Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Using a new developed task environment that allows to control for depth and width of problem space (Match Stick Algebra problems), three experiments were conducted to investigate the role of implicit constraints in insight problem solving. The first experiment showed that constraints caused by prior knowledge of common algebra lead to large differences in solution times, when they were encountered for the first time. No differences were found after the constraints had been relaxed. In the second experiment complimentary moves had to be applied in two different equation structures, one similiar to common algebra, one dissimiliar to common algebra. Consistent with our predictions different problem structures lead to a reversed order of task difficulty for the same moves depending on the activation of prior knowledge from real algebra. In the third experiment it was shown that a re-distribution of activation in a network causes the removing of constraints. Non-detectable priming of the solution lead to significantly more solutions in the experimental group as compared to a control group.