Here's a part (the conclusion) of an article about problem solving by Art Markman, a PT blogger.  So right on!

 May 21, 2012
  Is There a Formula for Smart Thinking?

" In gen­eral, an impasse feels so frus­trat­ing, because you don’t know what to do next. That feel­ing of being stuck makes you anx­ious. Get­ting anx­ious and stressed when try­ing to solve a prob­lem is not usu­ally a recipe for suc­cess­ful thinking.

Prob­lem solv­ing can be stress­ful in part because you have a lot of men­tal habits that you have gen­er­ated through years of prac­tice think­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, not all of those men­tal habits are con­ducive to smart thinking.

The think­ing habits you have are not part of some fixed men­tal toolkit that you were born with. Those habits were cre­ated by going to school for years and then they were rein­forced by all of the think­ing you have done since then. Smarter think­ing requires devel­op­ing new habits to com­ple­ment the ones that have already brought you suc­cess. It also requires chang­ing habits that are get­ting in the way of smart think­ing. When you reach an impasse, you need to have habits that allow you to do for your­self what I helped my son to do. You have to develop habits to cre­ate high qual­ity knowl­edge and habits to help you find it when you need it."

I'm at Sharpbrains.com Summit — Virtual Conference

I'm going to attend the sharbrains.com virtual conference the 7th and 8th of June. I'm not quite sure what to expect, but I'm looking forward to it. Lots of great speakers on topics all related to brain health and fitness, thinking, for people of all ages, all stages. I'll be Tweeting about it daily. If you're interested, my Tweets come to intelligentwomenonly.com or you can follow me on Twitter, @drtingley

Meditation, Brain Training, and the Detachment Technique — More

 Here's a previous post that ties in with the post of May 30, 2012. I'm doing all the stuff that's suggested by the new neuroscience. I have to acknowledge improvement in my intuitive thinking — but not enough yet. I have to notice those flashes more and write them down. Just listened to The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory on a long drive. It upped the ante on intuitive thinking. I'm doing well with wandering thinking, but not keeping close track of what the wandering produces. Plus, the process of breaking old habits to supplant with new does not come easily or quickly, as several of my earlier 2012 posts point out.


The cover headline, Newsweek, January 10, 17, 2011 — "Grow Your Mind: The Truth About How to Boost Your Brain's Performance" by Sharon Begley. She asks, "Can You Build a Better Brain?" The answer of course is YES — or else there would be no article. I've enjoyed Begley's articles and books over the years.  She writes clearly about neuroscientific topics and always supports what she says with the newest research findings.

Begley describes what she labels as the holy grail of brain training, which has become the newest trendy training for Boomers and beyond: exercise, meditation and specific video games. Meditation, like mindfulness is a slightly altered state of consciousness and both are forms of detachment, a technique that can be useful in eliminating negative self-talk. Begley points out that there's a difference between reaching your natural potential by removing impediments such as stress and actually raising that potential. Meditation delivers a double whammy. The technique helps reduce impediments such as NST and it also augment's the brain's skills, leaving you relaxed and attentive.

According to Begley, meditation increases the thickness of regions that control attention and processes sensory signals from the outside. She cites  mindfulness-based mind-fitness training at U of Miami which builds concentration by focusing on, for example a particular body sensation over a period of time. The result is enhanced  mental agility and attention caused  " . . .  by changing brain structure and function so that brain processes are more efficient. She also points out that the brain starts diminishing at age 20. S-o-o-o,  it's never too early to start training the brain and increasing opportunities to augment your already good thinking skills. 

Here's the link to the complete article that I'm referencing.http://rewireyourbrainforlove.com/can-you-build-a-better-brain/ http://rewireyourbrainforlove.com/can-you-build-a-better-brain/

N-Back Games to Increase Intelligence Still Iffy

Do you know what the N-Back game is? I didn't either but now I do because it and its cousins are the mainstay of brain training, aimed at improving memory and attention for all ages. I tried one brain training game, about a 9 months ago, although I don't remember the brand name (ironic). Actually I bought it as a gift for my husband with the idea that we could use it together. The information about the brain training was on sharpbrains.com

 I returned the game fairly quickly because neither of us had the patience or boredom tolerance to practice 20 minutes a day, a problem that I later learned was also a concern of manufacturers and researchers. Players have to summon their own motivation and willingness to delay gratification, which is tough for adults, but even harder for kids as you can imagine.

The basis for this type of brain function enhancement is based on research that showed that improvement in n-back training could result in improvement in fluid intelligence: "the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and get to the bottom of things." Sounds like problem-solving thinking to me. The NYTimes Magazine, 4/22/2012 article by Dan Hurley noted, "To find that training could result in an increase in fluid intelligence would be cognitive psychology's equivalent of discovering particles traveling faster than light." The early mission of the training aimed to increase kids' intelligence. The later added goal was to build working memory and  attention for adults, young and old.

Problems arose. Researchers couldn't come up with the same excellent results that the pioneering research found. And again, the problem of how to build and maintain a habit that doesn't have immediate rewards, involves strategic allocation of attention on the training game for 20 minutes every day,  and requires patience, focus, and determination still hasn't been solved.

Nonetheless, I think the N-Back games training is something for adults, particularly parents, to keep on their radar. In the next year or two,  developments may bring this intelligence enhancing tool to an effective level, an adjunct to everyday life for kids and adults.

More Agile Mind on SharpBrains.com

 

Here’s a link to a recent post (of mine), http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2012/05/07/why-agile-minds-deploy-both-rational-and-intuitive-problem-solving/

 published 5/7/12 on sharpbrains.com 

I'm suggesting you go there, rather than republishing it again here because it's a unique site — IF you're interested in the topic, brain health and training. I'm tuned in to the upcoming June SUMMIT, but it's not for all I'm sure. The founder, Alvaro Fernandez, a bright Stanford MBA, a recently annointed Young Global Leader, has created an interesting forum for dissemination and discussion of the latest stuff about the brain and mind.

Fluid intelligence? Can You Turn Up the Heat?

     Fluid intelligence: "the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things."
From Dan Hurley's article, "Can You Build a Better Brain?" in the NYTimes magazine. So many different words, phrases, to describe different kinds of thinking. How is fluid intelligence different than mental agility, creative problem-solving, design thinking? I guess it doesn't really matter what you call it, if you have it. If you want to acquire it because you don't have it, you need to know about N-back games.
    This new method of training, focused on improving attention and working memory, ultimately increases fluid intelligence, the basic cognitive ability underlying all mental skills, in children and seniors. This isn't pop psychology or positive psychology. It's real and it's neuroscience, although of course not all researchers or neuroscientists embrace the upbeat research findings with the same enthusiasm. E.g. A recent  NYT Op-Ed article by David Z. Hambrick an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University, is titled "I.Q. Point For Sale Cheap."  Hambrick is skeptical of the major research completed and is looking for replication of the results before hopping on the bandwagon.
   I'm not sold yet, but I think the idea of increasing IQ through training is a fascinating possibility. In the vein of the more things change, the more things stay the same, one of the practical obstacles to success is motivating people to do the training. It's not such fun, not too interesting. Not much short term gratification in the effort, just like going to the gym. Ah, yes. Human nature prevails.

Hand-in-Hand, Up and Down, Back and Forth For Best Problem Solving Results

 I'm hooked on The Agile Mind by cognitive neuroscientist Wilma Koutstaal Ph.D. and am planning to drop quick pieces of information, quotes, useful techniques, and interesting research findings from her book about thinking on the next several Mondays.


 Koutstaal tells us that highly effective problem solvers know how to move flexibly from intuitive to rational and back again and from specific to abstract thinking — and back again — regardless of what type of problem needs solving. Intuitive problem-solving, a preferred mode of thinking for a majority of women, has been soundly validated as equal to, but different than rational problem-solving (preferred by a majority of men) in producing creative solutions to problems. But using both is best; all the time.


 Intuitive thinking is an unconscious process and therefore difficult to describe or explain, even for the person who comes up with the great aha solution. Rational problem solving is conscious and easily learned, taught, and described, so for years it seemed more real, serious, and academic. Intuitive women can probably learn rational problem-solving more easily than rational men can learn intuitive thinking, just because of the less explicable process but still, learning to do the mental gymnastics that agility of problem-solving requires seems almost impossible.


I know that some of you out there already know how and have a preference that includes both styles of problem-solving.  Please comment with a story, a success experience, or a tip on how to do what Koutstaall suggests — move flexibly between levels of control (automatic and intentional) and levels of representation (abstract and concrete.) I'm still in the novice stage, working on upping my intuitive thinking. So far it's still random for me!

Sian Beilock Touts Alcohol as a Route to Creativity

Yes, we've been talking about the benefits of flexible thinking, the agile mind on IWO, but whoa — getting drunk as a technique to increase creativity? Here's the whole article, followed in the near future by more details about developing a better (it depends, I guess) path to creative thinking that doesn't require a hangover! Interesting too in all the research past and present — smart, knowledgeable flexible thinkers do better than smart, knowledgeable rigid thinkers. Not a surprise. If your mind-popping is going along well and you can dip into rational problem-solving when needed, you're in the swing, you're cool, even without alcohol.

Here's Beilock's article. Interesting — and a bit odd.

 Alcohol Benefits the Creative Process

Being moderately intoxicated gets people to think “outside the box.”

Published on April 4, 2012 by Sian Beilock, Ph.D. in Choke Creative thought is something we often aspire to. Whether it’s in terms of artistic products, scientific discoveries, or business innovations, creative accomplishments drive advancement in much of what we do. But what sorts of things enhance creativity?

A popular belief is that altered cognitive processing, whether from sleep, insanity, or alcohol use, sparks creativity among artists, composers, writers, and problem-solvers. Perhaps due to the fact that the rarity of great accomplishments make them hard to study, however, little research has actually shown how creative processes change when people, for example, have a few drinks.

Why might being intoxicated lead to improved creativity? The answer has to do with alcohol’s effect on working memory: the brainpower that helps us keep what we want in mind and what we don’t want out. Research has shown that alcohol tends to reduce people’s ability to focus in on some things and ignore others, which also happens to benefit creative problem solving.

Think about the flip side of the coin. Having a lot of working memory means that a person is good at screening out peripheral information. This screening can be very useful for solving analytical problems—problems that require the solver to grind out the solution by systematically working towards a goal, incrementally narrowing down the problem search space. However, being good at blocking out extraneous information may actually be a disadvantage in situations where gathering information only loosely related to the problem at hand, or even outside the perceived problem space, is useful. This seems to be even more true the more you know about a given subject.

When people with lots of baseball knowledge, for example, are asked to come up with a word that forms a compound word with “plate,” “broken,” and “shot,” they are pretty bad at this task. Baseball fanatics want to say the word is “Home” (home-plate, broken-home, home-shot ?!?). This isn’t correct. The real answer is “glass” (glass-plate, broken-glass, shot-glass). What’s interesting is that baseball fans who also have a lot of cognitive horsepower relative to their peers—those higher working memory baseball fans—are the ones most likely to dwell on the wrong baseball-related answer. It’s as if these guys (and girls) are too good at focusing their attention on the wrong baseball information. As a result, they have trouble breaking free of their knowledge and coming up with the correct answer that has nothing to do with baseball. Baseball fanatics high in working memory have problems moving beyond what they know.

So, could being intoxicated really help people to think more creatively? In a recent study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, psychologist Jennifer Wiley and her research group at the University of Illinois at Chicago set out to find an answer to this question.They recruited people (ages 21-30) who drank socially, via Craigslist, to come into their lab and, well, they got some of them drunk. Some people were served a vodka cranberry drink until their blood alcohol level was approximately .075 and others were kept sober. The researchers then had everyone complete a creative problem solving task similar to the baseball example I gave above. People were given a series of three target words such as "peach", "arm", and "tar," and were tasked with finding a fourth word, such as "pit," that forms a good two-word phrase with each of the target words. This puzzle is thought to involve creative problem solving because the most obvious potential response to the problem is often incorrect, and people must look for more remote words in order to reach a solution.
What Wiley and her colleagues found was that intoxicated individuals solved more creative word problems, and in less time, than their sober counterparts. Interestingly, people who drank also felt that their performance was more likely to come as a sudden insight, the answer came all at once, in an “Aha!” moment of illumination.

Research has shown that the more working memory people have at their disposal, the better they perform on all sorts of analytical tasks that pop up at school and at work. But, interestingly, wielding more working memory may hinder performance whenever thinking creatively or “outside the box” is necessary. Simply put, people’s ability to think about information in new and unusual ways can actually be hampered when they wield too much brain power. What Dr. Jennifer Wiley and her team have found is that one way to get around this is to have a couple of drinks.
For more on the link between brain power and performance, check out my book Choke.

Are you a Mind-Popper?

Ideas that occur to us in moments of non-focused attention are identified as "mind-popping" in The Agile Mind.  I like the term because it's so descriptive. Occasionally, a thought literally pops up or a light pops on without a clear link to anything. It's a sign of intuitive problem-solving thinking, although it can be "released" even when you're deeply engaged in rational problem-solving — if you have an agile mind.

Most women have experienced a bright idea appearing out of nowhere and apparently connected to nothing of the moment: in the shower, watching the kids play at the park, just waking up in the morning, watching a boring TV program.  The passive "pop" isn't preceded by a purposeful intent to solve a problem or be creatively innovative. It tends to happen when people are in activities that don't require great concentration or focus: the mind can wander because the activity is routine, repetitive, habitual.

In contrast, concentrating on a new, unfamiliar topic, learning a new language for example, can cause your brain to unconsciously reach out to varied, divergent, loose associations in your mind —  and link them up in an unusual way to create a mind-pop. Because it isn't a conscious process, you can't figure out how you came up with this crazy, smart, far-out, wild thought, problem solution, or possibly useless idea, but it's fun.

Keeping a quick daily list of mind pops creates a game and maybe a strategy or solution to a problem. Go forward or backward. Where did the pop come from? What does it lead to? Maybe from nowhere and to nothing. Maybe the mind pop comes from a variety of old memories of mothering people in your life and leads you to solving a parenting problem in your life. Exercising and massaging your brain is as good and maybe more fun than exercising and massaging your body?!

The Agile Mind Means Intuitive Problem-Solving Gains Credibility and Pizaz

 The Agile Mind, by Wilma Koutstaal Ph.D, an encyclopedic description of brain processes and functions, supports the benefits of flexibility in thinking. What's an agile mind do for you, you might wonder? Koutstaal promotes collaborative processing of problem-solving rather than the intuitive vs. rational problem-solving thinking, the topic I've posted about recently, spoken about publicly, and have obsessed about privately.

In my informal research, and also in academic research, women are in the majority of people who state and demonstrate a preference for intuitive, automatic, System 1 thinking, all somewhat similar. Men are in the majority of those preferring rational, deliberate, System 2 thinking. Before neuroscience research burst  into public awareness, rational, step-by-step problem-solving was the generally accepted "correct" thinking process for intelligent thinkers. Other styles were often dismissed: far out, la-la land thinking, silly, certainly unscientific —  and female.

"What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency," is an old saying. Even in the second decade of the 21st century, you don't hear about men's intuition and women's logical thinking.

 "The struggle of the male to learn to listen to and respect his own intuitive, inner prompting is the greatest challenge of all. His conditioning has been so powerful that it has all but destroyed his ability to be self-aware."

"Men have been found to deny woman intellect; they have credited her with instinct, with intuition, with a capacity to correlate cause and effect much as a dog connects its collar with a walk."

"I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason."

( all quotes above from http://www.wisdomquotes.com/topics/men/)

The good news for women is that the intuitive style is gaining credibility — and pizaz. You might even find men asking you to teach them how to be more intuitive. Unfortunately, it's a tough thing to teach, but some bright woman out there will figure out a way to do so and become a rich, famous guru!

Forget your body. Exercise, Massage, Feed Your MIND!

I'm intrigued by a 2012 book titled The Agile Mind although I don't have it in my hands yet. I'm captured by the synopsis, quoted below, which ties in to a variety of topics recently discussed on intelligentwomenonly.com: flexible thinking, intuitive and rational thinking, creative thinking, brain development and health.

 The final sentence in the paragraph below tells all. "Mastering the many factors that can help to promote mental agility is important to each of us, both individually and collectively, as shapers and makers of our selves and our societies." To simplify, and overly so I acknowledge, to take care of the brain/mind very well becomes more significant than taking care of the body. Understanding and using our brain effectively remains essential in the process of taking good care all aspects of life: physical, emotional, mental, social, social, and spiritual. We can't change habits, (negative self-talk and others) think flexibly, expand our creativity by bouncing between rational and intuitive thinking, solve everyday problems, come up with innovative ideas for self-management without the full, energetic work of our high-functioning brain. What are you doing right now to exercise, massage, feed your brain? I'm writing this blog — playing duplicate bridge below averagedly, acknowledging being wrong more often, reading outside (Night Circus) my usual choices (Patchett, Leah Hager Cohen, psychological journals), imagining my brain bouncing around, back and forth, up and down, meditating. Weird? Yes!


"The Agile Mind proposes a new integrative framework for understanding and promoting creatively adaptive thinking. Mind is not only cognition, narrowly construed, but is deeply intermeshed with action, perception, and emotion. This means that optimal mental agility is realized at the dynamic intersection of environment, brain, and mind. Building on empirical research from the behavioral and brain sciences, from developmental and social psychology, and from neuropsychology, psychopathology, and allied disciplines, this book argues that understanding our agile minds requires that we go beyond dichotomous classifications of cognition as intuitive versus deliberate. When we are optimally creatively adaptive, we are able to adroitly move across not only a wide range of levels of cognitive control, but also across multiple levels of detail, or representational specificity. Neither abstraction nor specificity, neither controlled nor automatic processes alone are what is needed. Contextually sensitive variation is essential, including rapidly intermixed modes of cognitive control, if we are to realize our fullest capacities for insightful innovation, fluent improvisation, and flexible thinking. Written for an interdisciplinary audience, empirical findings are enriched with insights from the arts and literature. Mastering the many factors that can help to promote mental agility is important to each of us, both individually and collectively, as shapers and makers of our selves and our societies."

Flexible Thinking plus Uh, oh! (You'll have to do a bit of creative thinking to imagine full pic)

             I bought my 3 year old grandson a book, Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The above depicts the main       theme.  My grandson was sure it was a duck and insisted continuously that there was no rabbit. The book aimed to develop  flexible thinking in young children — starting with the illusion and spreading to a  flexible thinking pattern.

             In adults, ability to flip back and forth between the duck and the rabbit with agility can be seen as a sign of potential for  creative problem-solving. What's your potential, from 1-10? Does that match what your experience tells you about your creative thinking? Plus, what do you think of when you define creative thinking/problem-solving?

             I'll have more about my thoughts and research later this week. I'd like to hear from you along the way.

Do You Ever Daydream?

 Do you daydream — anymore? Since childhood?  Do you remember other times when life was gentler, simpler and you had time for drifting off? Are you a person who thinks daydreaming is a waste of time or a lazy, distraction from important thinking? Or do you find it valuable and productive — or at least relaxing?

Here's Wickipedia's basic definition. A daydream is a visionary fantasy especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake. There are many types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition amongst psychologists.

 ^{I also found use of the word daymare,  attributed to Dickens, meaning a nightmare during a waking period of time instead of during sleep. In my thinking, a burst of negative self-talk could be classified as a daymare.}

^{It seems like life has become so crazy busy that there's no time for spacing out. I'm all for it and believe the PT blogger, Josie Glausiusz who wrote :}   "Daydreams are an inner world where we can rehearse the future and imagine new adventures without risk. Allowing the mind to roam freely can aid creativity—but only if we pay attention to the content of our daydreams."

From what we know about intuitive problem-solving, daydreaming will be helpful. I'm not sure I can still do it, but I'm going to try. Maybe it's also a form of psychological distancing. 

 

Talking Out Loud Enhances Problem-Solving — and Might increase IQ

This article on problem-solving looks very cool on SharpBrains.com  It was published on 2/9/2012 so may still be on the front page! If you're in a hurry, read the last 3 paragraphs and you'll get the action message.

The MC at the University of Michigan’s reunion dinner encouraged audience members to reveal the most significant take-away from their undergraduate nursing education. The greatest benefit was quickly clear to me — problem-solving thinking. Memory produced a mind video: a short, dark-haired, nursing instructor lecturing a small group of first year students in an empty patient room. “Don’t memorize the steps of sterile technique. Use a problem-solving thinking process.” She described the sequential, cyclical process: define the problem, gather information, develop a solution strategy, allocate resources, monitor progress, and evaluate the solution.

Predictably, the perception, application, and even taxonomy of problem-solving has changed in the last several decades. Then, it might have been called the Socratic or scientific method of thinking. Now, problem-solving stands under the metacognition canopy joined by close, but not quite synonymous siblings such as critical thinking, design thinking, lateral thinking, and creative thinking. Metacognition, which means most simply, thinking about thinking, was described and defined in the seventies by John Flavell, a developmental psychologist at Stanford. The enthusiasm created by his theory contributed to a revitalization of problem-solving research. From origins in the field of psychology and philosophy, the study of problem-solving slid into the ballpark of educational psychology and later became of interest to cognitive neuroscience. Problem-solving bloomed anew with a cool, trendy identity. A variety of recent research studies fields produced facts and findings that we can use today: some funny, others thought provoking, and all interesting.

Talking Aloud Partner Problem-Solving (TAPPS) is a teaching/learning strategy that evolved in the late eighties and nineties. The basic idea is simple. Pair two people, one the designated problem solver and one the monitor, and provide problems for them to solve. The monitor’s job is to listen, but not contribute any advice about the problem and its solution. She can alert the problem solver to his own thinking pattern by saying for example, “I heard you mention a potential obstacle to solving the problem earlier, but then I didn’t hear more about that.” But she can’t add, “I see a couple of other obstacles that you didn’t talk about.” Monitoring comments are exclusively about the designated problem solver’s talking aloud process. Generally, increased speed and efficiency of problem-solving resulted when the pairs group was compared with a control group.

In recent research on TAPPS, reported in the University of Arkansas publication Research Foundations, Spring 2011, the author noted that the increased speed and effectiveness of partner problem-solving has little to do with the monitor and much to do with the problem solver’s own behavior; thinking aloud or TA. The constant verbalization of their thoughts out loud encouraged the problem solvers to continuously correct faulty steps in logic. The causal mechanism of success was the problem-solver’s metacognition.

Another study on talking aloud reported in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition carries the intriguing title, “How to Gain Eleven IQ Points in Ten Minutes: Thinking Aloud Improves Raven’s Matrices Performance in Older Adults.” At the end of the article, following the usual identification of study limitations, the authors stated, “Nonetheless, these studies provide some evidence that individuals with lower fluid ability (e.g., children and older adults) may benefit most from concurrent verbalization.”

H-m-m-m. Interesting. We might need to have renewed respect for people we notice talking to themselves. Instead of assuming they’re off the wall, we’ll more generously ascribe good problem-solving skills to them. And for us? Let’s give talking out loud problem-solving a shot — perhaps alone, at home in a locked bathroom for the first attempt. My advice? Start out with a simple problem that fits rational problem solving rather than a problem better suited for the intuitive style of thinking. E.g. “What organizational structure will work best for my book in progress?” rather than “What’s a catchy title for my book on problem solving thinking?” I’ll acknowledge I haven’t been highly successful with the TA approach that I’m describing and I’m quite sure my IQ hasn’t increased yet, but I’m having fun practicing.  Let me know what you find out thinking aloud, alone, at home.

System 1, System 2 and Negative/Positive Self-Talk

Plodding a bit in reading Kahneman's book, Thinking. It's long, full of research, and well-written in a conversational style, but not always interesting to me. He nicely simplifies System 1 and System 2 thinking styles as "just" the labels chosen. They could just as well have been Max and Sam or Sue and Lou. Here are some interesting ideas gleaned from bopping around the book.

•  Over confidence or unrealistic positive thinking comes from System 1, which in the lingo I use is the intuitive style of thinking. People with the optimistic explanatory style often takes full credit for success, but little blame for failure. It feels good, but can motivate unrealistic emotions and actions. The optimistic style can be trained but not eliminated. "The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of  setbacks." It defends one's self-image.

•  In contrast, self-control and self-criticism are functions of System 2. Although not the only functions, and not necessarily pessimistic, negativity rides high compared to System 1.

I'm wondering if all of us who are rational problem-solvers, closer to System 2 than System 1, can not only increase creativity by adding intuitive problem-solving to our repertoire, but we can also decrease some of the negative self-talk. And for those people who are primarily System 1 or intuitive thinkers, adding rational thinking may decrease some of the overly optimistic thinking and feeling. I haven't found this yet in Kahneman, but I'll keep looking.

If all of this is Greek, please search back in the blog for intuitive and rational problem-solving. Whether you've read the book or not, what are your experiences with the 2 models of thinking and the outcomes? 

Intuitve Thinking and Brain Silence

 "The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.
As far back as half-a-century ago, the Swiss philosopher Max Picard warned: 'Nothing has changed the nature of man so much as the loss of silence, once as natural as the sky and air.' " A quote from Maureen Dowd.

If you've read the previous posts* about the advantages of intuitive thinking, you understand that a "quiet, resting mind" is a necessity for  intuitive, unconscious, problem-solving activity. Hard to find that time and place. I'm beginning to see why I never was very good at that type of thinking, and relied on rational step by step problem solving. I never had a quiet, rested mind and in fact saw it as a lax, lazy mind that wasn't doing it's job. For me, thinking, analyzing, interpreting and activity, doing, going was the way to go. Maybe that's OK or unavoidable for certain stages of life or weeks or months such as holiday time.

With all the electronics we use minute by minute, even if they don't make noise, one is always connected, looking out, not in, listening, hearing, being stimulated from outside, having little time for the inner mind. The less frequently I check in with twitter, e-mail, Facebook, the better I feel.

Meditation insists on quiet time. It took me years to start meditating on a regular basis, but the benefits are huge. Five minutes of meditating time are worth 30 minutes of active brain time for me. Meditation is equal to a 30 minute alone run, both of which engage the brain in solitude.  Just a wild estimate, but I'm certainly calmer and seem to experience many more Aha moments!  Try it a tiny bit at a time and see what happens. Just sit by yourself in a room with your eyes open or closed and empty your mind for 5 minutes. Can you do it? It's not easy getting started.

*http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5630711609871539058&postID=1076726261671923464

Intuitive vs. Logical

After the Perry debate error and oops comment, my OOPS! has taken on a whole different nuance. I'll have to change my standard usage of that  term.

After today's all day  writers' workshop on editing, publishing, social media, and all the new stuff about blogs, e-books, and technology that I don't quite get, I'm overwhelmed and zonked. But it did generate an idea about my blog. I think I'll add a blog for writers or add a section of this blog for intelligentwomenwritersonly.com Maybe not. That url is a bit cumbersome.

Still on the problem-solving track today, I did an informal survey of writers at the conference. I asked 20 people, "Do you prefer an intuitive or logical approach to problem solving?" No one asked what I meant, although one person did ask for specific definitions, which I didn't provide. Fifteen out of twenty writers cited intuitive and five cited logical. Most of the participants were women. The brain imaging research that I have referred to previously said 59% of identified intuitive problem-solvers were women. Several of the women followed up with their identification of intuitive as their preferred method with comments such as, " My husband thinks I'm nutty," or " My husband is a lawyer so you can imagine what he thinks about my thinking!"

Here's another slightly off on a tangent thought before I get back to reality. Previous research which I've mentioned shows that problem-solving thinking is one of the best stress management techniques. I didn't think alot about that finding until I read the new research about intuitive problem-solving, a valid very different process than logical problem-solving. Checking back with the stress research, the problem-solving the researcher described was the logical type.  Is intuitive problem-solving also a stress reduction technique? But since the process is unconscious how does that work? What does it all mean? H-m-m-m?

I'll incubate it all and perhaps come up with some big insights. I'd love to hear some brilliant ideas from readers too!

Intuitive versus Logical Problem-Solving

OOPS! The link I had previously placed here took readers to the Dec. presenter's promo for OPEN MIC Science, not my promo for the November presentation on Problem-Solving Thinking — which went very well by the way. But the rest of the post is about some of the audience's comments.

Lots of interesting comments and questions from the intellectually curious audience.

• Do people always have a preferred method of problem-solving — either intuitive or logical?

 Generally speaking, the "resting" state of a brain is different depending on what is your preferred style of p-s as demonstrated by by EEG and functional MRI. However, having a preferred style doesn't imply that you can't use both successfully. You just have to practice to build  your "nonstandard" neural pathways.

For example. I'm easy and comfortable with the logical style and a rarely have AHA! moments characteristic of the intuitive style. If I want to get better at problem-solving and expand my capabilities, I need to purposefully (but effortlessly?!) incubate problems, allowing time for a prepared brain to activate a bunch of loose associations such as a book title, a visual memory, a fact, advice from my mother, words to a song. Then, while I'm still leaving the incubated problem all alone in my unconscious mind, the connections are made.  POP! I'm in the shower, or waking up, or walking in the woods by myself and the solution appears as if by magic. We'll see how that works.

It's all very funny in a way. I always thought logical problem-solving was the gold standard. Further reading and research has clearly demonstrated, at least right now, that intuitive problem-solving is taking top honors! A recent article about Steve Jobs talks about him as not smart, but instead a genius; labeled as such because of his intuitive approach to problem-solving. Zen Buddhism and meditation also receive credit for contribution to his intuitive approach and resulting genius.

Here's a link to a previous post on the topic. http://intelligentwomenonly.blogspot.com/2011/10/ramp-up-your-problem-solving-thinking.html

Thanks to those of you who went to the link and took the quick poll at Linked in. I'll report the results in about 10 days.

Problem-Solving Thinking Is Becoming a Celebrity

Yes, I'm exaggerating. But suddenly, just as you notice hundreds of Nissan Leaf's when you buy one yourself, I'm noticing references to problem-solving everywhere I look.  Neuroscience is investigating and exploring new evidence of styles of problem solving, books are being written for the mainstream, and articles are being written about the books!

I'm quoting today from a friend's commencement speech. Carl Morgan, an engineer spoke to graduating U of W electrical engineeers last spring about problem-solving. From my perspective, he was also talking about the psychology of coping with life transitions. And he was motivating and inspiring graduates to become good managers of their lives. Here's a small section of that speech that tells the story.

"Everyone in the Core Curriculum has told you, over and over, that you need to be a lifelong learner. And you do.The difference is, before,  most of the things you learned were picked by others. Now, they have to be picked by you. But how? It’s daunting: you’re smart enough to know that there are things that you will need to know, but you don’t know that you need to know them! How do you sort it all out now and make decisions that give direction to your future development.

The punch line is this: An excellent way to sort out your future development is to find a big problem that calls to you, and to then develop yourself through the struggle with its intense demands."

  

A great message for engineering graduates. We can also think of Carl's words as metaphorical: Core Curriculum stands for all we've been told, and learned, at various transitions of life; graduation, first job, committed relationship, parenthood and on and on to retirement and beyond. Lifelong learning and development can go on forever, if we choose. And so can problem-solving; as an everyday tool, but also as Carl suggests, as an exciting way to challenge yourself through some potentially difficult times.


Carl goes on in his speech to tell the interesting story of his own big problem. I can e-mail you the PDF if you're interested. Just e-mail me at intelligentwomenonly@gmail.com

Listening is problem-solving help says Peter Bregman, PT blogger

 I posted last month about the effectiveness  of problem-solving in families and also TAPPS, talking out loud to yourself as a useful way to improve your problem-solving abilities. http://intelligentwomenonly.blogspot.com/2011/09/problem-solve-out-loud-and-alone-even.html

Here's an interesting post from a Psychology Today blogger about listening as an aid to problem-solving for yourself and the other person. If you're active listening, which encourages others to tell you more, you're subtly allowing them to talk out loud about their problem. This might be helpful to all: an opportunity for the person you're hearing to elaborate and hear their own thoughts about their thinking. And it helps you as the listener to avoid escalation of a problem, particularly if it involves you!

I'm all for the listening approach. When I listen intently, the conversation always goes better, even if it's not a problem situation. BUT I acknowledge that I'm often too impatient to keep on facilitating the other person's conversation without imposing my thoughts. Then I've got trouble!

Here's the link to the whole article plus a quote from it.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-we-work/201110/how-really-listen

1. "Actually listen. And only listen. That means don't multitask. I'm not just talking about doing email, surfing the web, or creating a grocery list. Thinking about what you're going to say next counts as multitasking. Simply focus on what the other person is saying.
2. Repeat back. This feels a little silly at first but works magic. If someone says she is angry about the decision you just made, you can say "you're angry about the decision I just made." I know, I know, she just said that. But it shows you're listening and it communicates to the other person that she's been heard. If you don't have the courage to try it with an adult, try it with a child. You'll see what a difference it makes and it will embolden you to try it with a colleague or your spouse.
3. Ask questions. Explore the other person's thoughts and feelings more deeply. And "You don't really believe that, do you?" does not count as a question. You are not using the Socratic method to prove your point; you are trying to better understand what's going on so you can better understand your partner in this conversation.

Really listening can feel risky, which seems strange because listening doesn't materially change anything. But sometimes you'll hear things that are hard to hear.
Remember that listening is not the same thing as agreeing. And it will never force you to take any particular action. If anything, it will reduce the intensity of people's insistence that you take a specific action. Because in many cases what they're looking for is proof that you've heard them. So if they feel you've really heard them, their need for action diminishes.
As Eleanor  [blogger's wife] spoke, I noticed my own resistance to various things she was saying. There's no question that it's hard to really listen. But once I relaxed into it, I heard her in a much deeper way. That made her feel better. Call me co-dependent, but it made me feel better too.
It turns out that sometimes, just listening is problem-solving."