Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Human performance on the traveling salesman problem.
AU - MacGregor, J. N.
AU - Ormerod, Thomas C.
PY - 1996
Y1 - 1996
N2 - Two experiments on performance on the traveling salesman problem (TSP) are reported. The TSP consists of finding the shortest path through a set of points, returning to the origin. It appears to be an intransigent mathematical problem, and heuristics have been developed to find approximate solutions. The first experiment used 10-point, the second, 20-point problems. The experiments tested the hypothesis that complexity of TSPs is a function of number of nonboundary points, not total number of points. Both experiments supported the hypothesis. The experiments provided information on the quality of subjects’ solutions. Their solutions clustered close to the best known solutions, were an order of magnitude better than solutions produced by three well-known heuristics, and on average fell beyond the 99.9th percentile in the distribution of random solutions. The solution process appeared to be perceptually based.
AB - Two experiments on performance on the traveling salesman problem (TSP) are reported. The TSP consists of finding the shortest path through a set of points, returning to the origin. It appears to be an intransigent mathematical problem, and heuristics have been developed to find approximate solutions. The first experiment used 10-point, the second, 20-point problems. The experiments tested the hypothesis that complexity of TSPs is a function of number of nonboundary points, not total number of points. Both experiments supported the hypothesis. The experiments provided information on the quality of subjects’ solutions. Their solutions clustered close to the best known solutions, were an order of magnitude better than solutions produced by three well-known heuristics, and on average fell beyond the 99.9th percentile in the distribution of random solutions. The solution process appeared to be perceptually based.
M3 - Journal article
VL - 58
SP - 527
EP - 539
JO - Perception and Psychophysics
JF - Perception and Psychophysics
SN - 1532-5962
IS - 4
ER -