Spatial puzzles: A guide for researchers.

Abstract

AbstractSpatial puzzles consist of objects or pieces that must be fitted into a specified configuration. The puzzles are often complex and offer some unique opportunities for examining spatial skills. These puzzles have not been used to advantage by psychologists because most researchers are not aware of the rich variety that exist and the extensive literature on them. The present article attempts to provide a guide to the most common puzzles and some of the literature on them.Man has never shown so much imagination as in the variety of games he has invented. (G. W. Leibnitz, as quoted by Odier, 1975a, p. 12)In 1926, Henry Ernest Dudeney, an English puzzle expert, made an interesting observation: People are fascinated with puzzles and, when this curiosity is coupled with modern communications media, it periodically produces puzzle crazes that sweep society. To prove his point, Dudeney described some puzzles popular since medieval times and documented a series of crazes beginning with tangrams and wire - puzzles in the early 1800's, progressing to Sam Loyd's 14 - 15 puzzle in the 1880's (see also Hordern, 1986), and continuing to cross - words in the 1920's.Events since 1926 support Dudeney's claim. Jigsaw puzzles were a popular fad in the 1950's while Piet Hein's Soma Cube (Hein, 1969) and Instant Insanity captured the public's imagination briefly in the late 1960's. These and all other crazes pale in comparison to the popularity of Rubik's Cube (see Hofstadter, 1982; Hordern, 1986) which was probably the greatest puzzle craze of all time. Since 1980, video games have become popular but most video games are not puzzles in the truest sense. Most video games involve a great deal of dexterity but entail no aspects of problem - solving (Loftus & Loftus, 1983); however, there are two exceptions and both have spawned puzzle crazes. In the early 1980's, college students and computer buffs spent hours playing ROGUE (or HACK), a three - dimensional maze exploration game. That fad has passed but today's students seem equally enthralled with TETRIS, a Russian game using interlocking pieces (Pajitnov, 1988).All the puzzles described by Dudeney, and all the puzzles mentioned above, are spatial puzzles, that is, puzzles that consist of pieces or objects that must be manipulated into a specific spatial configuration. Perhaps an important corollary to Dudeney's thesis is that,while people are fascinated with puzzles, they are especially fascinated with spatial puzzles.Despite the popularity of spatial puzzles, psychologists know relatively little about the processes involved in solving them. There has been a considerable amount of research on problem - solving (e.g., Newell & Simon, 1972; Hayes, 1989; Wickelgren, 1976) but most of the research has focussed on conceptual puzzles, that is, problems that can be represented symbolically with little or no reference to spatial parameters. This lack of interest in spatial puzzles may be due to several factors. For example, with psychometrics, mechanical skills have been linked to less desirable blue - collar occupations such as bomb - fuse assembler (Cronbach, 1960, p. 280). Another reason is that the cognitive renaissance during the 1960's was motivated in part by the inability to account for language within a Behaviourist framework so that much of the subsequent research has focussed on language - related problems, such as verbal memory, rather than non - verbal processes. The most likely reason that spatial puzzles have been ignored, however, is that most psychologists simply don't know anything about them.Using Puzzles for Research and Teaching: A Rich EnvironmentSpatial puzzles offer a rich environment for exploring problem - solving and spatial abilities in that many puzzles have a large assortment of problems of different and known degrees of complexity with variations that allow the assessment of transfer across different dimensions. …