Deck 24: Problem Solving, Expertise, and Creativity

Question 1

According to Goel (2010) how many states characterise problem solving?

A) 5
B) 4
C) 3
D) 2
E) 1

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Experimental psychologists generally tend to focus on well-defined problems primarily because:

A) They make it easy to identify errors
B) Mazes are usually underspecified
C) They have the greatest ecological validity
D) Ill-defined problems are hard to identify in real life
E) They lack a clearly ideal strategy for the solution

Answer 2

A

Question 3

According to Metcalfe and Wiebe (1987), there is a gradual increase in which of the following during non-insight problems?

A) Confusion
B) Warmth
C) Noradrenaline
D) Aha moments
E) Lateral inhibition

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Asking participants to think of a word (e.g., blood) that goes with each of three given words (e.g., hound, pressure, shot) to form a compound is an example of which type of test?

A) Structured clinical interview
B) Implicit association
C) Aptitude
D) Remote associate
E) Word span

Question 5

What did Wallas (1926) mean by incubation?

A) Allowing an idea to formulate over time
B) Interrupting work on a problem very briefly to focus on something else
C) Allowing an idea to formulate very quickly and produce an aha moment
D) The period when it looks like a problem is insoluble
E) Interrupting work on a problem for some time to focus on something else

Question 6

According to Luchins (1942), successive training trials on a complex version of a three-jar task led to the development of a(n) ________, which reduced success on a much simpler problem involving three jars:

A) Negative transfer
B) Freudian transference
C) Bandwagon
D) Boomerang
E) Novelty

Question 7

Functional fixedness is a form of which effect?

A) Reaction formation
B) Functional affordance
C) Mental set
D) Response suppression
E) Endogenous blockade

Question 8

When given a relevant analogy beforehand, people tend to focus on what type of similarity between problems?

A) Intrinsic
B) Structural
C) Ballistic
D) Radial
E) Superficial

Question 9

Which of these of these offers a critique of identical-elements theory?

A) Correlational criticisms
B) Researcher bias
C) Self-report bias
D) Circular reasoning
E) Lack of evidence

Question 10

Newell and Simon (1972) built which of the following key assumptions into their General Problem Solver?

A) Complex information processing is typically parallel
B) Complex information processing is typically serial
C) We have an unlimited short-term memory capacity
D) Computer programs cannot model well-defined problems
E) Problem solving is invariably independent of long-term memory

Question 11

The most important heuristic identified by Newell and Simon (1972) was:

A) Means-end analysis
B) Hill-climbing
C) Peak-end rule
D) Take-the-best
E) Representativeness

Question 12

What is the weakness of using the hill climbing heuristic according to Robertson (2001)?

A) It takes longer to solve the full problem
B) The problem solver will struggle to understand the problem as a whole
C) Focus on short-term goals often fails to lead to problem solution
D) The problem solver becomes used to only solving part of a problem
E) Greater effort is needed to solve the whole problem

Question 13

Which of these is NOT one of the aspects of deliberate practice suggested by Ericsson?

A) The task is not too easy or hard
B) The learner is given informative feedback about their performance
C) The learner has adequate chances to repeat the task
D) The learner is given clues to solve the problem
E) The learner has the opportunity to correct their errors

Question 14

According to Macnamara et al. (2014) on which of these does deliberate practice have the greatest effect?

A) Professions
B) Sports
C) Games
D) Music
E) Education

Question 15

How many years fewer of deliberate practice did Grandmaster of chess Magnus Carlsen have on average than his competitors?

A) 2 and a half
B) 3 and a half
C) 4 and a half
D) 5 and a half
E) 6 and a half

Question 16

According to Baas et al. (2008), two key components of creative solutions are:

A) Novelty and usefulness
B) Generalisability and salience
C) Transience and efficiency
D) Profitability and simplicity
E) Testability and falsifiability

Question 17

Silvia (2008) found which type of relationship between intelligence and creativity?

A) No statistical correlation
B) Small and negative
C) Large and positive
D) Large and negative
E) Small and positive

Question 18

Which method did Einstein use that indirectly led to his theory of relativity?

A) The unusualness heuristic
B) Trial-and-error
C) "What if" reasoning
D) Planned experimentation
E) Challenge conventional wisdom

Question 19

The random process that Campbell (1960) argued led to major scientific discoveries was termed:

A) Unusualness heuristic
B) Blind variation
C) What-if reasoning
D) Step-by-step approach
E) Shotgun approach

Question 20

Which of these was not used by Simonton (2011, 2015) to explain creative discovery?

A) Expertise
B) Strategies
C) Pre-existing knowledge
D) Trial-and-error
E) Blind variation