| Problem solving forms part of thinking. It occurs if an organism or an
artificial intelligence system does not know how to
proceed from a given state to a desired goal state.
The nature of human problem solving has been studied by psychologists over the past hundred years. Beginning with the early
experimental work of the Gestaltists in Germany (e.g. Duncker, 1935), and continuing through the 1960s and early 1970s, research on problem solving
typically conducted relatively simple, laboratory tasks (e.g. Duncker's "X-ray" problem; Ewert & Lambert's 1932 "disk"
problem, later known as Tower of Hanoi) that appeared novel to
participants (e.g. Mayer, 1992). Various reasons account for the choice of simple novel tasks: they had clearly defined optimal
solutions, they were solvable within a relatively short time frame, researchers could trace participants' problem-solving steps,
and so on. The researchers made the underlying assumption, of course, that simple tasks such as the Tower of Hanoi captured the
main properties of "real world" problems, and that the cognitive processes underlying participants' attempts to solve simple
problems were representative of the processes engaged in when solving "real world" problems. Thus researchers used simple
problems for reasons of convenience, and thought generalizations to more complex problems would become possible. Perhaps the
best-known and most impressive example of this line of research remains the work by Newell and Simon (1972).
However, beginning in the 1970s, researchers became increasingly convinced that empirical findings and theoretical concepts
derived from simple laboratory tasks did not necessarily generalize to more complex, real-life problems. Even worse, it appeared
that the processes underlying creative problem solving in different domains differed from each other (Sternberg, 1995). These
realizations have led to rather different responses in North America and in Europe.
In North America, initiated by the work of Herbert Simon on learning
by doing in semantically rich domains (e.g. Anzai & Simon, 1979; Bhaskar & Simon, 1977), researchers began to investigate
problem solving separately in different natural knowledge domains - such as physics, writing, or chess playing - thus
relinquishing their attempts to extract a global theory of problem solving (e.g. Sternberg & Frensch, 1991). Instead, these
researchers have frequently focused on the development of problem solving within a certain domain, that is on the development of
expertise (e.g. Anderson, Boyle & Reiser, 1985; Chase & Simon, 1973; Chi,
Feltovich & Glaser, 1981).
Areas that have attracted rather intensive attention in North America include such diverse fields as:
- Reading (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1991)
- Writing (Bryson, Bereiter, Scardamalia & Joram, 1991)
- Calculation (Sokol & McCloskey, 1991)
- Political decision making (Voss, Wolfe, Lawrence & Engle, 1991)
- Managerial problem solving (Wagner, 1991)
- Lawyers' reasoning (Amsel, Langer & Loutzenhiser, 1991)
- Mechanical problem solving (Hegarty, 1991)
- Problem solving in electronics (Lesgold & Lajoie, 1991)
- Computer skills (Kay, 1991)
- Game playing (Frensch & Sternberg, 1991)
- Personal problem solving (Heppner & Krauskopf, 1987)
In Europe, two main approaches have surfaced, one initiated by Donald Broadbent (1977; see Berry & Broadbent, 1995) in the United Kingdom and the other one by
Dietrich Dörner (1975, 1985; see Dörner & Wearing, 1995) in
Germany. The two approaches have in common an emphasis on relatively complex, semantically rich, computerized laboratory tasks,
constructed to resemble real-life problems. The approaches differ somewhat in their theoretical goals and methodology, however.
The tradition initiated by Broadbent emphasizes the distinction between cognitive problem-solving processes that operate under
awareness versus outside of awareness, and typically employs mathematically well-defined computerized systems. The tradition
initiated by Dörner, on the other hand, has an interest in the interplay of the cognitive, motivational, and social components of
problem solving, and utilizes very complex computerized scenarios that contain up to 2,000 highly interconnected variables (e.g.,
Dörner, Kreuzig, Reither & Stäudel's 1983 LOHHAUSEN project; Ringelband, Misiak & Kluwe, 1990). Buchner (1995) describes
the two traditions in detail.
To sum up, researchers' realization that problem-solving processes differ across knowledge domains and across levels of
expertise (e.g. Sternberg, 1995) and that, consequently, findings obtained in the laboratory cannot necessarily generalize to
problem-solving situations outside the laboratory, has during the past two decades led to an emphasis on real-world problem
solving. This emphasis has been expressed quite differently in North America and Europe, however. Whereas North American research
has typically concentrated on studying problem solving in separate, natural knowledge domains, much of the European research has
focused on novel, complex problems, and has been performed with computerized scenarios (see Funke, 1991, for an overview).
External links
References
Due to the lengthiness of this section, it has been moved to a separate page.
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