Abstract
The Einstellung effect is the counterintuitive finding that prior experience or domain-specific knowledge can under some circumstances interfere with problem solving performance. This effect has been demonstrated in several domains of expertise including medicine and chess. In the present study we explored this effect in the context of a simplified anagram problem solving task. Participants solved anagram problems while their eye movements were monitored. Each problem consisted of six letters: a central three-letter string whose letters were part of the solution word, and three additional individual letters. Participants were informed that one of the individual letters was a distractor letter and were asked to find a five-letter solution word. In order to examine the impact of stimulus familiarity on problem solving performance and eye movements, the central letter string was presented either as a familiar three-letter word, or the letters were rearranged to form a three-letter nonword. Replicating the classic Einstellung effect, overall performance was better for nonword than word trials. However, participants’ eye movements revealed a more complex pattern of both interference and facilitation as a function of the familiarity of the central letter string. Specifically, word trials resulted in shorter viewing times on the central letter string and longer viewing times on the individual letters than nonword trials. These findings suggest that while participants were better able to encode and maintain the meaningful word stimuli in working memory, they found it more challenging to integrate the individual letters into the central letter string when it was presented as a word.
Highlights
The concept that stimulus familiarity and previously acquired domain knowledge might impair problem solving performance has been referred to by a variety of interrelated terms including functional fixedness, negative transfer, mental set, and Einstellung
While we primarily focus on the differences between word and nonword trials, we examined any interaction between the familiarity of the central letter string and participants’ subjective experience of insight
There was no impact of stimulus familiarity on the subjective experience of insight problem solving, as shown by the virtually identical proportion of word trials and nonword trials that were classified as popout
Summary
The concept that stimulus familiarity and previously acquired domain knowledge might impair problem solving performance has been referred to by a variety of interrelated terms including functional fixedness, negative transfer, mental set, and Einstellung. The Einstellung effect (Einstellung is German for attitude), which was originally demonstrated by Luchins’ (1942) seminal series of water jar experiments, constitutes an excellent illustration of the negative impact of a mental set (for a review see Bilalicand McLeod, 2014). In this paradigm, habitual approaches to problem solving are induced through exposure to multiple problems that have similar solution methods. Naive participants can find the solution quickly, showing that the problem is not intrinsically difficult and that the difficulty experienced by solvers reflects the negative impact of prior experience
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