Insightful problem solving is a vital part of human thinking, yet very difficult to grasp. Traditionally, insight has been investigated by using a set of established "insight tasks," assuming that insight has taken place if these problems are solved. Instead of assuming that insight takes place during every solution of the 9 Dot, 8 Coin,…

The article reports three experiments designed to explore heuristics used in comparing the lengths of completed Euclidean Traveling Salesman Problem (E-TSP) tours. The experiments used paired comparisons in which participants judged which of two completed tours of the same point set was shorter. The first experiment manipulated two factors, the…

Successful algebraic problem solving entails adaptability of solution methods using different representations. Prior research has suggested that students are more likely to prefer symbolic solution methods (equations) over graphical ones, even when graphical methods should be more efficient. However, this research has not tested how representation…

Previous studies have shown that people start traveling sales problem tours significantly more often from boundary than from interior nodes. There are a number of possible reasons for such a tendency: first, it may arise as a direct result of the processes involved in tour construction; second, boundary points may be perceptually more salient than…

Research has consistently shown negative effects of multitasking on tasks such as problem solving. This study was designed to investigate the impact of an incentive when solving problems in a multitasking situation. Incentives have generally been shown to increase problem solving (e.g., Wieth & Burns, 2006), however, it is unclear whether an…

Most models of human performance on the traveling salesperson problem involve clustering of nodes, but few empirical studies have examined effects of clustering in the stimulus array. A recent exception varied degree of clustering and concluded that the more clustered a stimulus array, the easier a TSP is to solve (Dry, Preiss, & Wagemans,…

The Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP) is a computationally difficult combinatorial optimization problem. In spite of its relative difficulty, human solvers are able to generate close-to-optimal solutions in a close-to-linear time frame, and it has been suggested that this is due to the visual system's inherent sensitivity to certain geometric…

Previous studies found that performance on the remote associates test (RAT) improves after a period of incubation and that increased alpha brain waves over the right posterior brain predict the emergence of RAT insight solutions. We report an experiment that tested whether increased alpha brain waves during incubation improve RAT performance.…

Does spreading activation from incidentally encountered hints cause incubation effects? We used Remote Associates Test (RAT) problems to examine effects of incidental clues on impasse resolution. When solution words were seen incidentally 3-sec before initially unsolved problems were retested, more problems were resolved (Experiment 1). When…

The minimal control principle (Taatgen, 2007) predicts that people strive for problem-solving strategies that require as few internal control states as possible. In an experiment with the Abstract Decision Making task (ADM task; Joslyn & Hunt, 1998) the reward structure was manipulated to make either a low-control strategy or a high-strategy…

Gestalt psychologists proposed two distinct learning mechanisms. Associative learning occurs gradually through the repeated co-occurrence of external stimuli or memories. Insight learning occurs suddenly when people discover new relationships within their prior knowledge as a result of reasoning or problem solving processes that re-organize or…

To explain human performance on the "Traveling Salesperson" problem (TSP), MacGregor, Ormerod, and Chronicle (2000) proposed that humans construct solutions according to the steps described by their convex-hull algorithm. Focusing on tour length as the dependent variable, and using only random or semirandom point sets, the authors…

fMRI was used to examine the differential effect of two problem-solving strategies. Participants were trained to use both a pictorial/spatial and a symbolic/algebraic strategy to solve word problems. While these two strategies activated similar cortical regions, a number of differences were noted in the level of activation. These differences…

Results on human performance on the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) from different laboratories show high consistency. However, one exception is in the area of individual differences. While one research group has consistently failed to find systematic individual differences across instances of TSPs (Chronicle, MacGregor and Ormerod), another…

How does the type of learning material impact what is learned? The current research investigates the nature of students' learning of math concepts when using manipulatives (Uttal, Scudder, & DeLoache, 1997). We examined how the type of manipulative (concrete, abstract, none) and problem-solving prompt (metacognitive or problem-focused) affect…