Planning meals: Problem-solving on a real data-base

Planning the menu for a dinner party, although a familiar and practiced task, involves problem-solving with a large and complex body of knowledge. It is here used to study the everyday operation of human memory. Verbal protocol analysis, a technique devised to investigate formal problem-solving, is examined theoretically and adapted for analysis of this task. The study shows the need for a number of mental structures and their associated control processes, only some of which have previously been proposed in psychology.