Counterintuitive and alternative moves choice in the Water Jug task

Effects of Gestures on Older Adults' Learning from Video‐based Models

“…Complexity was defined by whether the first step in the shortest solution strategy reduced the evaluation factor (EVF; Carder, Handley, & Perfect, 2008), that is, the sum of differences between the goal content and current content for each jug. Simple problems had a perceptually consistent solution strategy, because each step perceptually decreased the EVF.…”

“…The solution strategy for complex tasks was either perceptually neutral (EVF remains the same) or counterintuitive (EVF increases) after the first step in the shortest solution pathway. Because in the perceptually consistent strategy, problem solvers had to look at only one move ahead, it was less demanding for WM than a perceptually neutral or counterintuitive strategy (Carder et al, 2008), which required problem solvers to look at more than one move ahead (Bull, Espy, & Senn, 2004). Each problem category consisted of two problems with a two-step solution and two problems with a three-step solution.…”

“…A transfer task was created, based on a verification paradigm designed by Carder et al (2008). Participants were presented with three-step problems in which the first step was given by a picture of the initial state and the state after one step.…”

On algorithmic approach to the two jugs problem

“…According to [12], the earliest version of the problem appeared in print was likely due to the Italian mathematician Nicolo Tartaglia (1500-1557). Then, it develops to become a classic problem in problem-solving [1,10,12,15,16], geometry [2], recreational mathematics [3], cognitive psychology [4,8,11,13], computer programming [5,7], discrete mathematics [6] and artificial intelligence [14], etc. A common version of the problem mentioned in books or journal articles is like this:…”

“…There are a number of ways to solve this problem, including the working backward approach [1], the billiard approach [2,3], the digraph approach [6], the search approach (Breadth First Search or Depth First Search) [5,7,14] and the methods of heuristics [4,8,10,11,12,13,15,16], etc. However, most of them are not algorithmic in nature and the methods of solutions could be time and memory consuming sometimes.…”