2011
DOI: 10.3758/s13421-010-0068-6
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Giving up problem solving

Abstract: How do people decide to abandon a problem? Participants were presented with unsolvable water jar problems, having been accurately informed of the prior probability of solvability. Across three experiments, we discovered effects of prior probability of solvability and of problem size (number of distinct problem states) on measures of effort and confidence. If a problem is more likely to be solvable and allows more problem states, a problem solver spends longer trying to solve the problem. Giving-up decisions ar… Show more

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Cited by 32 publications
(39 citation statements)
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“…Similarly, using unsolvable water-jar problems, Payne and Duggan (2011) found that participants only determine that a problem is unsolvable after a lengthy attempt to solve it, and sometimes not even then. First, unpublished data from a pen-and-paper pilot study show that when participants assume that all problems are solvable, they do not distinguish between those that are indeed solvable and those that are not.''…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…Similarly, using unsolvable water-jar problems, Payne and Duggan (2011) found that participants only determine that a problem is unsolvable after a lengthy attempt to solve it, and sometimes not even then. First, unpublished data from a pen-and-paper pilot study show that when participants assume that all problems are solvable, they do not distinguish between those that are indeed solvable and those that are not.''…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For example, Payne and Duggan (2011) focused on the conditions that lead people to give up when facing unsolvable problems. For example, Payne and Duggan (2011) focused on the conditions that lead people to give up when facing unsolvable problems.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Although MA has not previously been studied using the metacognitive approach developed by cognitive psychologists, some metacognitive studies on reasoning and problem-solving have included tasks with numerical content (e.g., Ackerman, 2014;Fernández-Cruz, Arango-Muñoz, & Volz, 2016;Jackson, Kleitman, Howie, & Stankov, 2016;Payne & Duggan, 2011). These studies have focused on a variety of tasks, and various metacognitive processes, and thus provide a good starting point for combining the two research fields.…”
Section: Hypotheses and Possible Research Avenuesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Hypothesized as a major selective pressure driving the expansion of neocortex in primates (Milton 1988; Genovesio et al 2014; DeCasien et al 2017), foraging is a fundamental cognitive skill (Newell 1994; Hills et al 2010) applicable in a variety of domains including search (Cain et al 2012; Wolfe 2013), memory (Hills et al 2015), and social (Hills and Pachur 2012; Turrin et al 2017) and executive processing (Payne et al 2007; Wilke et al 2009; Metcalfe and Jacobs 2010; Payne and Duggan 2011). Despite widespread relevance, the neural circuits mediating foraging have only recently begun to be described (Hayden et al 2011; Kolling et al 2012; Shenhav et al 2014).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%