On the nature of insight solutions: evidence from skill differences in anagram solution

According to the Gestalt psychologists, problem solutions that pop into mind suddenly with no awareness of the process by which they were generated are objectively as well as subjectively sudden. Thus, such pop-out solutions are qualitatively different from search solutions, which are constructed incrementally. The authors tested this claim in the domain of anagram solution. Experiment 1 documented that anagrams yield pop-out solutions, especially among highly skilled solvers. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that both pop-out and search solutions depended on the gradual accumulation of partial information, contrary to the Gestalt view of problem solving. Nevertheless, some aspects of the Experiment 2 results, as well as new analyses of an anagram study reported elsewhere, suggest that there may in fact be a qualitative difference between pop-out and search solutions. In particular, pop-out solutions may result from parallel processing of the constraints on the rearranged order of the anagram letters, whereas search solutions may result from a serial hypothesis-testing procedure. Like dynamite, the insightful solution explodes on the solver's cognitive landscape with breathtaking suddenness, but if one looks closely, a long fuse warns of the impending reorganization. (Durso, Rea, & Dayton, 1994, p. 98)