The Preliminary Studies Of Thinking Mechanism In Ten Pennies Problem

The study of cognitive illusion usually involves an abstract deducetive reasoning and in the problem of probability, meanwhile, the similar study in other domains hasn't been found.This paper is about an ancient Chinese ten pennies problem. Four studies are conducted on this problem .In the first study , 166 undergraduate students are required to solve the ten pennies problem.And then,some questions about the confusions in solving the problem are asked. The result shows that ten pennies problem is a typical cognitive illusion problem. 88 university students who haven't met the problem.only 29.9% students solved the problem.And 42 students are learning in school of arts and 46 students are learning in school of science.And there are 50 females and 38 males.The result also shows that there is no significant difference between students majoring in arts and students majoring in science, and no significant difference between males and females.Another result is that 80% students who sovled the problem sucsessfully report that they are confused in the beginning.By the way, 44.9% of 78 students who have met the problem before solved the problem sucessfully .In the mistake types, most are "the show just pays 280 pennies physically" and"know right calculate way of the total amount of money but can't point out the wrong way of the wrong calculate way ".According to the data ,we can conclude some foundings addtionally.First,people are easily confused between the number of money in the problem,Second,people are unable to confirm their state in problem solving.Third, people behave deffirently to the abbility of solving problem in math.The verbal protocol study in the second reseach shows that people propose the problem by repeating the problem in order simply .And to some extent, the propostition and the strategies...