The Problems with Problem Solving.pdf (253.58 kB)
The problems with problem solving: Reflections on the rise, current status, and possible future of a cognitive research paradigm
journal contribution
posted on 2016-08-25, 00:00 authored by Stellan OhlssonThe research paradigm invented by Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon in the late 1950s
dominated the study of problem solving for more than three decades. But in the early
1990s, problem solving ceased to drive research on complex cognition. As part of this
decline, Newell and Simon’s most innovative research practices – especially their method
for inducing subjects’ strategies from verbal protocols - were abandoned. In this essay, I
summarize Newell and Simon’s theoretical and methodological innovations and explain
why their strategy identification method did not become a standard research tool. I argue
that the method lacked a systematic way to aggregate data, and that Newell and Simon’s
search for general problem solving strategies failed. Paradoxically, the theoretical vision
that led them to search elsewhere for general principles led researchers away from studies
of complex problem solving. Newell and Simon’s main enduring contribution is the
theory that people solve problems via heuristic search through a problem space. This
theory remains the centerpiece of our understanding of how people solve unfamiliar
problems, but it is seriously incomplete. In the early 1970s, Newell and Simon suggested
that the field should focus on the question where problem spaces and search strategies
come from. I propose a breakdown of this overarching question into five specific research
questions. Principled answers to those questions would expand the theory of heuristic
search into a more complete theory of human problem solving.
History
Publisher Statement
This is a copy of an article published in the Journal of Problem Solving. © 2012 University of Illinois at Chicago.Publisher
Purdue University PressLanguage
- en_US
issn
1932-6246Issue date
2012-10-01Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedLicence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC