Specialization effect and its influence on memory and problem solving in expert chess players

Expert chess players, specialized in different openings, recalled positions and solved problems within and outside their area of specialization. While their general expertise was at a similar level, players performed better with stimuli from their area of specialization. The effect of specialization on both recall and problem solving was strong enough to override general expertise—players remembering positions and solving problems from their area of specialization performed at around the level of players 1 standard deviation (SD) above them in general skill. Their problem-solving strategy also changed depending on whether the problem was within their area of specialization. When it was, they searched more in depth and less in breadth; with problems outside their area of specialization, the reverse. The knowledge that comes from familiarity with a problem area is more important than general purpose strategies in determining how an expert will tackle it. These results demonstrate the link in experts between problem solving and memory of specific experiences and indicate that the search for context-independent general purpose problem-solving strategies to teach to future experts is unlikely to be successful.     

Should reason be fragmented?

Cognitive relativists‐pragmatists (Stich, Churchland) claim that human cognitive strategies, lacking a common goal, are in addition divergent to the point of incommensurability. They appeal to the study of reasoning heuristics for evidence on cognitive diversity and incorrigibility. It is here argued that no such evidence is offered by the research, which, on the contrary (1) presents heuristics as uniform across great variations; (2) offers advice for correcting and improving human reasoning; and (3) very often postulates a uniformity of core logical strategies, built into reasoning competence. Cognitive research thus supports a moderate rationalism rather than relativism‐pragmatism.     

Gödel’s Natural Deduction

This is a companion to a paper by the authors entitled “Gödel on deduction”, which examined the links between some philosophical views ascribed to Gödel and general proof theory. When writing that other paper, the authors were not acquainted with a system of natural deduction that Gödel presented with the help of Gentzen’s sequents, which amounts to Ja?kowski’s natural deduction system of 1934, and which may be found in Gödel’s unpublished notes for the elementary logic course he gave in 1939 at the University of Notre Dame. Here one finds a presentation of this system of Gödel accompanied by a brief reexamination in the light of the notes of some points concerning his interest in sequents made in the preceding paper. This is preceded by a brief summary of Gödel’s Notre Dame course, and is followed by comments concerning Gödel’s natural deduction system.     

Multiproblem Families Referred to Youth Mental Health: What's in a Name?

The purpose of this study was threefold, namely (1) to differentiate between multiproblem families and control families on characteristics and processes within the family based on a theoretical framework, (2) to identify multiproblem families by establishing cut‐off scores on various questionnaires, and (3) to categorize multiproblem families into subtypes by cluster analyses. Various questionnaires were administered to multiproblem families (n = 85) and control families (n = 150). Results showed that what we propose to refer to as multiproblem families present a broad range of problems on seven domains: (1) child factors, (2) parental factors, (3) childrearing problems (inadequate or inconsistent parenting), (4) family functioning problems, (5) contextual problems, (6) social network problems, and (7) mental health care problems. Further, reliable cut‐off scores were established for various questionnaires. Finally, three types of families were found: (1) community‐problem families, (2) multiproblem families, and (3) child‐focused mild‐problem families. This paper looks to advance an evidence‐based definition and assessment of “multiproblem families” suggesting the possible value of defining and assessing multiproblem families in relation to these seven dimensions. Moreover, the classification of multiproblem families stresses the importance of providing tailored treatments.