How do people select among different strategies to accomplish a given task? Across disciplines, the strategy selection problem represents a major challenge. We propose a quantitative model that predicts how selection emerges through the interplay among strategies, cognitive capacities, and the environment. This interplay carves out for each…

We explored the affective states that students experienced during effortful problem solving activities. We conducted a study where 41 students solved difficult analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Students viewed videos of their faces and screen captures and judged their emotions from a set of 14 states (basic…

Time production is an experimental paradigm that compares the accuracy with which a subject can produce a specified time interval relative to actual clock time. Higgins (1987) found that subjects perceived the passage of time as faster or slower, compared to actual time, as an interrelation of personality characteristics and experimental…

Three studies sought to determine whether incubation effects could be reliably generated in a problem-solving task. Experimental variables manipulated were the duration of the interval between two problem-solving opportunities and the activity performed by the problem solvers during the interval. A multisolution anagram task was used which…