<p>Collective responses can be aggregated to combine common solution fragments into a global solution. Maybe a key to solve NP-hard/complete is having enough diversity, hence working in a collective sense. 
Check out The Wisdom of the Crowd in Combinatorial Problems, from Sheng Kung Michael Yi,a Mark Steyvers,a Michael D. Lee,a Matthew J. Dryb</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-25T14:14:02.607Z
Welcome to cogsci.stackexchange! This looks like the start of a really good answer! Would you mind elaborating on how collective responses can be aggregated? If you want further tips on making a good answer, check out "[How do I write a good answer?](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer)" which I had to read a few times when I first joined the site. (:
Seanny123
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-25T10:40:11.683Z
2014-07-25T10:40:11.683Z
Sofia Silva
<p>It has been <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/4034/what-forms-of-the-travelling-salesman-problem-are-difficult-for-humans-to-solve">noted</a> that humans are good at solving the travelling salesmen problem under certain constraints. Are there other NP-hard or NP-complete problems that human beings are good at solving? Has there been other research (psychological, neurobiological) on this?</p>

<p>One lead I'm currently investigating is how humans are good at playing Minesweeper, despite the fact that is it is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minesweeper_(video_game)#Computational_complexity">NP-Complete</a>.</p>

<cognitive-psychology><reference-request><problem-solving>
Are there NP-Hard or NP-Complete problems that humans a really good at solving?
Seanny123
# Are there NP-Hard or NP-Complete problems that humans a really good at solving?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-07-22)

It has been [noted](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/4034/what-forms-of-the-travelling-salesman-problem-are-difficult-for-humans-to-solve) that humans are good at solving the travelling salesmen problem under certain constraints. Are there other NP-hard or NP-complete problems that human beings are good at solving? Has there been other research (psychological, neurobiological) on this?

One lead I'm currently investigating is how humans are good at playing Minesweeper, despite the fact that is it is [NP-Complete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minesweeper_(video_game)#Computational_complexity).

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, reference-request, problem-solving


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-07-25. Score: 0

Collective responses can be aggregated to combine common solution fragments into a global solution. Maybe a key to solve NP-hard/complete is having enough diversity, hence working in a collective sense.
Check out The Wisdom of the Crowd in Combinatorial Problems, from Sheng Kung Michael Yi,a Mark Steyvers,a Michael D. Lee,a Matthew J. Dryb

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Welcome to cogsci.stackexchange! This looks like the start of a really good answer! Would you mind elaborating on how collective responses can be aggregated? If you want further tips on making a good answer, check out "[How do I write a good answer?](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer)" which I had to read a few times when I first joined the site. (:  

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