History of Success and Current Context in Problem Solving

Lovett, Marsha C.; Anderson, John R.

doi:10.1006/cogp.1996.0016

Cited by 190 publications

(192 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…That is, changing the solution procedure decreases the activation of the formerly preferred procedure (Lovett & Anderson, 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can be assumed that factors such as prior knowledge make some procedures more likely for selection than others. Within this framework, mental set is an artifact resulting from selection processes (Anderson, 1982;Newell, 1990;Anderson & Lebiere, 1998;Lovett & Anderson, 1996). When the procedure that was used to solve the first problem is successful, it gains activation and as such is used to solve the second problem in the set, in turn gaining activation and so on.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We think that our model is a mixture of a refined ACT-R model, according to the approach of Lovett and Anderson (1996) and the representational change theory of Ohlsson (1992). It should potentially enable us to bridge the gap between the Gestaltist's concept of restructuring (or representational change in cognitive terms) and ACT-R.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within this framework, mental set is an artifact resulting from selection processes (Anderson, 1982;Newell, 1990;Lovett & Anderson, 1996;Anderson & Lebiere, 1998), and can be interpreted as a temporary by-product of procedural learning (Ohlsson, 1992). Lovett and Anderson (1996) investigated the procedural explanation of set by developing an analogue to the Luchins water-jug-problems that enabled the examination of the relative influence of the current problem context and the repeated selection of the same problem solving procedure. The experiments clearly showed that both the current problem situation and the repeated application of the same solution method influence the selection of a solution procedure.…”

Section: Set and Insight In Problem Solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Investigating the Effect of Mental Set on Insight Problem Solving

Öllinger

Jones

Knoblich

2008

Experimental Psychology

112

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Mental set is the tendency to solve certain problems in a fixed way based on previous solutions to similar problems. The moment of insight occurs when a problem cannot be solved using solution methods suggested by prior experience and the problem solver suddenly realizes that the solution requires different solution methods. Mental set and insight have often been linked together and yet no attempt thus far has systematically examined the interplay between the two. Three experiments are presented that examine the extent to which sets of non-insight and insight problems affect the subsequent solutions of insight test problems. The results indicate a subtle interplay between mental set and insight: when the set involves non-insight problems, no mental set effects are shown for the insight test problems, yet when the set involves insight problems, both facilitation and inhibition can be seen depending on the type of insight problem presented in the set. A two process model is detailed to explain these findings that combines the representational change mechanism with that of proceduralisation.Set and Insight in Problem Solving 3

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“…That is, changing the solution procedure decreases the activation of the formerly preferred procedure (Lovett & Anderson, 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Set and Insight In Problem Solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Investigating the Effect of Mental Set on Insight Problem Solving

Öllinger

Jones

Knoblich

2008

Experimental Psychology

112

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“…The two competing productions are influenced by their prior history of success -that is, how often the production correctly identified a target versus how often it required that the other production apply to confirm that the target was in the other location. 5 Empirically, the notion that procedures will adapt to previous successes and failures has been supported in higher-level domains: for example, deciding whether to search memory or work out the answer (Reder, 1987;Reder & Ritter, 1992), choosing between two problem-solving procedures (Lovett & Anderson, 1996), verifying an arithmetic statement by calculating or using a heuristic (Lemaire & Reder, 1999), or selecting a type of runway in an air traffic controller task (Reder & Schunn, 1999). This account is not completely sufficient, however, in that it would predict that repeated targets would be faster than control targets, and the evidence does not support this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The adaptive character of the attentional system: Statistical sensitivity in a target localization task.

Reder¹,

Weber²,

Shang³

et al. 2003

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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A localization task required participants to indicate which of 4 locations contained a briefly displayed target. Most displays also contained a distractor that was not equally probable in these locations, affecting performance dramatically. Responses were faster when a display had no distractor and almost as fast when the distractor was in its frequent location. Conversely, responses were slower when targets appeared in frequent-distractor locations, even though targets were equally likely in each location. Negative-priming effects were reliably smaller when targets followed distractors in the frequent-distractor location compared to the rare-distractor location, challenging the episodicretrieval account. Experiment 2 added a 5th location that rarely displayed distractors and never targets, yet responses slowed most when distractors appeared there. The results confirmed that the attentional system is sensitive to first-and higher-order statistical patterns and can make short-and long-term adjustments in preferences based on prior history of inspecting unsuccessful locations.The limited capacity of the human attentional system, combined with the complexity of the environment, necessitates a mechanism for effective selecting and responding to goal-relevant stimuli while disregarding irrelevant ones. The cost of splitting attention or of being distracted can even be seen in simple experimental tasks such as spatial localization. An example of this type of task (Tipper, Brehaut, & Driver, 1990) required participants to press a key corresponding to the spatial location of a target flashed on a computer display. Performance was slower when two stimuli were flashed and one was a distractor. It is not only extraneous information that interferes with the processing of the current display: Research in attention has also documented that when a stimulus (location or object, depending on the task) that should be ignored (i.e., is the distractor) on the prime display becomes the target on the subsequent probe display, performance suffers compared with trials in which this switch does not occur. This type of interference is commonly referred to as negative priming (Tipper, 1985).The fact that irrelevant stimuli interfere with performance implicates a selective attention mechanism that directly allocates processing resources to goal-relevant information (e.g., Neill, 1997). Although there is considerable agreement concerning the necessity of a selective attention mechanism, there is less agreement concerning how this selection occurs, that is, how the process of filtering or ignoring the irrelevant is achieved.

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Problem Solving

Lovett

2002

Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology

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Problem solving is the analysis and transformation of information toward a specific goal. This goal may be well‐ or ill‐defined; it may be directly attainable or require insight; and the solution may rely on a vast or sparse body of domain‐specific knowledge. Problem‐solving research reflects this variety of problem types through its breadth and extent. This chapter organizes the research according to three key processes involved in problem solving: (1) Representation—the process by which a solver selectively encodes the information given in a problem; (2) Choice—the process of selecting a single problem‐solving step among multiple possible ones; and (3) Learning—the process by which a solver's knowledge state is updated based on problem‐solving experience. For each process, major empirical results and theoretical models are presented. In particular, the chapter emphasizes theoretical work that uses computational modeling to explain and predict problem‐solving behavior.

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History of Success and Current Context in Problem Solving

Cited by 190 publications

References 32 publications

Investigating the Effect of Mental Set on Insight Problem Solving

Investigating the Effect of Mental Set on Insight Problem Solving

The adaptive character of the attentional system: Statistical sensitivity in a target localization task.

Problem Solving

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