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Insight and Cognitive Ecosystems
Outside the cognitive psychologistâĂĂŽs laboratory, problem
solving is an activity that takes place in a rich web of
interactions involving people and artifacts. Through this
interactivity, a reasonerâĂĂŽs comprehension of the problem
emerges from a coalition of internal and external
resources. In the experiment presented here, interactivity
was explored under laboratory conditions. Participants
were invited to solve an insight problem, the so-called
17 Animals problem. The solution to this problem
involves the spatial arrangements of sets. The problem
masquerades as an arithmetic problem, which creates a
difficult impasse to overcome. Problem solving took
place in two different ecosystems: in one, participants
were given a stylus and an electronic tablet to sketch out
a model of the solution; in a second, participants could
interact with artifacts that corresponded to the problemâĂĂŽs
physical constituent features to build a model of the
solution. Participants in the sketch group were never
able to break the impasse, that is to abandon their
interpretation of the problem as one requiring an
arithmetic solution. Participants in the model building
group were more likely to break the impasse and
discover a productive action trajectory that helped them
identify a plausible solution. Video evidence revealed
substantial differences in the manner with which
participants âĂĂČthoughtâĂĂŽ about the problem as a function of
the type of interactivity afforded by the two cognitive
ecosystems. Insight was enacted through model building
activity
Insight, materiality and interactivity
The popular iconography of insight casts a thinker as he or she uncoils from a Rodin pose and a bulb that lights a world hitherto
hidden. By and large, these features of folk mythology capture and guide how psychologists conduct research on insight: Mental
processes â some of which may be unconscious â transform an inceptive abstract representation of the world until it prescribes a
fruitful solution to a problem. Yet thinking and problem solving outside the laboratory involve interacting with external
resources, and through this interactivity with a material world, solutions are distilled. Still, laboratory work on problem
solving pays scant and largely indifferent attention to interactivity: Sometimes problems are presented as riddles or static
graphical or diagrammatic images, or sometimes they are accompanied by artefacts that can be manipulated (and sometimes
interactivity is possible for some problems but not others within a set of problems over which performance is indiscriminately
amalgamated). The research methodology â and indifference to the central role of interactivity in thinking â follows from a
deep-seated commitment to mentalism and methodological individualism. However, a thinker is an embodied creature embedded in a
physical world: The materiality of external resources and artefacts through which problems manifest themselves inevitably
determines a set of action affordances. From a systemic perspective, thinking is traceable along a contingent spatio-temporal
itinerary wrought by interactivity and evidenced by changes in the world.</jats:p
Learning and interactivity in solving a transformation problem
Outside the psychologist's laboratory, thinking proceeds on the basis of a great deal of interaction with artefacts that are recruited to augment problem-solving skills. The role of interactivity in problem solving was investigated using a river-crossing problem. In Experiment 1A, participants completed the same problem twice, once in a low interactivity condition, and once in a high interactivity condition (with order counterbalanced across participants). Learning, as gauged in terms of latency to completion, was much more pronounced when the high interactivity condition was experienced second. When participants first completed the task in the high interactivity condition, transfer to the low interactivity condition during the second attempt was limited; Experiment 1B replicated this pattern of results. Participants thus showed greater facility to transfer their experience of completing the problem from a low to a high interactivity condition. Experiment 2 was designed to determine the amount of learning in a low and high interactivity condition; in this experiment participants completed the problem twice, but level of interactivity was manipulated between subjects. Learning was evident in both the low and high interactivity groups, but latency per move was significantly faster in the high interactivity group, in both presentations. So-called problem isomorphs instantiated in different task ecologies draw upon different skills and abilities; a distributed cognition analysis may provide a fruitful perspective on learning and transfer
Insight out : making creativity visible
Models of creative problem solving are predicated upon mental states to explain everything from the outcome of problemâsolving experiments to the emergence of artistic creativity. We present two converging perspectives that describe a profoundly different ontological description of creativity. Our analysis proceeds from a distinction between firstâorder problem solving, where the agent interacts with a physical model of the problem and secondâorder problem solving, where the agent must cogitate a solution to a problem that is presented as a verbal description of a state of the world but where the agent does not or cannot transform physical elements of a problem. We acknowledge the recent evidence that foregrounds the importance of working memory in problem solving, including insight problem solving. However, we stress that the impressive psychometric success is obtained with a methodology that only measures secondâorder problem solving; we question whether firstâorder problem solving is equally well predicted by measures of cognitive or dispositional capacities. We propose that if mental simulation is replaced by the opportunity to engage with a physical model of a problem then the environment can provide affordances that help the participant to solve problems. In the second part of the paper, we present the subjective experience of an artist as he monitors the microdecisions that occur during the morphogenesis of a large, clay, sculptural installation. The testimony is a vivid demonstration that creative action occurs, not in the brain, but in the movement between the hand and the clay. Insight becomes outsight
Block design performance in Williams syndrome : visuospatial abilities or task approach skills?
The block design task (BDT) is a visuospatial measure that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) perform poorly on. However, it is unclear what underlies their impaired performance. This study investigated whether poorer performance is a result of visuospatial difficulties, executive function (EF) difficulties, atypical looking strategies, or a combination of these. Eleven individuals with WS participated alongside mental age (MA)- and chronological age (CA)-matched control groups. Eye movements were recorded while they took the BDT. Dwell times and visits to areas of interest in WS differed from CA, but not MA, groups. Findings suggest that BDT abilities of individuals with WS are delayed, but not atypical. Delays result from visuospatial and attention-switching difficulties rather than atypical looking strategies
Diagrams, jars, and matchsticks : a systemicist's toolkit
Participants in cognitive psychology experiments on reasoning and problem solving are commonly sequestered: Efforts are made to impoverish the physical context in which the problem is presented, decoupling people from the richer and modifiable environment that naturally instantiates it outside the lab. Sense-making activities are constrained, but this conforms to the strong internalist and individualist commitments implicit to these research efforts: Cognition reflects internal computations and the scientistsâ toils must focus on the individual and what she is thinking, decoupled from the world. We contrast this position with one that identifies cognition as the product of a cognitive system that is configured and enacted by, minimally, an agent and the world in which she is embedded. We review work on the psychology of hypothesis testing and problem solving and argue that refocusing research efforts on the dynamic agent-environment couplings that generate cognitive products â such as a problem representation, a hypothesis or a problem solution â offers a much richer set of methodological opportunities to unveil how people actually think outside the cognitive psychologistâs laboratory. We conclude by exploring the ontological implications of a systemic perspective on cognition.</jats:p
Insight with hands and things
Two experiments examined whether different task ecologies influenced insight problem solving. The 17 animals problem was employed, a pure insight problem. Its initial formulation encourages the application of a direct arithmetic solution, but its solution requires the spatial arrangement of sets involving some degree of overlap. Participants were randomly allocated to either a tablet condition where they could use a stylus and an electronic tablet to sketch a solution or a model building condition where participants were given material with which to build enclosures and figurines. In both experiments, participants were much more likely to develop a working solution in the model building condition. The difference in performance elicited by different task ecologies was unrelated to individual differences in working memory, actively open-minded thinking, or need for cognition (Experiment 1), although individual differences in creativity were correlated with problem solving success in Experiment 2. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for the prevailing metatheoretical commitment to methodological individualism that places the individual as the ontological locus of cognition