Problem solving

…insight and creativity across ordinary problem-solving and altered experiences.

Cognition is among the first domains to be affected in schizophrenia and can predict the onset of psychosis. Measuring cognitive changes in schizophrenia is a complex process, which often involves a battery of multiple tests, where individual performance is compared to the average performance of the healthy population. Animal models are often used to probe into mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction. However, animal models of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and other disorders usually focus on a single cognitive domain using a limited number of cognitive assays. In addition, behavioral ana

…by considering analogical reasoning in problem solving and the role conceptual blending plays in these problem-solving contexts. Then I’ll consider blending in multi-modal contexts, including timelines, memes (viz. image macros), and, if time allows, zoom meetings. I suggest mappings analogy researchers have traditionally considered superficial are often important for the development of novel abstractions. Likewise, the analogue portion of multimodal blends anchors their generative

…learning guide later transfer to new problem solving, less is known about how to best support analogical transfer from previous learning while children are engaged in new learning episodes. Such research may have important implications for teaching and learning in mathematics, which often includes analogies between old and new information. Some existing research promotes supporting learners' explicit connections across old and new information withi

The challenges of problem solving do not exclusively lie in how to perform heuristic search, but they begin with how we understand a given task: How to cognitively represent the task domain and its components can determine how quickly someone is able to progress towards a solution, whether advanced strategies can be discovered, or even whether a solution is found at all. While this challenge of constructing and changing representations has been acknowledged early on in problem solving research, for the most part it has been sidestepped by focussing on simple, well-defined problems whose repres

…These processes allow us to solve problems we never encountered before and generate new ideas. However, the place of analogy transfer in problem solving mechanisms is unclear. This presentation will describe several experiments with three main findings. Firs

Analogical reasoning remains foundational to the human ability to forge meaningful patterns within the sea of information that continually inundates the senses. Yet, meaningful patterns rely not only on the recognition of attributional similarities but also dissimilarities. Just as the perception of images rests on the juxtaposition of lightness and darkness, reasoning relationally requires systematic attention to both similarities and dissimilarities. With that awareness, my colleagues and I have expanded the study of relational reasoning beyond analogous reasoning and attributional similarit