When analytic thought is challenged by a misunderstanding

Macchi, Laura; Bagassi, Maria

doi:10.4324/9781315144061-9

Cited by 5 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…When insight problems are used in research, it could be said that the researcher sets a trap, more or less intentionally, inducing an interpretation that appears to be pertinent to the data and to the text; this interpretation is adopted more or less automatically because it has been validated by use but the default interpretation does not support understanding, and misunderstanding is inevitable; as a result, sooner or later we come up against an impasse. The theory of misunderstanding is supported by experimental evidence obtained by Mosconi in his research on insight problem solving (Mosconi, 1990), and by Bagassi and Macchi on problem solving, decision making and probabilistic reasoning Macchi, 2006, 2016;Macchi and Bagassi, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2020Macchi, 1995Macchi, , 2000Mosconi and Macchi, 2001;Politzer and Macchi, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

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Creative Problem Solving as Overcoming a Misunderstanding

Bagassi

Macchi

2020

Front. Educ.

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Solving or attempting to solve problems is the typical and, hence, general function of thought. A theory of problem solving must first explain how the problem is constituted, and then how the solution happens, but also how it happens that it is not solved; it must explain the correct answer and with the same means the failure. The identification of the way in which the problem is formatted should help to understand how the solution of the problems happens, but even before that, the source of the difficulty. Sometimes the difficulty lies in the calculation, the number of operations to be performed, and the quantity of data to be processed and remembered. There are, however, other problems – the insight problems – in which the difficulty does not lie so much in the complexity of the calculations, but in one or more critical points that are susceptible to misinterpretation, incompatible with the solution. In our view, the way of thinking involved in insight problem solving is very close to the process involved in the understanding of an utterance, when a misunderstanding occurs. In this case, a more appropriate meaning has to be selected to resolve the misunderstanding (the “impasse”), the default interpretation (the “fixation”) has to be dropped in order to “restructure.” to grasp another meaning which appears more relevant to the context and the speaker’s intention (the “aim of the task”). In this article we support our view with experimental evidence, focusing on how a misunderstanding is formed. We have studied a paradigmatic insight problem, an apparent trivial arithmetical task, the Ties problem. We also reviewed other classical insight problems, reconsidering in particular one of the most intriguing one, which at first sight appears impossible to solve, the Study Window problem. By identifying the problem knots that alter the aim of the task, the reformulation technique has made it possible to eliminate misunderstanding, without changing the mathematical nature of the problem. With the experimental versions of the problems exposed we have obtained a significant increase in correct answers. Studying how an insight problem is formed, and not just how it is solved, may well become an important topic in education. We focus on undergraduate students’ strategies and their errors while solving problems, and the specific cognitive processes involved in misunderstanding, which are crucial to better exploit what could be beneficial to reach the solution and to teach how to improve the ability to solve problems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This problem was investigated in a previous study (Macchi and Bagassi, 2015). For all the participants the problem appeared impossible to solve, and nobody actually solved it.…”

Section: The Study Window Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Creative Problem Solving as Overcoming a Misunderstanding

Bagassi

Macchi

2020

Front. Educ.

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“…Numerous studies have shown the importance of the pragmatic approach to the study of thinking and reasoning ( Bagassi & Macchi, 2016 ; Hilton, 1995 ; Politzer & Macchi, 2000 ) from problem-solving ( Macchi & Bagassi, 2012 , 2015 ), conditional reasoning ( Sperber, Cara, & Girotto, 1995 ) and deductive reasoning ( Van Der Henst, Sperber, & Politzer, 2002 ) to probabilistic reasoning ( Dulany & Hilton, 1991 ; Macchi, 1995 , 2000 ; Mosconi & Macchi, 2001 ; Politzer & Macchi, 2005 ), decision making ( Bagassi & Macchi, 2006 ) and children’s reasoning ( Bagassi, D’Addario, Macchi, & Sala, 2009 ).…”

Section: The Pragmatic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to get rid of the belief bias: Boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics

et al. 2019

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The previous research attempts to reduce the influence of the belief bias on deductive thinking have often been unsuccessful and, when they succeeded, they failed to replicate. In this paper, we propose a new way to see an old problem. Instead of considering the analytical abilities of the respondent, we focus on the communicative characteristics of the experimental task. By changing the pragmatics into play through a subtle manipulation of the instruction of the syllogism problem, we obtained a strong improvement in the accuracy of the performance in both untrained and trained in logic respondents. We suggest that current models of deductive thinking should be broadened to consider also communicative understanding as part of the processing of the problem.

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“…However, now this perspective is at the center of a debate. The psychology of thinking, by adopting a depsychologized standard, leaves outside some important psychological characteristics, such as sensitivity to context, content, implicit presuppositions, and conversational rules, which instead to be considered as causes of biases have to be considered fundamental adaptive factors (at least as well as the formal reasoning capacity), the bases of an "interactional intelligence" Hilton, 1995;Macchi, 1995Macchi, , 2000Macchi & Bagassi, 2007, 2014, 2015Macchi, Bagassi, & Passerini, 2006;Passerini, Macchi, & Bagassi, 2012;Politzer & Macchi, 2000). From this perspective many factors that were formerly seen as biases or shortcuts appear as legitimate inferences and rational procedures (see, for instance, the experiments on the "postal employee" reported in Bagassi & Macchi, 2016;Mosconi, 2016;Mosconi & D'Urso, 1975;Sperber, Cara, & Girotto, 1995).…”

Section: Logical Language Versus Natural Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

A New Test for Rationality: Contributions and Outstanding Issues

Macchi¹,

Bagassi²

2018

The American Journal of Psychology

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On the distinction between rationality and intelligence: Implications for understanding individual differences in reasoning. In K. Holyoak & R. Morrison (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 343-365). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Why humans are (sometimes) less rational than other animals: Cognitive complexity and the axioms of rational choice. Thinking & Reasoning, 19, 1-26.

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When analytic thought is challenged by a misunderstanding

Cited by 5 publications

References 1 publication

Creative Problem Solving as Overcoming a Misunderstanding

Creative Problem Solving as Overcoming a Misunderstanding

How to get rid of the belief bias: Boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics

A New Test for Rationality: Contributions and Outstanding Issues

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