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ERIC Number: EJ1055674
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1932-6246
EISSN: N/A
Perceptual or Analytical Processing? Evidence from Children's and Adult's Performance on the Euclidean Traveling Salesperson Problem
van Rooij, Iris; Schactman, Alissa; Kadlec, Helena; Stege, Ulrike
Journal of Problem Solving, v1 n1 Article 6 p44-73 Fall 2006
The Euclidean Traveling Salesperson Problem (E-TSP) is a useful task to study how humans optimize when faced with computational intractability. It has been found that humans are capable of finding high-quality solutions for E-TSP in a relatively short time and with seemingly little cognitive effort. This observation has led to two general proposals: The high quality of performance on E-TSP reflects (a) the output of automatic and innate perceptual processes or (b) a fundamentally intelligent approach to the task by humans. An experiment was performed to compare performance of three age groups (7- year-olds, 12-year-olds, and adults). Our findings provide corroborating evidence that high-level performance on E-TSP is attainable with perceptual processing alone. At the same time, the exceptionally high performance of adult participants suggests that they additionally exploit their cognitive-analytic skills to improve upon what their visual systems provide.
Purdue University Press. Stewart Center Room 370, 504 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Tel: 800-247-6553; Fax: 419-281-6883; e-mail: pupress@purdue,edu; Web site: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jps/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A