ABSTRACT
EACH DAY WE are faced with problems and we spend much of our time and a lot of cognitive effort trying to solve them. Although some days might seem more fraught with problems than other days, we don’t acknowledge as problems many of the problems that we are faced with. All of the decisions we make involve some sort of problem solving. Some problems have a fairly straightforward solution, for example we can get money out of a cash machine by following a series of learned steps (presuming that there is any money in our account!). Other problems are more complicated and require the careful analysis of many alternatives. For example, have you ever had to try and meet several social obligations without upsetting anyone while wanting to do only some of the things that you feel you should do? Indeed, many of the problems that we are faced with can be solved in more than one way and often we have to make compromises.
