Insight vs. Non-Insight Problem Solving

Insight vs. Non-Insight Problem Solving

• Insight problems: Characterized by a sudden "aha!" moment, preceded by ~300ms of high-frequency brain activity. Right hemisphere activity is involved, integrating distant associations unconsciously.
• Non-insight problems: Characterized by a gradual increase in "warmth" (subjective feeling of nearing the solution). Left hemisphere activity focused on closely connected associations.
• Metcalfe and Wiebe (1987): Insight problems show little progress until the "aha!" moment, whereas non-insight problems display increasing "warmth."

Gestalt Approach & Problem Solving

• Gestalt approach: Emphasizes restructuring, analogies, and a combination of insight and methodical problem-solving strategies.
• Methodical problem-solving: Approaches like Means-End Analysis (Newell & Simon) involve creating sub-goals to bridge the current state to the goal state.

Obstacles to Problem Solving

• Functional fixedness: Inability to see novel uses for objects (e.g., Duncker's candle problem).
• Mental set: Preconceived notions hindering problem-solving flexibility.
• Expertise: Expert problem-solvers leverage domain-specific knowledge, pattern recognition, and automatic processes.

Positive and Negative Transfer

• Positive transfer: Solving previous problems can facilitate subsequent problem-solving.
• Negative transfer: Solving earlier problems can hinder the solution of later ones.

Functional Fixedness (Duncker’s Candle Problem)

• Functional fixedness: Difficulty in perceiving novel functions for familiar objects.
• Example: Participants in the candle problem struggled to use a box as a support because of its container function.

Latent Inhibition & Cognitive Flexibility

• Latent inhibition: Ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli; lower latent inhibition correlates with creativity.
• Relevance: Impacts both convergent (single solution) and divergent (multiple solutions) thinking.

TDCS & Divergent Thinking

• Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS): A brain stimulation technique that can enhance divergent thinking by stimulating the prefrontal cortex and promoting cognitive flexibility.

Mental Illness and Creativity

• Mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder): Individuals with these conditions may be overrepresented in creative professions.
• Latent inhibition: Reduced latent inhibition is potentially linked to enhanced creativity in some individuals with mental illnesses.

Savants and Creativity

• Savants: Individuals with exceptional specialized abilities often have abnormalities or damage in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL).
• Research (Chi & Snyder, 2011, 2012): Used TMS to explore creative problem-solving by comparing those with typical ATL function and those with damage/dysfunction.

Practical Creativity

• Combination of insight and method: Problem-solving often requires both sudden insights and methodical trial-and-error.
• Expertise and novices: Effective problem-solving benefits from specialized knowledge and pattern recognition compared to general strategies.

Creativity in Problem Solving

• Convergent thinking: Focuses on finding a single best solution.
• Divergent thinking: Aims to generate multiple potential solutions.

Decision-Making, Reasoning, and Judgment

• Types of decisions: Little decisions (everyday choices) vs. big decisions (substantial life choices).
• Decision-making process: Weighing benefits and costs of each alternative.
• Expected Utility Theory (Gamble example): Decisions should maximize expected utility (potential benefit minus cost).
• Complexity in decision making: Variables involve opportunity cost, probability, payoff, effort, context, preference.
• Decision categories: Life-sustaining vs. non-life-sustaining but important; pleasure-related.

Decision Making Towards a Goal

• Goal planning and evaluation: A series of decisions and evaluations needed to reach a defined goal.

Conditional Syllogisms

• Example: Logical reasoning examples demonstrating valid vs. invalid structures.

Wason Selection Task

• Task examples: Illustrating how social context can affect the ability to test rules.

Evolutionary Roots of Logical Thinking

• Social exchange theory: Reasoning about social rules likely evolved to enhance cooperation.
• Game theory: Used to analyze strategic decision-making.

Dual Process Theory in Decision Making

• System 1 (fast): Intuitive and automatic thinking, prone to biases.
• System 2 (slow): Logical and effortful thinking, utilized for complex problems.

Heuristics in Decision Making

• Heuristics: Cognitive shortcuts that simplify decisions but can lead to biases.
• Examples: Availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic.

Inductive Reasoning

• Inductive reasoning: Generalizing from specific observations.

Emotion and Risk

• Expected emotions: Anticipating the emotional impact of a decision (e.g., regret).
• Risk aversion: Avoiding potential losses due to negative emotions.
• Ultimatum game: Illustrates how fairness and emotions can override rational decisions.

Moral Decision-Making

• Trolley problem: Examining different ways of reasoning in moral dilemmas.

Deductive Reasoning

• Syllogisms: Logical structure-based reasoning (e.g., all A are B, all B are C).

Emotion

• Low-road vs. high-road processing:

  • Low road (fast): Immediate, automatic emotional response.
  • High road (slow): More cognitive appraisal, conscious control of responses.

• Emotion and attention: Emotional stimuli are more noticeable than neutral stimuli.

• Cognitive appraisals in emotional response: Emotions are shaped by evaluations of situations.

• Emotion and cognition interaction: Cognitive biases influence emotional responses.

• Emotion regulation: Managing and controlling emotional states. Prefrontal Cortex plays a critical role in this.

• Cognition and emotion in psychopathology (e.g., depression): Negative cognitive biases and attentional and executive control deficits are linked to depression.

• Brain-based treatments for depression: Techniques like TMS, DBS, and TDCS target the brain and cognitive processes.

• Positive psychology and emotional neuroscience: Research on brain activity relating to positive emotions (e.g., left prefrontal cortex activity associated with happiness).

• Universal emotions: Recognized across cultures.

• Amygdala’s role in emotion: Central to processing emotions, especially fear. Its fast and slow pathway processing is important in threat detection.

• Top-down emotional regulation (e.g., cognitive reappraisal vs. suppression): Different approaches to controlling emotions have differing effects.

Development

• Infant cognitive development: Infants learn via familiarity, preferentially listening, statistical learning of sounds.

  • Statistical learning examples: Infants detect patterns and regularities without explicit instruction, applying to both language and visual environments.

• Statistical learning & procedural memory: Early and stable procedural memory contributes to development.

  • Procedural vs. declarative memory: Comparison of memory types.

• Joint attention & theory of mind (ToM): Development of awareness of other people’s mental states. Crucial milestones are around ages 1 and 4-5. False-belief tasks are useful in testing theory of mind development.

• Development and aging in adulthood: Cognitive changes throughout the lifespan, highlighting overall processing declines in older adulthood.

• Executive function development in children: Growth and maturation of the frontal lobe contribute to inhibitory control, working memory, and planning skills (demonstrated via tasks such as the Marshmallow Test).

• Factors influencing development: Habituation and looking time demonstrate cognitive development in infants & statistical learning across infancy.

Cross-Cultural Cognition

• Culture and cognition: Culture impacts how individuals perceive, interpret, and remember information.

  • Cultures and language: Language systems influence how cultures approach cognitive tasks.
    • Categorization and perception: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis illustrates the influence of language on categorization of (e.g., colors). The Himba tribe's color terms showcase this.
    • Analytical (Western) vs. Holistic (Eastern) thinking styles: Differences in how people perceive objects and relationships in the world.
  • Short-term memory (STM) differences across cultures: Deaf individuals show variations depending on if they utilize visual or verbal coding.
  • Critical cross-cultural research considerations: Recognizing biases and challenges inherent in comparing cultures.

• Memory strategies and clustering: Cultural influences on memory strategies (e.g., clustering).

• Cultural influences on perception and memory: Cultures shape cognitive processes, including how people perceive, interpret, and remember information.