Abstract
A striking feature of people engaged in problem solving outside the psychologist’s laboratory is that it exhibits a great deal of interactivity in a physical space populated with external symbols, artefacts, and, of course, other people. Yet, problem-solving researchers often design experimental procedures in which interactivity is either limited or eliminated. We review traditional areas of problem solving research and introduce new experimental methodologies wherein problems can only be solved by manipulating or restructuring a physical space. In all instances, problem-solving performance is markedly superior than when observed in two-dimensional non-interactive contexts. We suggest that the nature of the processes engaged in solving problems in distributed environments is different than in static environments and should encourage cognitive psychologists to revisit the process models elaborated to account for problem solving behaviour traditionally recorded on the basis of an unmodifiable problem presentation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
There is a vast literature on how non-human organisms solve problems that will not be reviewed here (see for example Pearce 2008).
- 2.
In a paper that summarized their efforts to reduce perseverance Luchins and Luchins (1950) encouraged one group of participants (primary school children) to use actual water jars but who were also offered pen and paper to first work out answers: These participants persevered in using the more complicated rule. A second group of participants (university students) were not offered pen and paper to work out solutions: the degree of perseverance was reduced. See Vallée-Tourangeau et al. (2011) for a more detailed discussion of the data reported in Luchins and Luchins (1950).
- 3.
We thank Susan Cook for her help with the design and construction of the artefacts used in this experiment.
References
Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (2008). Why good thoughts block better ones: the mechanism of the pernicious Einstellung (set) effect. Cognition, 108, 652–661.
Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (2010). The mechanism of the Einstellung (set) effect: a pervasive source of cognitive bias. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 111–115.
Geake, J. G., & Hansen, P. C. (2010). Functional neural correlates of fluid and crystallized analogizing. NeuroImage, 49, 3489–3497.
Giere, R. N., & Moffatt, B. (2003). Distributed cognition: where the cognitive and the social merge. Social Studies of Science, 33, 301–310.
Gholson, B., Eymard, L. A., Morgan, D., & Kamhi, A. G. (1987). Problem solving, recall, and isomorphic transfer among third-grade and sixth-grade children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 43, 227–243.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Jeffries, R., Polson, P. G., Razran, L., & Atwood, M. E. (1977). A process model for Missionaries-Cannibals and other river-crossing problems. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 412–440.
Kirsh, D. (1995). The intelligent use of space. Artificial Intelligence, 73, 31–68.
Kirsh, D. (1996). Adapting the environment instead of oneself. Adaptive Behavior, 4, 415–452.
Kirsh, D. (2006). Distributed cognition: a methodological note. Pragmatics & Cognition, 14, 249–262.
Kirsh, D. (2009). Problem solving in situated cognition. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp. 264–306). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kirsh, D. (2010). Thinking with external representations. AI & Society, 25, 441–454.
Knoblich, G., Ohlsson, S., Haider, H., & Rhenius, D. (1999). Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25, 1534–1555.
Latour, B. (1986). Visualisation and cognition: Thinking with eyes and hands. In H. Kuklick (Ed.), Knowledge and society studies in the sociology of culture past and present (Vol. 6, pp. 1–40). London: Jai Press.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Boston: Cambridge University Press.
Luchins, A. S. (1942). Mechanization in problem solving: the effect of einstellung. Psychological Monograph, 54(248), i–95. doi:10.1037/h0093502.
Luchins, A. S., & Luchins, E. H. (1950). New experimental attempts at preventing mechanization in problem solving. The Journal of General Psychology, 42, 279–297.
McKelvie, S. (1990). Einstellung: Luchins’ effect lives on. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 5, 105–121.
Ohlsson, S. (1984). Restructuring revisited II: an information processing theory of restructuring and insight. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 25, 117–129.
Ohlsson, S. (1992). Information processing explanation of insight and related phenomena. In M. T. Keane & K. J. Gilhooly (Eds.), Advances in the psychology of thinking (Vol. 1, pp. 1–44). London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Pearce, J. (2008). Animal learning and cognition (3rd ed.). Hove: Psychology Press.
Segal, E. (2004). Incubation in insight problem solving. Creativity Research Journal, 16, 141–148.
Simon, H. A., & Newell, A. (1962). Computer simulation of human thinking and problem solving. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 27, 137–150.
Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (2013). Interactivity, efficiency, and individual differences in mental arithmetic. Experimental Psychology. doi:10.1027/1618-3169/a000200.
Vallée-Tourangeau, F., Euden, G., & Hearn, V. (2011). Einstellung defused: Interactivity and mental set. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 1889–1895.
Vallée-Tourangeau, F., Guthrie, L. G., & Villejoubert, G. (2013). Moves in the world are faster than moves in the head: interactivity in the river crossing problem. Manuscript under review.
Watson, J. (1968). The double helix. Baltimore: Penguin.
Weller, A., Villejoubert, G., & Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (2011). Interactive insight problem solving. Thinking & Reasoning, 17, 429–439.
Wertheimer, M. (1959). Productive thinking (enlarged ed.). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vallée-Tourangeau, F., Villejoubert, G. (2013). Naturalising Problem Solving. In: Cowley, S., Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (eds) Cognition Beyond the Brain. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5125-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5125-8_13
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-5124-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-5125-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)