DUAL-CODING HYPOTHESIS:
*Developed by Allan Paivio
*contains two distinct coding systems:
    1. Visual
    2. Verbal
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE:
1973- Anderson and Bower
1981- Stone and Glock
1982- Levie and Lentz
1980- Paivio and Desrochers...
 Bilingual Dual-Coding Study:
Conditions:
                        1. Pictures to be labeled in English
                        2. Japanese words to be translated into English
                        3. English words to be copied as they were
    Result: 3.7 : 3.2 : 1.0 ratio for pictorial : translation : copy
 1990- Paivio...
Animations Need Narrations Study:
Conditions:
1. Verbal depiction given before animation
 (Words-Before-Pictures)
2. Verbal depiction given during animation
 (Words-With-Pictures)
    Result: The Words-With-Pictures group outperformed the                      other groups in every test
EVERYDAY EXAMPLE:
* You are watching a T.V. show with footage of a rainforest while listening to a description of how that ecosystem works 


REFERENCES:
Anderson, J.R., & Bower, G.H. (1973). Human associative memory. Washington D.C.: Winston.

Stone, D., & Glock, M. (1981). How do young adults read directions with and without pictures?             Journal of educational psychology, 73, 419-426.

Levie, W. H., & Lentz, R. (1982). Effects of text illustrations: A review of research. Educational             communication and technology journal, 26, 233-243.

Taura, H. (1998). Bilingual dual coding in Japanese returnee students. Language, Culture and Curriculum,       11(1), 47-70. Mayer, R., & Anderson, R. (1991).

Animations need narrations: An experimental test of a dual-coding hypothesis. Journal of Educational         Psychology, 83(4), 484-490.

  - Problem Space Hypothesis -

 

- This is one of the more confusing topics from Chapter 11...

 

- Basically, when a person is solving a problem, this theory states that a person has a mental graph in their head where all the possible options are presented as nodes (circles) and the person searches through each node and that node's possible outcome, until the correct node is choosen.  A generic example of this is shown on here:


 

- This model can be explained using a chess player for example, and his or her goal of winning the match.  Each possible move can be represented as a node on this graph: option a, option b, ...and so on.

 

This model follows the following rules:

- Each node presents a certain set of knowledge or assumptions

- Each node has certain restraints or rules by which the action has to follow

- finally, each node presents following nodes, or outcomes, where problem solving continues.

 

- A study by Newell and Simon showed that when the goal is clearly defined, reaching the correct node is a much faster process, than if there is a broad goal without specifics.  This study supports the existence of a problem space hypothesis since a smaller graph due to a more specific goal, would indeed make the time to solve the problem shorter.

 

- Critics of the concept cite that the problem space does not allow for the independent creation of data that the solver is not presented with:  For instance a mathematecian who invents a new formula to solve an equation.


References...


Gallotti, Kathleen M. Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. 4th Edition.

    Wadsworth Publishing. 2007.

Means-ends analysis 
Problem solving technique:  
 

    • Begins by imagining the ultimate goal and then planning the best strategy for getting that goal
    • Subgoals are created by breaking the steps down into smaller steps until the goal is reached
    • As one step is planned the next goal can planned until the whole solution is reached
    • Drawback: sometimes the problem solver has a hard time to see the most effect path isn’t always the most direct. 

Example of how means-ends analysis works: 
 

    • Say you want a glass of milk and you are in your bedroom…
    • You could walk, crawl, or have someone carry you to the kitchen
    • Once you are there you could get a glass out of the cabinet or drink straight out of the carton
    • Once you are finished you could stay in the kitchen or go back to your room, either by walking, crawling, etc…


Generate-and-test technique 
 

    • The problem solver creates a number of solutions to the problem and then tests them until they find one that works for them.  This works well as long as there isn’t a lot of possible solutions to the problem. 

Example: 

 
    • I can’t find me keys this morning.  I know I had them when I got home late last night and they are somewhere in my tiny apartment.  I can go from room to room searching for them until they turn up.
    • However this would not work if I was trying to remember a phone number to someone I haven’t called in a while and I just decided to dial all the numbers in the phone book.  I could get results but I would most likely give up because of pure frustration first. 
 
 
-----------Creative Insight-----------
   
•Creativity
–Defined as appropriate novelty
 
•Appropriate Novelty is: Originality that suits some purpose
 
•Appropriate ideas without novelty are mundane
 
•Original ideas that do not address useful problem are seen as bizarre
 
–Often involves “Eureka” moments or when the “Light bulb Comes On”
 
 
•Incubation
–Unconscious processing of information
 
–The problem is being solved while you are doing and thinking about something else
 
 
•Smith & Blakenship (1989)
•Attempted to offered an empirical demonstration of incubation
 
•Participants were required to solve picture-word puzzles called rebuses
 
•Participants solved 15 puzzles and then attempted to sovle a 16th puzzle with a misleading cue.
 
 
 
                            Blocker: Destroy  
                
             
 
                                           Solution: ?
 
 
•Participants were then given the 16th puzzle without the misleading cue followed by an interval.
 
•Rationale:
As interval increased, people might be more likely to forget the misleading cue
 
•Result:
As interval increased, participants solved the task more effectively
 
                   
 
                Solution: Search High and Low
 
 
• Most empirical studies fail to find positive effects of incubation.
 
 
•Perkins (1981)
Offered examples of cognitive processes that underline normal everyday functions
 
–Directed remembering:
•channel memory in order to make conscious some aspect of knowledge that meets various constraints
 
–Noticing:
•Becoming aware of where problems in one’s own work are
•Noticing similarity between two problems
•Noticing a viable solution
 
–Contrary recognition:
•Ability to recognize objects not for what they are but as something else
•Move beyond bounds of reality
 
 
If there is no special creative mechanism, how do creative people differ from non-creative people?
 
–Creative people:
 
•Willing to search harder and longer for a constrained solution
•Value original, useful results
•Ability to withstand potentially long periods without success
  

References


Gallotti, Kathleen M. Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. 4th Edition.

    Wadsworth Publishing. 2007.

 
----------------------------------------------------------
 
Backtracking

“ A problem-solving technique that involves keeping track of where in the solving process assumptions are made, so they may later be changed.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Working Backward
  • A problem-solving technique when the user analyzes the goal to determine the last step that is needed to achieve that goal, then the next-to-last step, and so on.
  • Involves establishing subgoals, which makes this technique similar to means-ends analysis.
  • Using the working backward technique, you would think of the very last step, which would be walking from your front door to the inside of your home.
  • An example is the famous Towers of Hanoi problem, which was demonstrated in class.
  • How do you get from class back to your apartment?
  • Most effective when the backward path is unique, making it easier than working forward.

References


Gallotti, Kathleen M. Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. 4th Edition.

    Wadsworth Publishing. 2007.
 
 

Mental Rotation

 

·         Mental rotation is the process of imagining an object rotated into a different orientation in space.


·         Shepard & Metzler (1971) are the two pioneering researchers in the field of mental rotation.  They developed the first and most widely used mental rotation task.  Their research showed that participant’s reaction time was linearly proportional to the angle of rotation, which means that the more the object has been rotated from the original image, the longer it takes the participant to determine if the two objects were the same or if they were enantiomorphs (mirror images).  The following link takes you to a website in which you can participate in a similar test:

Bjornson’s Blog:  Mental rotation tests

http://bjornson.inhb.de/?p=55

·         Cooper (1976) designed a similar test in which random polygons were either rotated a number of degrees or reflected, and participant’s reaction time was recorded.  Results concluded that mental rotation is directly related to physical rotation and that it operates on a visual buffer.


·         Studies have shown that there are gender differences in mental rotation abilities.  On average, men have outperformed women on many of these tasks.


·         Recent studies of mental rotation have used the fMRI to determine which areas of the brain are involved in mental rotation.  In these tests, mental rotation tasks activated the Brodmann’s Areas 7A and 7B, the middle frontal gyrus, the hand somastosensory cortex, and the frontal cortex.


References...

Gallotti, Kathleen M. Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. 4th Edition.

    Wadsworth Publishing. 2007.

Milivojevic, B., Hamm, J., & Corballis, M. (2009).  Functional Neuroanatomy of Mental Rotation.
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(5), 945-959.  Retrieved from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences 
  Collection database.



Propositional Theory

 

A Proposition is a means of specifying relationships between different concepts.

Propositional Theory predicts that the higher the association value, the more propositions relating the two items, and thus a faster verification time.