HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Problem Solving Ch 12

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1PSYCHOLOGY 3050Problem
Solving (Ch 12)
Dr. Jamie Drover SN-3094, 737-8383 e-mail --
jrdrover_at_mun.ca Winter Semester 2009
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Problem Solving and Reasoning

• Four basic components of problem solving
• 1. Goal
• desired object, state
• 2. Obstacles
• cant attain goal -- blocked
• 3. Strategies for overcoming obstacles
• deliberate solutions, plans
• 4. Evaluation of results
• Did the strategy work?
• Why or why not?
• Reorganize

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The Development of Problem Solving

• When does it begin?
• Basic cognitive requirements
• some sense of goal-directed behavior
• Need precedes action
• Not fortuitous discovery
• Beginning of cause and effect (means-end)
  understanding
• intentionality make a response to produce an
  effect
• If I remove the cloth, I can get the keys

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The Development of Problem Solving

• Piaget said by about 8 months
• Beginning of the coordination of secondary
  circular reactions
• Substage 4 of the sensorimotor period
• Infants use one behavior strategically in the
  service of another
• Remove a cloth to get hidden toy

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Last Class

• Nativist Perspective
• Universal Grammar Representational innateness
• Critical Period
• Socially isolated, age of exposure, exposure to
  sign language, brain plasticity.
• Social interactionist perspective
• Social pragmatic view of language
• Motherese, Infant-Directed Speech
• Universal, infants prefer it, eases word
  discrimination, aids in syntactic development
• Lockes theory of neurolinguistic development
• Vocal learning, utterance acquisition, analysis
  and computation, integration and elaboration

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Last Class

• Problem Solving
• Goal, obstacle, strategy, evaluation
• Starts at about 8 months
• Substage 4 of sensorimotor period
• Goal precedes the act

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The Development of Problem Solving

• Some earlier signs of ability to control the
  environment
• e.g., operant conditioning (Lewis et al., 1990)
• Lever pulling, foot kicking, head turning
• No obstacle, no strategy
• making an association rather than seeing a
  problem
• no deliberate intention to reach a goal
• preliminary problem-solving

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The Development of Problem Solving

• Willatts (1990) tested 6-8 month-olds with a
  means-end problems solving task.
• distant toy on cloth out of reach
• pull cloth, toy moves within reach, get toy
• All infants pulled cloth
• 6 mo lost interest in toy, play with cloth
• 8 mo ignore cloth, retrieve toy

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The Development of Problem Solving

• Bullock Lutkenhaus (1988) -- 15 to 35 mo.
• build a house by stacking blocks
• copy adult-built model
• Youngest infants little goal directed activity
• Random stacking
• No reference to the model
• Older children goal directed
• Monitored performance, self-correction (85)
• Showed pleasure at outcome (e.g., smiling)

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The Development of Problem Solving

• Knowledge of the problem domain and context
  factors enhance problem solving
• Ceci (1996)
• Defined context as the way in which a problem is
  represented in long-term memory
• Includes knowledge about the task and reason for
  doing it
• 10-yr-olds asked to use a joystick to predict
  where (on a computer screen) a target would land
• Dull version (shapes, colors)
• Fun version video game (capture prey)
• Algorithm to solve problem identical
• Poor performance on the dull task, excellent
  performance on the game task

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Problem Solving as Inducing and Using Rules

• PS involves rule discovery and use --
• rules specify relations among two or more
  variables
• Two aspects to understanding, using rules
• Formal logic if then
• if condition A exists then make response B
  format
• Inducing or discovering rules in situ and using
  them to solve problems

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When Can Children Induce Rules?

• Can be assessed using the oddity problem
• Overman (1996) 16 mo to 6 yr-olds rewarded
  (food) for selecting odd item in 3-item set
• no verbal instructions
• Difficult for 16 to 31 mo (hundreds of trials to
  solve)
• Very difficult for 32 to 60 mo
• Easy for 6 yr-olds
• With verbal instruction -- all can solve

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When Can Children Induce Rules?

• Why was the nonverbal version harder for
  preschoolers?
• Best guess is that children at different ages
  approaches PS differently
• Depends on other cognitive factors
• E.g., preschoolers highly language dependent
• Makes rule use based on behavior difficult
• Preschoolers are less flexible than older
  children
• Can induce verbal or nonverbal rules, solutions

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Rule-Assessment Approach

• Siegler (1981) believed that cognitive
  development is about learning and applying
  increasingly complex rules
• Balance scale problem Dowels on each side of a
  fulcrum, weights added to dowels, child predicts
  which side falls
• To succeed, child must consider weights (number)
  and distance (dowels) from fulcrum
• Weights farther from fulcrum will have greater
  impact on movement of the scale than weights
  closer to the midpoint

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Rule-Assessment Approach
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Rule-Assessment Approach

• Rule 1 child considers one dimension
• E.g., number of weights
• Side with most weights falls, regardless of
  distance
• will sometimes be right
• Rule 2 side with most weights falls, but if
  weights are equal, child consider distance
• Rule 3 considers both weight and distance
• Predict that most weight or most distance goes
  down
• If one side has more weight and the other more
  distance guess
• Rule 4 Considers weight and distance
  appropriately
• Compute torque wt x distance on each side
  greatest falls

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Rule-Assessment Approach

• Age changes
• 3 to 4 years no rule guess 5 yrs rule 1 9
  yrs rule 2 or 3 13-17 rule 3
• very few use rule 4
• Similar rule use progression has been found with
  other task
• E.g., conservation, judging projection of shadows
• Development appears stage-like, but is not
• At any one time, multiple rules available and
  used
• Overlapping waves theory
• Adaptive strategy choice model

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Rule-Assessment Approach
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Learning to Follow Rules

• Indicates conscious awareness and cognitive
  self-control
• Zelazo Reznick (1997)
• 31 to 36 mo given a 2-choice sorting task
• Photos of things from inside house Box A
• Photos from outside house Box B
• knowledge question Is this found inside or
  outside?
• all can do knowledge task -- only 36 mo-olds can
  sort

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Learning to Follow Rules

• Younger children failed to sort in spite of (1)
  object labeling (2) reminding of location (3)
  feedback, rewards
• Have difficulty following rules in spite of
  knowing the rules

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Learning to Follow Rules

• Rule switching follow one rule, then change to
  another rule
• Dimensional card-sorting task
• Sets of cards that vary on 2 dimensions
• E.g., shape, color
• Sample yellow car, green flower
• yellow cards go here, green go here
• Easy
• Switch game sort by shape
• 36-mo-olds
• can do basic sorting, but cant switch rule (from
  color to shape)
• Keep using old rule
• can verbalize new rule knowledge
• By 4 to 5 yrs -- can switch rules successfully

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Learning to Follow Rules

• So why do we see these age differences.
• (1) poor inhibitory control
• preservative errors
• (2) age related increase in the complexity of
  rule systems that children can represent
• Developmental increase in reflection, increased
  control over behavior and cognition
• Reflection a process whereby the contents of
  consciousness become the objects of consciousness
• Become operated on, modified
• simple rules early -- coordinating rules later

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Tool Use

• Common in problem solving forks, pens, hammers,
  etc.
• Non-humans also use tools to solve problems

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The Development of Tool Use in Young Children

• Piaget speculated that infants could use tools by
  their first birthday.
• 9- to 12 mo-old infants learn to solve
  lure-retrieval problems
• E.g., can use a stick to reach toy outside
  playpen
• Chen and Siegler (2000) systematic study of tool
  use in toddlers 18- to 30-mo
• Child seated across from out-of-reach toys
• Several tools available
• Only one will retrieve the toy
• Three trials encouraged to get toy
• Hint and modeling conditions given

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The Development of Tool Use in Young Children
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The Development of Tool Use in Young Children
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The Development of Tool Use in Young Children

• 30 mo no instruction
• more likely to use tools to get toy than
  20-mo-olds without instruction (15 vs. 0)
• With instructions (hint) or modeling (social
  learning)
• 30-mo improved some 20-mo use tool to get toy
• Type of strategies used
• Forward lean forward to get toy
• Indirect ask for help
• Tool use use one of the tools
• Strategy use changed across trials
• Tool strategy increased but forward and indirect
  continued to be used
• Adaptive choice model again!

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Planning

• Planning requires representation of means-end
  solution in advance
• Toddlers are poor at this
• E.g., Bullock study house building with blocks
• Must plan which block is next
• Difficult before 3 yrs old
• Develops slowly
• Preschoolers find planning difficult in many
  everyday situations because
• 1. May require inhibiting ongoing activity
• Prefrontal cortex slow to develop
• 2. Takes time

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Planning

• 3. Can be difficult and unpleasant -- effortful
• 4. Plans dont often work, so why bother?
• 5. More fun to wing it -- trial and error
• However, approach to PS not entirely random
• Often combine trial-and-error with a plan
• Rarely show the forward-looking approach of older
  kids, adults