Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange
Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [problem-solving]

For questions regarding the processes through which humans, animals, or artificial systems reason through a challenge and the means by which they select a solution.

For questions regarding the processes through which humans, animals, or artificial systems reason through a challenge and the means by which they select a solution.

For more information, see Problem solving.

60 questions
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Can we stop the brain from processing a particular task?

Imagine a task of high involvement and great complexity, but one that is not very important, e.g., a strategic computer game. Because of high involvement, the brain continues to process the problem to find solutions after playing the game. Because…
dhblah
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Functional fixedness for defining problems

Initial caveat: I have very little formal education in psychology or other cognitive sciences - just a couple classes in college. I read the guidelines in the site FAQ, but I'll understand if this question isn't right for this site. My background…
Paul Siegel
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Why do programmers work at night?

I can be described as a morning person, where waking up at 4:20 AM to catch a flight is no problem. My colleague on the other hand go to bed no earlier than midnight and often later than that. We're both programmers, and if we're in a critical phase…
Benny Skogberg
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What evidence is there for a correlation between being tightly focused on a problem and only using one part of your brain?

I've seen people tightly focused on a problem, in a state of 'flow' and when you break out of it there seems to be a couple of seconds of confusion when they adjust to the circumstances at hand. It is almost as if there is only blood flow, or…
hawkeye
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What do brains do when processing information, that Von Neumann machines cannot (yet?) imitate?

What makes a human processing information so different from a set of instructions in a computer? Solving a problem for any human operating with concepts is still much superior to lots of computer processing. I fail to verbalize what this 'extra'…
Quora Feans
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Problem solving and memory size, conscious vs subconscious

First time asking here so I don't know the ethos yet of how liberal or strick this site is on the particulars. In spending my day programming in Prolog I often hit a wall sometimes and stop coding on a section for a few minutes to a few days because…
Guy Coder
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Reaching biomimicry solutions through pure reasoning alone

Introduction: I'm somehow fascinated by the Velcro invention story because, as far as I can guess, Velcro would hardly have been invented if someone was looking for an elegant solution of this kind in per-meditated, logical manner. Let's assume we…
drabsv
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systems of thinking - how to relearn

According to Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow), we have two types of thinking: I. fast, instinctive and emotional II. slower, more deliberative, and more logical I found interesting Kahneman's remark that IQ score represents a person's…
arthurdent007
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Given a limited amount of time and an unlimited access to resources. Do the majority of people tend to solve a problem the "quick and dirty" way?

In my field of work (Manufacturing), I've noticed this behavior quite often. It doesn't matter how much resources they have, if they are under pressure, most people will try to solve a specific problem the fastest way possible, without taking the…
Hugo
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