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Griffin, A. S., & Guez, D. (2014). Innovation and problem solving: A review of common mechanisms. Behav. Process., 109, 121–134.
Abstract: Behavioural innovations have become central to our thinking about how animals adjust to changing environments. It is now well established that animals vary in their ability to innovate, but understanding why remains a challenge. This is because innovations are rare, so studying innovation requires alternative experimental assays that create opportunities for animals to express their ability to invent new behaviours, or use pre-existing ones in new contexts. Problem solving of extractive foraging tasks has been put forward as a suitable experimental assay. We review the rapidly expanding literature on problem solving of extractive foraging tasks in order to better understand to what extent the processes underpinning problem solving, and the factors influencing problem solving, are in line with those predicted, and found, to underpin and influence innovation in the wild. Our aim is to determine whether problem solving can be used as an experimental proxy of innovation. We find that in most respects, problem solving is determined by the same underpinning mechanisms, and is influenced by the same factors, as those predicted to underpin, and to influence, innovation. We conclude that problem solving is a valid experimental assay for studying innovation, propose a conceptual model of problem solving in which motor diversity plays a more central role than has been considered to date, and provide recommendations for future research using problem solving to investigate innovation. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Cognition in the wild.
Keywords: Behavioural flexibility; Cognition; Innovation; Problem solving
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Quesada, J., Kintsch, W., & Gomez, E. (2005). Complex problem-solving: a field in search of a definition? Theor Issues Ergon Sci, 6(1), 5–33.
Abstract: Complex problem-solving (CPS) is as an area of cognitive science that has received a good amount of attention, but theories in the field have not progressed accordingly. The reasons could be the lack of good definitions and classifications of the tasks (taxonomies). Although complexity is a term used pervasively in psychology and is operationalized in different ways, there are no psychological theories of complexity. The definition of problem-solving has been changed in the past to reflect the varied interests of the researchers and has lost its initial concreteness. These two facts together make it difficult to define CPS or make clear if CPS should reuse the theory and methods of classical problem-solving or on the contrary should build a theoretical structure starting from scratch. A taxonomy is offered of tasks using both formal features and psychological features that are theory-independent that could help compare the CPS tasks used in the literature. The adequateness is also reviewed of the most extended definitions of CPS and conclude that they are in serious need of review, since they cover tasks that are not considered problem-solving by their own authors or are not complex, but ignore others that should clearly be included.
Keywords: Problem solving; Dynamic decision making; Micro-worlds; Expertise
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Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (1995). Use of social information in the problem solving of orangutans (<em>Pongo pygmaeus</em>) and human children (<em>Homo sapiens</em>). J. Comp. Psychol., 109(3), 308–320.
Abstract: Fourteen juvenile and adult orangutans and 24 3- and 4-yr-old children participated in 4 studies on imitative learning in a problem-solving situation. In all studies a simple to operate apparatus was used, but its internal mechanism was hidden from subjects to prevent individual learning. In the 1st study, orangutans observed a human demonstrator perform 1 of 4 actions on the apparatus and obtain a reward; they subsequently showed no signs of imitative learning. Similar results were obtained in a 2nd study in which orangutan demonstrators were used. Similar results were also obtained in a 3rd study in which a human encouraged imitation from an orangutan that had previously been taught to mimic arbitrary human actions. In a 4th study, human 3- and 4-yr-old children learned the task by means of imitation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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