Decomposition patterns in problem solving

Massimo Egidi

Experimental from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The paper develops a theory of biases in decision making. Discovering a strategy for solving a game is a complex problem that may be solved by decomposition; a player decomposing a problem into many simple sub- problems may easily identify the optimal solution to each sub-problem: however it is shown that even though all partial solutions are optimal, the solution to the global problem may be largely sub-optimal. The conditions under which a decomposition process gives rise to a sub- optimal solution are explored, and it is shown that the sub-optimalities ultimately originate from the process of categorization that governs the creation of a decomposition pattern. Decisions based on a strategy discovered by decomposition are therefore frequently biased . The persistence of biased behaviours, observed in many experiments, is explained by showing the stability of different and non optimal representations of the same problem. An application to a simplified version of Rubik cube is finally developed.

JEL-codes: C9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2003-09-22, Revised 2003-09-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cmp, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-mic
Note: Type of Document - Pdf; prepared on PC ; to print on PostScript; pages: 38 ; figures: included
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/exp/papers/0309/0309003.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Decomposition Patterns in Problem Solving (2006)
Working Paper: Decomposition patterns in problem solving (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpex:0309003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Experimental from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).