Bounded Rationality and Problem Solving: The interpretative function of thought

Problem solving is an original contribution of psychology; it is a completely autonomous field of research and therefore unpolluted by any backdrop of speculation or theories that can affect other consolidated areas of study. The most important contributions to problem solving were those of the Gestaltists in the 1920s and of Herbert Simon et al. thirty years later. We examine them, highlighting the surprising assonances, but also the crucial differences, connected from the different type of difficulty of the problems studied. In the problems studied by Simon (the tasks problems) the difficulty lies in their intractability, id est, the complexity of the calculations and the burdensome process necessary to reach the solution given the basic characteristics of the human information-processing system (alias, the human problem solver). In the problems studied by the Gestaltists (the insight problems), on the other hand, the difficulty lies in one or more critical points, in a misunderstanding, so that the solution can be reached only by restructuring. Both Gestalt and Human Information Processing have really grasped the core of human thinking, describing its functioning and identifying the beauty and, at the same time, the simplicity of human intelligence, which is able to deal with both areas of the task too large (in the case of tasks) making it a manageable representation, but it is also capable, in fact, of changing representation, discovering misunderstanding, restructuring (with insight problems); in one case and another, thought proceeds by always adopting an heuristic interpretative approach, essentially aimed at identifying relationships. We think, we perceive in a context. In the case of the insight problems, the solution requires a selective processing of the context at a deeper level than that of the default, by re-examining the relations between the data, adopting an interpretative heuristic type process. In this case our mind, fluctuates between conscious and unconscious levels in a wide –range analytical search. This perspective allows us to reconsider the question of bounded rationality. The study of how we reason highlights the principles that describe the functioning /of mind/ of the human thought; these are not limits, biases, which in themselves lead to error -cognitive illusions- but characteristics by which we perceive, think and communicate. Our claim is that the cognitive illusions as well as the perceptual illusions, are the side effect, the epiphenomenon of the functioning of the cognitive system, which is realized in the absence of context, with the occurrence of a misunderstanding.