Jarrod Moss

The influence of open goals on the acquisition of problem-relevant information

There have been a number of recent findings indicating that unsolved problems, or open goals more generally, influence cognition even when the current task has no relation to the task in which the goal was originally set. It was hypothesized that open goals would influence what information entered the problem-solving process. Three studies were conducted to establish the effect of open goals on the acquisition of problem-relevant information. It was found that problem-relevant information, or hints, presented implicitly in a 2nd task in between attempts at solving problems aided problem solving. This effect cannot be attributed to strategic behavior after participants caught on to the manipulation, as most participants were not aware of the relationship. The implications of this research are discussed, including potential contributions to our understanding of insight, incubation, transfer, and creativity.

The neural correlates of strategic reading comprehension: cognitive control and discourse comprehension.

Neuroimaging studies of text comprehension conducted thus far have shed little light on the brain mechanisms underlying strategic learning from text. Thus, the present study was designed to answer the question of what brain areas are active during performance of complex reading strategies. Reading comprehension strategies are designed to improve a readers comprehension of a text. For example, self-explanation is a complex reading strategy that enhances existing comprehension processes. It was hypothesized that reading strategies would involve areas of the brain that are normally involved in reading comprehension along with areas that are involved in strategic control processes because the readers are intentionally using a complex reading strategy. Subjects were asked to reread, paraphrase, and self-explain three different texts in a block design fMRI study. Activation was found in both executive control and comprehension areas, and furthermore, learning from text was associated with activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). The authors speculate that the aPFC may play a role in coordinating the internal and external modes of thought that are necessary for integrating new knowledge from texts with prior knowledge.

The Role of Functionality in the Mental Representations of Engineering Students: Some Differences in the Early Stages of Expertise

As engineers gain experience and become experts in their domain, the structure and content of their knowledge changes. Two studies are presented that examine differences in knowledge representation among freshman and senior engineering students. The first study examines recall of mechanical devices and chunking of components, and the second examines whether seniors represent devices in a more abstract functional manner than do freshmen. The most prominent differences between these 2 groups involve their representation of the functioning of groups of electromechanical components and how these groups of components interact to produce device behavior. Seniors are better able to construct coherent representations of devices by focusing on the function of sets of components in the device. The findings from these studies highlight some ways in which the structure and content of mental representations of design knowledge differ during the early stages of expertise acquisition.

Is Insight Always the Same? A Protocol Analysis of Insight in Compound Remote Associate Problems

Compound Remote Associate (CRA) problems have been used to investigate insight problem solving using both behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. However, it is unclear to what extent CRA problems exhibit characteristics of insight such as impasses and restructuring. CRA problem-solving characteristics were examined in a study in which participants solved CRA problems while providing concurrent verbal protocols. The results show that solutions subjectively judged as insight by participants do exhibit some characteristics of insight. However, the results also show that there are at least two different ways in which people experience insight when solving CRA problems. Sometimes problems are solved and judged as insight when the solution is the first thing considered, but these solutions do not exhibit any characteristics of insight aside from the “Aha!” experience. In other cases, the solution is derived after a longer period of problem solving, and the solution process more closely resembles insight as it is has been traditionally defined in the literature. The results show that separating these two types of solution processes may provide a better understanding of the behavioral and neuroanatomical correlates of insight solutions.

The Effect of Incidental Hints When Problems Are Suspended Before, During, or After an Impasse

Two studies examine how the time at which problem solving is suspended relative to an impasse affects the impact of incidental hints. An impasse is a point in problem solving at which a problem solver is not making progress and does not know how to proceed. In both studies, work on remote associates problems was suspended before an impasse was reached, at the time an impasse was reached, or after a period of continued work during an impasse. After problem solving was suspended on a set of problems, participants completed a lexical decision task before resuming work on the set of unsolved problems. For half of the problems suspended during each impasse state, solution words were presented as incidental hints in the lexical decision task. The proportion of initially unsolved problems that were solved after the intervening lexical decision task was greater when problem solving was suspended at the point an impasse was reached than when problem solving was suspended before an impasse or after a period of continued work during an impasse. These results suggest that suspending problem solving at the point of impasse may increase susceptibility to incidentally presented hints. The point of impasse may be an opportune time for hints because the problem has been explored but there has not been a large increase in fixation on failed solution attempts.

The nature of mind wandering during reading varies with the cognitive control demands of the reading strategy.

Prior studies of mind wandering find the default network active during mind wandering, but these studies have yielded mixed results concerning the role of cognitive control brain regions during mind wandering. Mind wandering often interferes with reading comprehension, and prior neuroimaging studies of discourse comprehension and strategic reading comprehension have shown that there are at least two networks of brain regions that support strategic discourse comprehension: a domain-general control network and a network of regions supporting coherence-building comprehension processes. The present study was designed to further examine the neural correlates of mind wandering by examining mind wandering during strategic reading comprehension. Participants provided ratings of mind wandering frequency that were used to investigate interactions between the strategy being performed and brain regions whose activation was modulated by wind wandering. The results support prior findings showing that cognitive control regions are at times more active during mind wandering than during a task with low control demands, such as rereading. This result provides an initial examination of the neural correlates of mind wandering during discourse comprehension and shows that the processes being engaged by the primary task need to be considered when studying mind wandering. The results also replicate, in a different learning domain, prior findings of key brain areas associated with different reading strategies.

Comprehension through explanation as the interaction of the brain’s coherence and cognitive control networks

Discourse comprehension processes attempt to produce an elaborate and well-connected representation in the reader’s mind. A common network of regions including the angular gyrus, posterior cingulate, and dorsal frontal cortex appears to be involved in constructing coherent representations in a variety of tasks including social cognition tasks, narrative comprehension, and expository text comprehension. Reading strategies that require the construction of explicit inferences are used in the present research to examine how this coherence network interacts with other brain regions. A psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to examine regions showing changed functional connectivity with this coherence network when participants were engaged in either a non-inferencing reading strategy, paraphrasing, or a strategy requiring coherence-building inferences, self-explanation. Results of the analysis show that the coherence network increases in functional connectivity with a cognitive control network that may be specialized for the manipulation of semantic representations and the construction of new relations among these representations.

Overcoming Blocks in Conceptual Design: The Effects of Open Goals and Analogical Similarity on Idea Generation

Designers have been known to seek analogical inspiration during design ideation. This paper presents an experiment that studies the types of analogies that most impact design creativity, as well as the time during problem solving when it is most effective to seek such analogical stimulation. This experiment showed that new information that was highly similar to the problem affected problem solving even if the information was given before problem solving began. On the other hand, new information that was distantly related to the problem only affected problem solving when it was presented during a break after problem solving had already begun. These results support the idea that open goals increase the likelihood that distantly related information become incorporated into problem solving. Functional principles found in the problem-relevant information given were also found to prime solutions in corresponding categories.Copyright

Inside the Mind: Using Neuroimaging to Understand Moral Product Preference Judgments Involving Sustainability

Trying to decide whether to purchase a sustainable product often puts decision makers in a difficult situation, especially if the more sustainable option provides less desirable features or costs a premium. This paper theorizes that adding sustainability as a variable during product choice evaluations create decisions that are moral choice scenarios, where benefit to society is weighed against personal gain. From an engineering design perspective, modeling user preferences in this context can be extremely difficult. While several methods exist to assist researchers in eliciting consumer preferences, the vast majority relies upon conscious input from the potential consumers themselves. More critically, these methods do not afford researchers the ability to understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying what someone may be feeling or thinking while these preference judgments are being made. In this work, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to investigate the neural processes behind multi-attribute product preference judgments. In particular, this work centers on uncovering unique features of sustainable preference judgments: preference judgments that involve products for which the environmental impact is a known quantity. This work builds upon earlier work that investigated how preference judgments are altered in the context of sustainability. A deeper look at participant decision making at the time of judgment is examined using neuroimaging with the goal of providing actionable insights for designers and product developers. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4035859]

Cognitive Investigations into Knowledge Representation in Engineering Design

As engineering students gain experience and become experts in their domain, the structure and content of their knowledge changes. Two studies are presented that examine differences in knowledge representation among freshman and senior engineering students. The first study uses a recall paradigm, and the second uses Latent Semantic Analysis to analyze brief descriptions written by engineering students. Both studies find that the most prominent differences between these two groups of students are their representations of the function of electromechanical components and how these components interact. The findings from these studies highlight some ways in which the structure and content of mental representations of design knowledge differ with experience.