Which of the following examples best characterizes the use of a heuristic to solve a problem?

Answer the following questions and then press 'Submit' to get your score.

Question 1

Which of the following could best be described as a problem for which the solution requires insight and restructuring?

a) The nine dot problem

b) The tower of Hanoi

c) The water jars task

d) The Hobbits and Orcs task

Question 2

Problems that share the same underlying structure (i.e. have identical state-space diagrams) are known as:

a) Analogical problems

b) Homomorphic problems

c) Insight problems

d) Isomorphic problems

Question 3

Which of the following statements best describes the work of Chase and Simon (1973) on chess expertise?

a) That 'plausible' game positions were recalled (and reconstructed) better than random game positions.

b) That experts performed better than novices.

c) That novices and experts performed at about the same level.

d) That 'plausible game positions were recalled (reconstructed) better by experts, but there was no difference between experts and novices for recall (reconstruction) of random board positions.

Question 4

Which of the following is NOT typically regarded as a characteristic of expertise?

a) Experts become expert through extensive practice

b) Experts work forwards

c) Experts work backwards

d) Experts have better problem representations

Question 5

Which problem has been used extensively to explore analogical problem solving?

a) The X-ray problem

b) The tower of Hanoi

c) The nine dot problem

d) The Hobbits and Orcs problem

Question 6

Means-ends analysis can be described as:

a) Re-encoding the problem

b) A heuristic that involves avoiding previous problem solving states

c) A strategy that involves reducing the difference between in current state and a goal state or a sub-goal state

d) Constraint relaxation

Question 7

Which of the following is an example of metacognitive problem solving strategy?

a) Means-ends analysis

b) Anti-looping heuristic

c) Self-explanation

d) Schema acquisition

Question 8

In analogical problem solving, Dunbar (2001) refers to the 'analogical paradox' where:

a) In laboratory studies participants tend to focus upon the deep similarities between problems, but in real life they focus upon superficial aspects of analogies.

b) Participants behave the same in real life in responding to analogies as they do in the laboratory.

c) In real life people use abstract analogies that depend upon deep structural similarities between problems, whereas in laboratory studies participants tend to focus upon the superficial similarities between problems.

d) In laboratory studies participants tend to focus upon the semantic similarities between problems, but in real life they focus upon syntactic aspects of analogies.

Question 9

Which of the following statements best characterizes findings of research looking at the strategies employed by experts?

a) That experts use means-ends analysis extensively.

b) That experts use a working backwards strategy, starting with a goal and working backwards from that to the information given.

c) That experts use a mixture of working backwards strategy and heuristics.

d) That experts use a working forwards strategy, starting with information given in the problem statement and using this to derive a solution.

Which of the following is the best definition of a heuristic?

Which of the following is an advantage of the use of heuristics?

Which one of the following terms best describes a schedule of reinforcement in which the organism is rewarded for every instance of the desired response?

Which one of the following types of learning is also known as modeling or social learning and occurs when imitating others?