TYBA मानसशास्त्र�S3 – शास्त्रीय संशोधन आणि प्रायोगिक मानसशास्त्र

व्दितीय सत्र (II Term)

प्रकरण ८ – विचार प्रक्रिया आणि समस्या परिहार

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जयमाला अशोक सोदे

सहाय्यक प्राध्यापक

मानसशास्त्र विभाग

पुष्पाताई हिरे महिला महाविद्यालय, मालेगाव

विचार प्रक्रिया आणि समस्या परिहार

८.१ विचार प्रक्रिया: स्वरूप, व्याख्या आणि प्रकार

८.२ विचार प्रक्रिया सिद्धान्त: केंद्रीय सिद्धांत आणि and Peripheral-Central Theory

८.३ समस्या परिहार: समस्यचे स्वरूप, समस्यचे प्रकार, समस्या समजून घेणे, समस्या परिहाराचे दृष्टीकोन, समस्या परिहारावर परिणाम करणारे घटक

८.४ तार्किक विचार: Formal logic and Limitations

८.५ निर्णय क्षमता: पायऱ्या आणि heuristics

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The Central Theory:

• Thinking and reasoning is taking place only in the brain and
• The brain is solely responsible for all kinds of thinking and problem solving activities.
• When we think with our brains it’s often said that the brain secretes thoughts.
• Role of Frontal Lobe

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The Peripheral Theory

• The peripheral nervous system is mainly involved.
• The peripheral theory is also called motor theory.
• According to this theory the brain is one of the parts of thinking process.
• Since all our learning are both mental and physical, we also think with our whole parts, brain and the nervous system-the whole body.

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• There is a continuous chain of S-R relations from brain to body and from body to the brain.
• This goes on till the process of thinking takes place.
• Thinking is silent speaking as there were muscular movements in mouth and in throat and speaking is louder thinking (The founder of behaviourism Watson).

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• Strong evidence: Muscular activity is present during thinking.
• Because of this we can­not reject the central theory totally.
• According to them, thinking is going on in the brain without the co-operation of the peripheral or motor system.
• But because of the end product of verbal and muscular activities the peripheral theory seems to be more agreeable than the central theory.

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Problem Solving

• 4 aspects of problem solving
• Understanding the problem
• Problem solving approaches
• Factors that influence problem solving
• Creativity

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Problem solving-Definition

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• An efforts
• overcoming obstacles
• obstructing the path to a solution.

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• Process of Cognition
• goal oriented
• thinking & behaving in a certain way.

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• 3 features of Problem
• The Original State
• The Goal State
• The Rules
• Some educators argue that our formal education discourages us from learning to find problems and ask questions (Brown & Walter, 1990).

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• 1
• Problem Identification

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• 2
• Definition
• 3
• Constructing a strategy
• 4
• Organizing Information
• 5
• Allocation of resources
• 6
• Monitoring
• 7
• Evaluating

Problem Identification

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• Thomas, 1989. Problem of Elevator (Boredom)
• Greeno (1977):Understanding involves constructing an internal representation.
• Coherence
• Correspondence
• Relationship to background knowledge
• Doing M.A. without doing B.A./12^th/10^th
• Paying attention to important information.

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Strategy Formulation

• Analysis: Complex problem Breaking into manageable elements.
• Synthesis: Useful arrangement of various elements.
• Divergent Thinking: Alternative Solution.
• Convergent Thinking: Narrowing down.

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• Types of problem
• Well structured

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• Ill structured
• 2 String Problem

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Obstacles and aids

• Mental Set:
• Functional Fixedness:
• Positive and Negative Transfer:
• Transfer of Analogies:
• Incubation:
• Expertise:
• Organization of Knowledge
• Elaboration of knowledge
• Automatic Expert Process
• Innate Talent & Acquired Skill

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Mental Set

• Entrenchment.
• Framework for thinking about a problem in a typical manner.
• Strategy fixation.
• Shaped by Habit or desire.
• Influence/affects the solution.
• Ex: Chatur in 3 idiots!! ☺

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Mental Set

• Advantage:
• It can enhance the quality and speed of perceiving and problem solving under some conditions.
• Disadvantage:
• It may inhibit or distort the quality of mental activities in new situations.

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Transfer

Carryover of knowledge

Negative

Previous solving skill affects

EX: Driving in India

&

In U.S.

Positive

Previous solving skill Helps in New Problem Solving

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Positive Transfer

• Transferring factual knowledge/skill.
• Effectively applying a strategy to Analogous problem.
• Karl Duncker(1945).
• Military Problem
• Radiation problem.
• + trained to understand why
• - understand how

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Military Problem

• Initial State
• Goal: Use army to capture fortress
• Resources: Sufficiently large army
• Constraint: Unable to send entire army along one road.
• Solution Plan: send small groups along multiple roads simultaneously
• Outcome: fortress captured by army.

Radiation Problem

• Initial State:
• Goal: Use of rays to destroy tumor
• Resources: sufficiently powerful rays
• Constraint: unable to administer high-intensity rays from one direction only
• Solution Plan: Administer low-intensity rays from multiple directions simultaneously
• Outcome: Tumor destroyed by rays

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• Study Problem
• Initial State:
• Goal: To obtain good marks in an exam.
• Resources: Sufficient reference books
• Constraint: Limited time period
• Solution Plan: Devote maximum time to study the reference books.
• Outcome: Secure good marks in an exam.�

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Intentional Transfer

• Lawyer: Client
• Doctor:: ?
• (Nurse, Patient, Medicine, MD)
• Not the similarity of the content but
• Close structural system of the relationship!

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Incubation

• Putting the problem aside for a while
• Without consciously thinking about it.
• Take a pause;
• Allow the possibility- problem will be processed subconsciously.
• Research support is very less.
• Enhancing Incubation
• Invest max. time initially
• Explore all the aspects
• Investigate several possibilities
• Allow sufficient time for incubation.
• Draw back: it takes time!

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• Interaction of Knowledge is imp. in P.S.
• Well developed
• Well organized

Elaboration of Knowledge

• Amount
• Organization ( Info., material, system)
• Use of knowledge

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Elaboration of Knowledge�

• Expertise:
• Schemas: mental framework.
• Large, highly interconnected units of knowledge.
• Organization of knowledge: underlying structural similarities of knowledge units.
• Ex: Knowledge about Depression
• Hambrick-Engle,2002 (Baseball-sternberg)
• Ravi Shastri’s Commentary.

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Problem solving approaches

• Algorithm:
• Specific & step by step procedure for solving problems.
• Results in a correct solutions
• Time consuming,
• Insufficient, unsophisticated
• App/Ex: Mathematical formulas.
• LSSTNEUIAMYOUL
• SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!
• ↓ Not always practical
• Looking only for pronounceable letters combination- Heuristic

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Heuristics:

• Important Strategy to solve problems.
• Rule of thumb
• Ignoring some alternatives & focusing on selected alternatives,
• Likely to produce solution.
• Educated guess based on prior experience
• Narrow down the possible solutions.
• Faster but doesn’t guarantee the solution.
• More research by Psy’ts.
• Most problems solved by heuristic

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Means-Ends Heuristic

• Divide the problem into sub-problems
• Reduce the difference between initial & goal state.
• Problem solver’s attention on the difference.
• Forward/backward movement.
• Ex: Syllabus of Cognitive Psychology
• Divide into 4 chapters
• Zero knowledge of the syllabus (Initial state)
• Study chapter by chapter
• Reduce the difference
• More chances to complete the syllabus (goal state)

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• When you used means-ends analysis to solve problem, you can proceed in either the forward direction, from the initial state to the goal state, or backward from the goal state to the initial state.

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Analogy

• Using a solution to an earlier problem for solving a new one.
• Pervade human thinking
• Target problem
• Source problem
• Barrier: Focus on superficial content than abstract meaning.
• Research finding: people failed to see the analogy between previous & current problem.
• failed to transfer their knowledge

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Reasoning

• Transforming the given information in order to reach conclusions.
• Involves inferences or conclusions drawn from other information.
• Cognitive Psychologists make distinctions between 2 kinds of Reasoning.

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Types of Reasoning

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• Deductive R
• from the general to the specific/ particular.
• * Shrelock Holmes

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• All BA students are scholars.
• Sakhi is in BA.
• Therefore, Sakhi is a scholar.

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• Inductive R
• from the specific to the general

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• Sakhi is a college student.
• Sakhi is a Lawyer. Therefore, all college students are Lawyers.

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• Logical R
• Conditional R
• relationship between conditions.

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• If, A =B, B=C. therefore, A=C.

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• Syllogism
•  logical argument -one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two or more specific form.

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• Some A are B
• Some B are C
• Therefore, A are C

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Reasoning & Decision-making:

• Conditional Reasoning: Reasoner draw conclusion based on if–then proposition.
• Syllogistic Reasoning: deductive argument, involves drawing conclusions from 2 premises.
• It involves quantities, so they use the words like- All, None, Some or other similar terms.
• Ex: Some women are democrats
• Some democrats are men

Therefore, Some women are men.

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Decision Making

• Assessing & Choosing among several alternatives.
• Information is uncertain.
• Much of the information is uncertain.
• No clear-cut rules tells us how to proceed from the information to the conclusion.
• In real life, the uncertainty of decision making is more common than the certainty of reasoning.
• Stability of the Mind is very very important in decision making.

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Decision Making

• When we make decisions, we have no established rules, and we may not even know whether our decisions are correct (Klein, 1997; Tversky & Fox, 1995).
• DM is a inter disciplinary field:
• Psychology,
• Economics,
• Political science,
• Sociology,
• Statistics,
• Philosophy,
• Medicine, and
• Law (leboeuf &shafir, 2005).

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When we need to make a difficult decision, we use a guideline that is simple and easy to access (Kahneman & Frederick, 2005).

• Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for his research in decision making.

Decision Making

• Heuristics are general strategies that typically produce a correct solution. When we need to make a difficult decision, we use a guideline that is simple and easy to access (Kahneman & Frederick, 2005).
• Representativeness,
• Availability,
• Anchoring and
• Adjustment.

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When we experience coincidences, we may have the sense of mystical harmony in the universe (Myers, 2002).

Availability heuristic

• A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind.
• People tend to heavily weigh their judgments toward more recent information, making new opinions biased toward that latest news.
• The easier it is to recall the consequences of something the greater those consequences are perceived to be.

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Representativeness heuristic

• The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty.
• People tend to judge the probability of an event by finding a ‘comparable known’ event and assuming that the probabilities will be similar.

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SIX THINKING HAT TECHNIQUE

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