Thinking/Problem Solving

Thinking/Problem Solving

1. Thinking: the internal steps you take directed towards solving a problem.

2. What is the main argument?

   • You move from an initial state to a goal state when trying to solve a problem.

3. Problem Solving: how you move from your current state to your goal state.

4. Overall structure that guides our thinking:

   • Developing a schema or mental plan
     • Your structure is more organized and directed towards achieving your goal.
     • When we problem solve we develop a mental plan to accomplish that task
   • Development of Skill
     • **Chunking plays a major role in developing a skill.** You're not just getting more efficient @ the skills but how you think about it changes as well.
     • What is the cause of rapid improvement?
       • Some sort of qualitative change
         • Qualitative: you approach the task differently.

5. Chunking: grouping together details and pulling that info out when you need it.

   • Some sort of hierarchal organization

6. Automatization

   • Definition: as you practice a skill long enough and get good at it. The subcomponents of the skill become second nature or without conscious awareness.
     • Negatives: once a skill is set in motion it can be difficult to stop.
       • Example: when you see words on a screen its incredibly difficult not to read them automatically.
   • Closely realted with skill development.

7. Restructuring

   • When you think about a problem for long enough, you start approaching the situation differently. That will help you solve the problem.
   • What leads us to think about problems differently?
     • Continued Instruction
     • Continued Effort
     • Sudden insight
   • Restructuring & Humor
     • -> restructuring at the end of a joke must be clever to be funny.
     • -> Some have argued that how we view humor is related to restructuring.

8. Reasoning

   • Types:
     • Inductive
       • going from particular to general.
       • given some specific rule and you form a general rule based on that.
     • Deductive
       • going from general to particular.
       • given some general rule and you form a specific one from that rule.
       • Atmosphere Effect: if all the quantifiers (Some, All, etc.) match, then ppl are more likely to say the conclusion is valid.
       • *Makes the claim that if you're given two correct premises and apply the rules of deductive reasoning correctly = valid conclusion.
         • The above is not accurate!!!!!!