The Einstellung effect in anagram problem solving: evidence from eye movements

Abstract

The Einstellung effect is the counterintuitive finding that prior experience or domain-specific knowledge can under some circumstances interfere with problem solving performance. This effect has been demonstrated in several domains of expertise including medicine and chess. In the present study we explored this effect in the context of a simplified anagram problem solving task. Participants solved anagram problems while their eye movements were monitored. Each problem consisted of six letters: a central three-letter string whose letters were part of the solution word, and three additional individual letters. Participants were informed that one of the individual letters was a distractor letter and were asked to find a five-letter solution word. In order to examine the impact of stimulus familiarity on problem solving performance and eye movements, the central letter string was presented either as a familiar three-letter word, or the letters were rearranged to form a three-letter nonword. Replicating the classic Einstellung effect, overall performance was better for nonword than word trials. However, participants’ eye movements revealed a more complex pattern of both interference and facilitation as a function of the familiarity of the central letter string. Specifically, word trials resulted in shorter viewing times on the central letter string and longer viewing times on the individual letters than nonword trials. These findings suggest that while participants were better able to encode and maintain the meaningful word stimuli in working memory, they found it more challenging to integrate the individual letters into the central letter string when it was presented as a word.

Functional opponency in working memory capacity predicts cognitive flexibility in problem solving.

“…Additionally, a negative but not significant association was found between the number of set problems solved and the number of critical problems solved using simple strategies (M = 1.47, SD = 1.32, r(79) = −.22, p = .050). This finding suggests that individuals who were more likely to establish mental set in the first half of the task were less likely to break mental set in the second half of the task, consistent with previous studies in which mental set resulted from prior experience or domain-specific knowledge (e.g., Bilalić et al, 2010;Crooks & McNeil, 2009;Ellis & Reingold, 2014;Wiley, 1998). Table 3).…”

Computer-Based “Mental Set” Tasks: An Alternative Approach to Studying Design Fixation

“…Luchins' striking demonstration that experience can induce inflexibility of thought has been successfully repeated using a variety of tasks, including those involving mathematical problems [24], verbal reasoning [25] and more visual tasks [26]. In addition, mental set has been shown both to affect people facing problems that are new to them [27,28,29] and also experts tackling problems that are within their field of expertise [13,30,31,32].…”

Psychological perspectives on expertise

“…In addition, Godau et al ( 2014 ) found that experts in arithmetic problem solving spontaneously used arithmetic shortcuts. Finally, Ellis and Reingold ( 2014 ) examined the Einstellung effect (i.e., where the first idea that comes to mind blocks finding the best solution to a problem) using this methodology and noted its relevance to understanding expert flexibility (see Bilalić and McLeod, 2014 ).…”