What I’m wondering is whether the problem-task distinction represents different categories? Or different points on the ends of a continuum?
Some types of problems may resist being completely taskified, particularly unstructured socializing and other improvisation-heavy tasks. Successful execution in those areas requires being more in-the-moment rather than following pre-defined procedure. You could say that the end of the procedure is to “be in the moment,” or “act on your feelings,” but that’s still awfully general and would stretch the notions of task and procedure.
Nevertheless, even in improvisational problems, you can apply heuristics to inspire you, even though you can’t define the procedure completely in advance. That’s why I think we might be better off talking of a continuum of our ability to define problems into tasks. How would improvisational problems fit into your framework?
Improvisational problems, as you call them, can be chalked up to procedural knowledge failure: if what you need to do is think on your feet, and you don’t know how to do that, then that’s the problem there. Socialization and other improvisation-heavy tasks—like, say, jazz piano, my style of cooking, or other activities that require on-the-fly context-dependent adjustments—depend on knowing how to detect, interpret, and adjust for those contextual changes. These things can be learned, although perhaps not with the fluency of a “native speaker” of those activities.
What I’m wondering is whether the problem-task distinction represents different categories? Or different points on the ends of a continuum?
Some types of problems may resist being completely taskified, particularly unstructured socializing and other improvisation-heavy tasks. Successful execution in those areas requires being more in-the-moment rather than following pre-defined procedure. You could say that the end of the procedure is to “be in the moment,” or “act on your feelings,” but that’s still awfully general and would stretch the notions of task and procedure.
Nevertheless, even in improvisational problems, you can apply heuristics to inspire you, even though you can’t define the procedure completely in advance. That’s why I think we might be better off talking of a continuum of our ability to define problems into tasks. How would improvisational problems fit into your framework?
Improvisational problems, as you call them, can be chalked up to procedural knowledge failure: if what you need to do is think on your feet, and you don’t know how to do that, then that’s the problem there. Socialization and other improvisation-heavy tasks—like, say, jazz piano, my style of cooking, or other activities that require on-the-fly context-dependent adjustments—depend on knowing how to detect, interpret, and adjust for those contextual changes. These things can be learned, although perhaps not with the fluency of a “native speaker” of those activities.