5. Hill-climbing and means-end problem solving are heuristic problem-solving strategies. In the hill-climbing heuristic, you simply choose the alternative that seem to lead most directly towards your goal state. The biggest drawback to this heuristic is that problem solvers must consistently choose the alternative that appears to lead most directly toward the goal. In doing so, they may fail to choose a less direct alternative which may have greater long-term benefits. Means-end analysis can help overcome this problem. In this heuristic, you divide the problem into a number of subproblems (or sub-goals), and then you try to reduce the difference between the initial state and the goal state for each of the subproblems. An example of hill-climbing is to begin studying for a final as close to the actual final itself with the goal of memorizing the most amount of information right before the test. However, you can use means-ends to realize that studying a little bit each night for a week before the test (sub goals) will be more efficient for obtaining the best score possible. Studying a little bit each night may seem like a step back – weeknights are less free for watching TV and relaxing. In the long run, the outcome will be better.

6. Solving by analogy means you find a problem with a smiliar structure for which you know the solution and you translate the solution to the new problem. The term “problem isomorphs” is used to refer to a set of problems that have the same underlying structures and solutions, but different specific details. The specific details are often the surface features – the specific objects and terms used in the problems. The deep structure is the underlying meaning and solution that is common to both problems. For example, we can use the military strategy of “divide and conquer” (used for the troops who need to enter the tower in small groups in order to overthrow the dictator) for the tumor problem (where the ray needs to enter the brain in small rays in order to destroy the tumor). The surface structure is military strategy vs. medical procedure. The deep structure is the idea of “divide and conquer.” People often make the mistake relying solely on the surface structure of the problems and not being able to solve a new problem isomorph that has similar features. People also have trouble solving the same problem in a new setting; they fail to transfer their knowledge.

7. Ill-defined problems are problems where parts of the problem space are unclear and situation assessment is a necessary and crucial part to the problem-solving. The approach of the problem solver is different with ill-defined problems than with well-defined problems (where the goal state is obvious) because the emphasis is on figuring out and representing the problem space rather than searching (which is often trivial). A great ill-defined problem is leading a happy life.

8. Experts and novices reason in different ways. Experts have a greater amount of knowledge in semantic/episodic memory, use bigger chunks, have greater pattern recognition, and their semantic memory is more highly cross-referenced. Experts organize by deep structure, while novices tend to organize by surface structure. Novices also tend to work backward from a goal while experts know the very first step and apply a well-known schema. Experts are different than computers in that their top-down processes allow them to perform well on many different components of problem solving in their area of expertise.