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Einstellung defused: Interactivity and mental set
Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau1, Gemma Euden, Vanessa Hearn
1Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK. f.vallee-tourangeau@kingston.ac.uk
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|August 20, 2011
Summary
Mental set, or using old problem-solving strategies on new problems, was reduced by interactive water jar tasks. Visuospatial skills influenced perseverance in interactive settings.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Mental set describes the tendency to persist with familiar problem-solving strategies, even when simpler alternatives exist.
- The water jar task, a classic problem-solving paradigm, demonstrates mental set through complex liquid measurement rules.
- Previous research primarily used noninteractive, paper-based methods to study mental set.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of interactivity on mental set in the water jar problem.
- To explore the relationship between visuospatial skills and perseverance in different experimental conditions.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted comparing interactive (actual water jars) and noninteractive (paper-based) water jar tasks.
- Participants' perseverance and solution times were recorded.
- Visuospatial skills were assessed and correlated with problem-solving performance.
Main Results:
- Interactive conditions significantly reduced the degree of mental set (perseverance).
- Visuospatial skills predicted perseverance and solution latencies in interactive, but not noninteractive, conditions.
- This suggests that the environment influences cognitive strategy application.
Conclusions:
- Interactivity in problem-solving tasks can mitigate mental set.
- Visuospatial abilities play a role in strategy adaptation within interactive environments.
- Future research should consider distributed cognition and the interplay of internal and external resources in problem-solving.
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