Evelyne Clément

Approche de la flexibilité cognitive dans la problématique de la résolution de problème

This paper is a contribution to the definition of a complex behavioral process: the cognitive flexibility. By examining the literature, the different definitions lead to conclude that this notion is highly influenced by the tests used to measure a flexible behavior. We attempt to unify this notion and present an approach of the cognitive flexibility in the framework of the problem solving situations. These situations allow to identify two forms of flexibility, reactive and spontaneous flexibility, and the expression of perseverative behavior. We show how the well-known “water-jug volume-measuring problems” (Luchins, 1942) are well-suited to observe both these kind of flexibility. In those situations, spontaneous flexibility is interpreted as the capacity of adopting spontaneously different points of view on a same situation, even when reactive flexibility occurs in impasse situations and may lead either to the change of the procedure or to the elaboration of a new representation. In conclusion, we discuss how this approach permits to reinterpret in the same framework the phenomena of the fixation described by the Gestalt psychology and the perseverative behavior related in the more recent neuropsychological literature.

Failure to Construct and Transfer Correct Representations across Probability Problems

Previous studies carried out on “purely random” situations (with dice or poker chips) show the difficulties encountered by people in such situations, however simple they may be. In fact, in this type of situation, prior knowledge guides spontaneous representations, and the “errors” observed could be explained by the activation of “implicit models” which form the basis of erroneous representations. 42 statistically naïve undergraduates were given several variants of a probability problem on which errors are common. In a learning phase, subjects were given four problems involving geometric figures which were pairwise related by complementarity and equivalence relations. In a subsequent transfer phase, they were given a fifth problem involving poker chips, which was structurally isomorphic to the fourth geometric-figures problem. The findings show that people do not realize the relations between problems, and that transfer occurred only for the subset of subjects who performed correctly on the training problems of the learning phase. These results appear to have some significant implications in teaching mathematical concepts.

Emotion: appraisal-coping model for the “Cascades” problem

Modelling emotion has become a challenge nowadays. Therefore, several models have been produced in order to express human emotional activity. However, only a few of them are currently able to express the close relationship existing between emotion and cognition. An appraisal-coping model is presented here, with the aim to simulate the emotional impact caused by the evaluation of a particular situation (appraisal), along with the consequent cognitive reaction intended to face the situation (coping). This model is applied to the “Cascades” problem, a small arithmetical exercice designed for ten-year-old pupils. The goal is to create a model corresponding to a child’s behaviour when solving the problem using his own strategies.