and achievement.     

The role of sound intensity and stop-consonant voicing on McGurk fusions and combinations

The present paper argues that generalisation is conservative. Our goal was to experimentally study the links between knowledge generalisation and the storage of contextual elements. The knowledge domain, very simple chess configurations, allowed subjects, novices in chess, to acquire micro-expertise based on the analysis of a single source problem. In the first experimental phase, subjects had to analyse a source problem. We induced two modes of source-problem encoding: In the first group, subjects were given explanations focused on the sequence of elementary solving steps; in the other group they were given the general principle relevant to the category of problems in question. Subjects had then to solve different tests (solving isomorphic problems, recall tests, similarity tests) designed to answer two questions: The first question was to test whether the experimental manipulation in the two groups had in fact generated knowledge that varied in abstractness; the second question was to determine whether generalisation is accompanied by storage of surface features of the source problem. Results show that the knowledge generalisation is conservative. Subjects who generalise their knowledge have a better memory retention of context-dependent elements than the other subjects.     

Children's understanding of the arithmetic concepts of inversion and associativity

Previous studies have shown that even preschoolers can solve inversion problems of the form a+b-b by using the knowledge that addition and subtraction are inverse operations. In this study, a new type of inversion problem of the form d x e/e was also examined. Grade 6 and 8 students solved inversion problems of both types as well as standard problems of the form a+b-c and d x e/f. Students in both grades used the inversion concept on both types of inversion problems, although older students used inversion more frequently and inversion was used most frequently on the addition/subtraction problems. No transfer effects were found from one type of inversion problem to the other. Students who used the concept of associativity on the addition/subtraction standard problems (e.g., a+b-c=[b-c]+a) were more likely to use the concept of inversion on the inversion problems, although overall implementation of the associativity concept was infrequent. The findings suggest that further study of inversion and associativity is important for understanding conceptual development in arithmetic.     

Experience and problem representation in statistics

This research investigated experience level differences in problem representation in statistics. A triad judgment task was designed so that source problems shared either surface similarity (story narrative) or structural (inferential level) features (t test, correlation, or chi-square) with the target problem. Graduate students with varying levels of experience in statistics were asked to choose which source problem "goes best" with the target problem for each triad. Given a choice between a problem that shares surface-level characteristics and one that shares inferential-level characteristics, students who had taken 0 to 4 courses in statistics tended to represent problems on the basis of surface-level features. Students who had more than 4 courses did not consistently make choices on the basis of surface-level features, nor did they consistently rely on structural features. However, all students with statistics course backgrounds noticed structural features when competition between different types of features was eliminated. The role of surface and structural features in determining problem representations is discussed.     

Prototypes are Key Heuristic Information in Insight Problem Solving

Evidence from a range of fields indicates that inventions are often inspired by drawing a parallel to solutions found in nature. However, the cognitive mechanism of this process is not well understood. The cognitive mechanism of heuristic prototype in scientific innovation was tested with 3 experiments. First, 84 historical accounts of important scientific innovations were collected and the prototype solution underlying them was extracted. Experiment 1 tested the validity of these materials and showed that knowledge of the prototype facilitated insight solutions. Experiment 2 and 3 suggested that activation of the prototype was indeed the critical element in the process of insight. Also, the mechanism of this activation was linked to the semantic similarity between the feature function of the prototype and the required function of the problem. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that participants who were better at excluding interference information more readily activated the relevant prototype. To sum up, the experiments suggested that activating a memory of the heuristic prototype was important in solving scientific innovation insight problems. Activating the feature function of right heuristic prototype and linking it by way of semantic similarity to the required function of the problem was the key mechanism people used to solve scientific insight problem.     

The Measurement of Ambiguity for Thematic Cards

Students' ability to validate the results from their own psychological tests was examined in two experiments. In Experiment I, sophomore, senior, and graduate students were presented with their actual and inverted profiles from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and the Students were asked to select their actual profiles. The senior and graduate students could reliably select their own profiles while the sophomore students could not. In Experiment 2, sophomore students were presented with their actual and inverted profiles from the CPI and the Differential Aptitudes Test (DAT) and the students were asked to select their actual profiles. The students were able to reliably select their actual profiles for both tests.     

The Effects of Zhongyong Thinking Priming on Creative Problem‐Solving

Zhongyong thinking is a common approach adopted by Chinese people to solve problems encountered in life and work. Based on the four modes of zhongyong thinking proposed by Pang (Social Sciences in China, 1, 1980, 75), this study chooses the “neither A nor B” form, which represents the “mean” (中) characteristics of zhongyong thinking, called eclectic thinking, and the “both A and B” form, which reflects the “harmony” (和) feature, called integrated thinking. This study primed eclectic thinking and integrated thinking, respectively, through self‐compiled problem situations, and 150 college students and postgraduates students were the participants. Experiment 1 explored the role of the priming of zhongyong thinking in three classic creative thinking tasks: a divergent thinking test, remote association test, and insight problem‐solving test. Experiment 2 further examined the effect of priming of zhongyong thinking on “market investment problems” with higher ecological validity. The findings show that priming integrated thinking can improve remote associates test performance and promote creative solutions to market investment problems, but there is no significant impact on the scores of divergent thinking test and insight problem‐solving; priming eclectic thinking has no significant impact on any of the subsequent creative tasks. This study shows that integrated thinking primes cognitive processing related to information association and information integration, promoting subsequent creative tasks.     

Reducing structural-element salience on a source problem produces later success in analogical transfer: What role does source difficulty play?

Two experiments in reasoning by analogy were conducted to study the role of inducing source difficulty by reducing the salience of the source's structural elements. Three nonexclusive hypotheses were tested. According to the first, a difficult source problem improves analogical transfer because it increases the probability that the subject will notice the similarity between the source and the target. For example, errors made on both the source and the target can enhance the subject's awareness of the similarity between the two problems. According to the second hypothesis, a source that is difficult to solve is memorized better than an easier source. According to the third, source-problem difficulty affects the degree of abstractness in the representation of the solution elaborated by subjects. Experiment 1 showed that the higher frequency of spontaneous transfer between the source and the target when the source problem was difficult (Gick & McGarry, 1992) could be replicated in a cued-transfer situation. Experiment 2 showed that subjects given a difficult source, one in which the important element was not very salient, were better at categorizing isomorphic problems on the basis of structural features than were subjects given an easy source. The discussion deals with the implications of these results for the hypotheses tested and, more generally, for reasoning by analogy and education in general.     

Similar as well as dissimilar contextual stimuli increase rated similarity

Contextual stimuli from one category increase the rated similarity of stimuli from a second category. In Experiment 1, associates of one of the members of pairs of target words increased the rated similarity of the members slightly more than did much less similar contextual stimuli. In Experiment 2, contextual category names and good exemplars increased the rated similarity of pairs of poor to medium target exemplars and were also rated as more similar to these targets than the targets were to each other. In both cases, the category names resulted in the stronger effect. This ability of contextually similar stimuli to increase rated similarity opposes the distance-density and averaging-judgmental theories of the effect of context on similarity. However, the theory that a positive association exists between the perceived similarity of stimuli and the strength of the category to which they belong explains how both contextually dissimilar and contextually similar stimuli can increase rated similarity.     

From poor performance to success under stress: working memory, strategy selection, and mathematical problem solving under pressure

Two experiments demonstrate how individual differences in working memory (WM) impact the strategies used to solve complex math problems and how consequential testing situations alter strategy use. In Experiment 1, individuals performed multistep math problems under low- or high-pressure conditions and reported their problem-solving strategies. Under low-pressure conditions, the higher individuals' WM, the more likely they were to use computationally demanding algorithms (vs. simpler shortcuts) to solve the problems, and the more accurate their math performance. Under high-pressure conditions, higher WM individuals used simpler (and less efficacious) problem-solving strategies, and their performance accuracy suffered. Experiment 2 turned the tables by using a math task for which a simpler strategy was optimal (produced accurate performance in few problem steps). Now, under low-pressure conditions, the lower individuals' WM, the better their performance (the more likely they relied on a simple, but accurate, problem strategy). And, under pressure, higher WM individuals performed optimally by using the simpler strategies lower WM individuals employed. WM availability influences how individuals approach math problems, with the nature of the task performed and the performance environment dictating skill success or failure.     

Young children’s analogical problem solving: Gaining insights from video displays

This study examined how toddlers gain insights from source video displays and use the insights to solve analogous problems. The sample of 2- and 2.5-year-olds viewed a source video illustrating a problem-solving strategy and then attempted to solve analogous problems. Older, but not younger, toddlers extracted the problem-solving strategy depicted in the video and spontaneously transferred the strategy to solve isomorphic problems. Transfer by analogy from the video was evident only when the video illustrated the complete problem goal structure, including the character’s intention and the action needed to achieve a goal. The same action isolated from the problem-solving context did not serve as an effective source analogue. These results illuminate the development of early representation and processes involved in analogical problem solving. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.     

Why This Makes Me Think of That

This study was aimed at explaining how and under what conditions surface similarity leads to the retrieval of an analogous base problem in LTM. Some elements of a theory of the organisation of knowledge in memory are proposed. Two levels of representation are distinguished. The first level represents directly accessible, local surface properties. The second level represents more abstract information pertaining to the category with which each analogous problem can be associated. Some results will be described showing that access to an analogue in LTM based on surface properties is determined by the existence of a similarity at a higher level of abstraction. This is a “search-area” effect, in that categorical information seems to delimit a memory search space, within which the connection between local surface properties is more likely to be made.