An oft-touted mantra for creativity is: think like a child. We focus on one particular aspect of child-like thinking here, namely surface similarities. Developmental psychology has convincingly demonstrated, time and again, that younger children use surface similarities for categorization and related tasks; only as they grow older they start to consider functional and structural similarities. W...

Sudoku puzzles are an excellent testbed for evolutionary algorithms. The puzzles are accessible enough to be enjoyed by people. However the more complex puzzles require thousands of iterations before a solution is found by an evolutionary algorithm. If we were attempting to compare evolutionary algorithms we could count their iterations to solution as a indicator of relative efficiency. However...

Constraint satisfaction problems are typically solved using search, augmented by general purpose consistency inference methods. This paper proposes a paradigm shift in which inference is used as the primary problem solving method, and attention is focused on special purpose, domain specific inference methods. While we expect this approach to have computational advantages, we emphasize here the ...

To demonstrate our approaches we will use Sudoku puzzles, which are an excellent test bed for evolutionary algorithms. The puzzles are accessible enough for people to enjoy. However the more complex puzzles require thousands of iterations before an evolutionary algorithm finds a solution. If we were attempting to compare evolutionary algorithms we could count their iterations to solution as an ...

Preschool children's interactions while working on problem-solving tasks were investigated. In Study J, preschool children were observed working on learning games at a computer. Sharing, verbal and nonverbal instruction, and initiation of interaction were recorded. Sixty-three percent of the children's time at the computer was spent with a peer, and they often spontaneously shared and instructe...

We address the new problem of puzzle layout as a new application of graph drawing. We present two abstract models of puzzles, permutation puzzles and cyclic puzzles, which can be modeled as puzzle graphs. Based on these models, we implement two puzzle generators and produce various layouts of the puzzles using graph drawing algorithms. Using these puzzle generators we can create new puzzles. Fu...