This page contains our failed attempts to research and understand the topic of our project.
We have always tried to research the workings and effects of mental representations in problem solving, but have gone astray a couple of times. Most notable misguidances were surrounding the concepts of Perspectives and Archetypes. These concepts are deprecated and should not be used in any reference regarding our work, as they have attributed meaning and can deceive readers. The concept of archetypes should be completely abolished, while the concept of perspectives often (not always) relates to "mental representations" and the latter term should be used instead in appropriate cases.
Another issue is that the term "archetype" already has a general meaning (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/archetype) and a meaning in Jungian psychology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes), as mentioned by UA on 2017-04-03 here.
We define a perspective as a particular way of considering, framing and understanding a specific problem. It encompasses the mental representation of the problem-solver, which is reflected in the subsequent problem-solving approach that can be generated from the mental representation.
It belongs to the problem alone and must always be understood in that context. A single problem can, however, have multiple perspectives.
When attempting to solve a problem, only one perspective can be used at a time to generate the problem-solving process. Although perspectives can be switched.
A perspective switch occurs when the problem solver discards current perspective and its problem-solving process in favor of using another perspective and its problem-solving process to tackle the said problem.
The switch can occur only when at least two perspectives for the said problem are recognized by the problem solver.
To clarify and better understand what a perspective is, refer to the list of problems with multiple perspectives.
The archetype model is our creation, which helps us to better understand the perspectives we are investigating.
Archetype model is a general framework in which archetypes reside.
Archetype is defined as an independent piece of a perspective. It is independent of the problem-solver's recognition and of the perspective itself, however it is an essential part of the latter. In its core, it encapsulates an atomic idea that takes part in definition of a perspective and its problem-solving process
A set of archetypes, combined together, defines a specific perspective.
Additionally, an archetype is able to be transfered between problem-solving agents and thus enables knowledge transfer.
It is easy to think of archetypes as renamed ideas that drive the problem-solving process. Renamed for the purpose of identity and clarification, as term idea is overloaded with various different meanings. On the other hand, the term "archetype" comes with no prior associations and can be fully defined for the purposes of this project.
For example:
Considering the problem Tower of Hanoi in the first perspective, an archetype of "object-representation" can be found. This archetype encapsulates the idea to use mental, real-world physical object representations for certain elements of the problem. For this problem, representations of movable disks and fixed poles can be made. These mental object-representations can be referred to in following stages of this problem-solving process. In combination with archetypes of "stable states" and "graph-search" it provides the frame for problem-solving process to be created upon. The perspective and problem-solving process of this set of archetypes are as follows: Creation of object-representations (in next lines: objects), whose locations at a certain point in time determine a stable state. These states can be traversed using (allowed) moves of the said objects - this can be easily represented by graph nodes (states) and lines (moves). The solution sequence of moves between states can be found by simple graph-search method.