Jean E. Pretz

Intuition versus analysis: Strategy and experience in complex everyday problem solving

Research on dual processes in cognition has shown that explicit, analytical thought is more powerful and less vulnerable to heuristics and biases than is implicit, intuitive thought. However, several studies have shown that holistic, intuitive processes can outperform analysis, documenting the disruptive effects of hypothesis testing, think-aloud protocols, and analytical judgments. To examine the effects of intuitive versus analytical strategy and level of experience on problem solving, 1st- through 4th-year undergraduates solved problems dealing with college life. The results of two studies showed that the appropriateness of strategy depends on the problem solver’s level of experience. Analysis was found to be an appropriate strategy for more experienced individuals, whereas novices scored best when they took a holistic, intuitive perspective. Similar effects of strategy were found when strategy instruction was manipulated and when participants were compared on the basis of strategy preference. The implications for research on problem solving, expertise, and dual-process models are discussed.

Cognition and Intelligence: Identifying the Mechanisms of the Mind

Preface 1. Information processing and intelligence: where we are and where we are going Earl Hunt 2. Mental chronometry and the unification of differential psychology Arthur Jensen 3. Reductionism vs charting ways of examining the role of lower-order cognitive processes in intelligence Lazar Stankov 4. Basic information processing and the psychophysiology of intelligence Aljoscha Neubauer and Andreas Fink 5. The neural bases of intelligence: a perspective based on functional neuroimaging Sharlene D. Newman and Marcel Adam Just 6. The role of working memory in higher-level cognition domain specific vs domain-general perspectives David Z. Hambrick, Michael J. Kane and Randall Engle 7. Higher-order cognition and intelligence Edward Necka and Jaroslaw Orzechowski 8. Ability determinants of individual differences in skilled performance Phillip Ackerman 9. Complex problem solving and intelligence: empirical relation and causal direction Dorit Wenke, Peter A. Frensch and Joachim Funke 10. Intelligence as smart heuristics Markus Raab and Gerd Gigerenzer 11. The role of transferable knowledge in intelligence Susan Barnett, Stephen J. Ceci and Hwakin Yang 12. Reasoning abilities David Lohman 13. Measuring human intelligence with artificial intelligence: adaptive item generation Susan Embretson 14. Marrying intelligence and cognition: a developmental view Mike Anderson 15. From description to explanation in cognitive aging Timothy A. Salthouse 16. Unifying the field: cognition and intelligence Jean Pretz and Robert J. Sternberg.

Types of Innovations

Abstract: Innovations can be of eight different types. Each represents a different kind of contribution. For example, a conceptual replication is a minimal innovation, repeating with minor variations an idea that already exists (e.g. Mercurys putting the ‘Mercury’ label on what is essentially an already-existing Ford car). Forward incrementations represent next steps forward along existing lines of progression (e.g. the 2001 version of a 2000 car). Redirections represent a totally different direction for products that diverge from the existing line of progress (e.g. electric cars). We will discuss the types of innovations and the circumstances leading to success.

The Creative task Creator: a tool for the generation of customized, Web-based creativity tasks.

This article presents a Web-based tool for the creation of divergent-thinking and open-ended creativity tasks. A Java program generates HTML forms with PHP scripting that run an Alternate Uses Task and/or open-ended response items. Researchers may specify their own instructions, objects, and time limits, or use default settings. Participants can also be prompted to select their best responses to the Alternate Uses Task (Silvia et al., 2008). Minimal programming knowledge is required. The program runs on any server, and responses are recorded in a standard MySQL database. Responses can be scored using the consensual assessment technique (Amabile, 1996) or Torrance’s (1998) traditional scoring method. Adoption of this Web-based tool should facilitate creativity research across cultures and access to eminent creators. The Creative Task Creator may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.

When the goal gets in the way: The interaction of goal specificity and task difficulty

In three experiments we tested hypotheses derived from the goal specificity literature using a real-world physics task. In the balance-scale paradigm participants predict the state of the apparatus based on a configuration of weights at various distances from the fulcrum. Non-specific goals (NSG) have been shown to encourage hypothesis testing, which facilitates rule discovery, whereas specific goals (SG) do not. We showed that this goal specificity effect depends on task difficulty. The NSG strategy led to rule induction among some participants. Among non-discoverers, SG participants were faster and more accurate on difficult problems than NSG participants. The use of misleading exemplars (scale configurations that obscured the rule governing outcomes) led to fixation on inappropriate hypotheses for NSG but not SG participants. When more diagnostic learning exemplars were used, NSG non-discoverers still performed worse than SG participants on difficult problems. SG participants also outperformed NSG participants on a post-test of difficult problems. These findings qualify the generality of goal specificity effects.