Temporal Patterns in Attractor States to Understand Problem-Solving

Das, Shristi (2024) Temporal Patterns in Attractor States to Understand Problem-Solving. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Employing the Dynamical Systems Theory to decipher problem-solving in human cognition is interesting because most systems behave nonlinearly in nature, including cognitive processes. Building upon prior cognitive science research, particularly the work of Alibali et al. (2011) with a dynamical systems approach, our study aimed to extend their findings. We hypothesized that there was a shift from one attractor to another when participants transitioned from perceptual-motor strategy to parity strategy. Participants (N = 120) were randomly divided into two groups: one where gestures were restricted and one where gestures were permitted. They were then presented with the gear problem paradigm. Participants’ gestures were coded in their respective video recordings which were further analysed with multimodal processing. Recurrence Quantification Analysis was used to extract entropy values to study the transition in the hypothesis. Secondly, we wished to study the dynamics of these attractors specifically, thus Recurrence Plots (RPs) were used to surface different patterns which were used to analyse these dynamics. There was no evidence found for the switch from one attractor to another, inconsistent with past research. However, alternative explanations are introduced which warrant a nuanced interpretation of our findings. Furthermore, the RPs revealed varied dynamics which were rather inconsistent and did not follow a pattern. The study calls for more comprehensive further research to study attractor dynamics with data from phase-space reconstruction, EEG, and fMRI.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Jonge-Hoekstra, L. de
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	25 Mar 2024 12:50
Last Modified:	25 Mar 2024 12:50
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3262

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