Human Problem Solving¶
Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human Problem Solving. Prentice-Hall.
Cited by¶
6 citations across 6 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Decomposition
- Cognitive science & problem-solving: Problem decomposition, sub-goaling, chunking in working memory, task analysis, learning hierarchies, zone of proximal development (Vygotsky)—the program Newell and Simon (1972) systematized in their account of human problem solving as recursive sub-goal generation.
This sourceFormalizes problem solving as search through a problem space via means-ends analysis and recursive sub-goal generation.
- Cognitive science & problem-solving: Problem decomposition, sub-goaling, chunking in working memory, task analysis, learning hierarchies, zone of proximal development (Vygotsky)—the program Newell and Simon (1972) systematized in their account of human problem solving as recursive sub-goal generation.
- Heuristic
This sourceFoundational treatise: formalizes problem-solving as search through a problem space (initial state, goal state, operators, reachable states); establishes that representation is constructed by the solver, not given by the problem; introduces the problem-behavior graph methodology that unified cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.
- Inversion
- Problem-solving and heuristics: Pólya 1945 How to Solve It heuristic of "invert the problem" — instead of "how to prove X?" ask "how would X be false?"; Newell-Simon 1972 problem-space heuristics using backward-chaining from goal as inversion of forward-search.
This sourceFoundational treatise: formalizes problem-solving as search through a problem space (initial state, goal state, operators, reachable states); establishes that representation is constructed by the solver, not given by the problem; introduces the problem-behavior graph methodology that unified cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.
- Problem-solving and heuristics: Pólya 1945 How to Solve It heuristic of "invert the problem" — instead of "how to prove X?" ask "how would X be false?"; Newell-Simon 1972 problem-space heuristics using backward-chaining from goal as inversion of forward-search.
- Mental Model
This sourceFoundational treatise: formalizes problem-solving as search through a problem space (initial state, goal state, operators, reachable states); establishes that representation is constructed by the solver, not given by the problem; introduces the problem-behavior graph methodology that unified cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.
- Problem Representation
- Problem Space
- The foundational insight, articulated by Newell and Simon (1972), is that problems do not come with intrinsic structure; structure is imposed through representation.
This sourceFoundational treatise: formalizes problem-solving as search through a problem space (initial state, goal state, operators, reachable states); establishes that representation is constructed by the solver, not given by the problem; introduces the problem-behavior graph methodology that unified cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.
- The foundational insight, articulated by Newell and Simon (1972), is that problems do not come with intrinsic structure; structure is imposed through representation.
Verification¶
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