The influence of element type and crossed relation on the difficulty of chunk decomposition

Abstract

Chunk decomposition is an aspect of problem solving that involves decomposing a pattern into its component parts in order to regroup them into a new pattern. Previous work suggests that the primary source of difficulty in chunk decomposition is whether a problem’s solution requires removing a part that is a meaningful perceptual pattern (termed a chunk) or not (a non-chunk). However, the role of spatial overlap (crossed relation or not) has been ignored in this line of research. Here, we dissociated the role of element type and crossed relation in chunk decomposition problems by employing a Chinese character transformation task. We replicated the finding that when the to-be-removed element is a non-chunk, the problem is more difficult to solve than when the element is a chunk. However, this result held only if the elements had no crossed relation. Relative to non-crossed relation, problems that involved removing elements that overlapped with the remaining character were more difficult to solve irrespective of the element type. We conclude that both element type and crossed relation can cause the difficulty of chunk decomposition and crossed relation plays more important role in preventing people from finding insightful ways to decompose chunk relative to element type.

Stimulus complexity and chunk tightness interact to impede perceptual restructuring during problem solving

“…Restructuring can be realized through constraint relaxation (Huang et al, 2018;Knoblich et al, 1999), when problem solving is impeded by experience-based factors such as a mental set or functional fixedness (e.g., Duncker, 1945;Kershaw & Ohlsson, 2004;Knoblich et al, 1999Knoblich et al, , 2001Luchins, 1942;Ohlsson, 1984;Smith, 1995;Storm & Angello, 2010;Wu et al, 2013). Restructuring can also be realized through chunk decomposition (Knoblich et al, 1999;Luo et al, 2006), especially when problem solving is impeded by stimulus features such as when the features have a tightly-organized spatial relationship (Huang, He, & Luo, 2017;Knoblich et al, 1999;Tang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2015Zhang et al, , 2019. The current study focuses on chunk decomposition.…”

“…The current study focuses on chunk decomposition. In contrast to "chunking", which refers to integrating pieces of information into chunks to improve memory (Miller, 1956), chunk decomposition involves restructuring a stimulus by decomposing a "chunk" into smaller components to form new combinations (Knoblich et al, 1999;Luo et al, 2006;Tang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2015).…”

“…A chunk is perceptually tight when its components intersect in space, and loose when they do not. Several recent studies have now shown that perceptual characteristics are more influential in determining the difficulty of chunk decomposition problems than conceptual characteristics (Tang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2015Zhang et al, , 2019. Specifically, Zhang and colleagues (2015) demonstrated that perceptually tight chunks were more difficult to decompose than conceptually tight chunks, and further, that perceptual tightness had a more consistent effect on performance in a chunk decomposition task (CDT) than conceptual tightness.…”

“…The target was a valid character that would be produced when the probe was removed from the source. We manipulated chunk tightness in the source character as the degree of spatial intersection between the probe and the other elements in the source character (Tang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2015Zhang et al, , 2019. Tight chunks were formed when both the probe and the target were intersecting with each other within the source character, hidden in a manner very similar to camouflage (Ludmer, Dudai, & Rubin, 2011).…”

P300 and creative chunk decomposition

“…运用同样的 论 文 学习-测试范式在字谜任务上, Qiu等人 [35] 则发现更晚 的ERP负成分可能涉及新异连接形成. 而Luo等人 [36] 通过学习 另外, 考虑到空间关系也是影响组块分解困难的因 素 [9] , 然而本研究并没有将之作为研究变量, 这也将 限制"组块分解涉及知觉转换过程中表征的更新"这 一结论的得出. 因此, 本研究关于P300效应和组块分…”