Solving Classical Insight Problems Without Aha! Experience: 9 Dot, 8 Coin, and Matchstick Arithmetic Problems

Abstract

Insightful problem solving is a vital part of human thinking, yet very difficult to grasp. Traditionally, insight has been investigated by using a set of established "insight tasks, " assuming that insight has taken place if these problems are solved. Instead of assuming that insight takes place during every solution of the 9 Dot, 8 Coin, and Matchstick Arithmetic Problems, this study explored the likelihood that solutions evoked the "Aha! experience, " which is often regarded as the defining characteristic of insight. It was predicted that the rates of selfreported Aha! experiences might vary based on the necessary degree of constraint relaxation. The main assumption was that the likelihood of experiencing an Aha! would decrease with increasing numbers of constraints that must be relaxed, because several steps are needed to achieve a representational change and solve the problem, and thus, the main feature of suddenness of a solution might be lacking. The results supported this prediction, and demonstrated that in many cases participants do solve these classical insight problems without any Aha! experience. These results show the importance of obtaining insight ratings from participants to determine whether any given problem is solved with insight or not.

What about False Insights? Deconstructing the Aha! Experience along Its Multiple Dimensions for Correct and Incorrect Solutions Separately

“…It also highlights the importance of careful task analyses when selecting which problems to study, even with the recognition that any problem solving task can be solved with or without Aha! experience (Bowden et al, 2005; Öllinger et al, 2014; Kizilirmak et al, 2016a; Danek et al, 2016; Webb et al, 2016). Clearly, the aim for researchers who want to study insight and Aha!…”

“…The present data indicates that mainly problems with single-step solutions will yield the feeling of Suddenness. This important new finding converges with a recent study on three classical insight problems (9 Dot, 8 Coin and one Matchstick Arithmetic Problem) reporting that problems with solutions for which only one constraint needs to be relaxed feel more like an “Aha!” than multi-step solutions with several constraints (Danek et al, 2016). The prototypical example of a multi-step solution problem is the classic 9 Dot Problem (Maier, 1930) which Kershaw and Ohlsson (2004) as well as Öllinger et al (2014) have shown involves multiple causes of difficulty.…”

Once more with feeling: Normative data for the aha experience in insight and noninsight problems

“…Consequently, this method does not reveal the strength of the aha experience elicited. A more recent investigation (Danek, Wiley, & Öllinger, 2016) examined the strength of insight elicited by insight problems but only for three classic problems, making the results difficult to generalize. Here we test a wide array of different problems using a continuous measure of insight strength.…”

Algorithmic Puzzles: History, Taxonomies, and Applications in Human Problem Solving

“…Despite a superficial clarity of what insight problems are, as introduced above, a more careful analysis of this notion has revealed many uncertainties (e.g., Chu & Macgregor, 2011;Danek, Wiley, & Öllinger, 2016;Dominowski & Dallob, 1995;Mayer, 1995). Weisberg (1995) suggested considering a problem an insight problem if its solution involves discontinuity in thinking and restructuring understood as a change in the solver's representation of the problem.…”