Abstract
A mental set generally refers to the brain’s tendency to stick with the most familiar solution to a problem and stubbornly ignore alternatives. This tendency is likely driven by previous knowledge (the long-term mental set) or is a temporary by-product of procedural learning (the short-term mental set). A similar problem situation is considered the factor required for perseveration of the long-term mental set, which may not be essential for the short-term mental set. To reveal the boundary conditions for perseveration of the short-term mental set, this study adopted a Chinese character decomposition task. Participants were asked to perform a practice problem that could be solved by a familiar loose chunk decomposition (loose solution) followed by a test problem, or they were asked to repeatedly perform 5–8practice problems followed by a test problem; the former is the base-set condition, and the latter is the enhanced-set condition. In Experiment 1, the test problem situation appeared to be similar to the practice problem and could be solved using the reinforced loose solution and also an unfamiliar tight chunk decomposition (tight solution) (a 2-solution problem). In Experiment 2, the test problem situation differed from the practice problem and could only be solved using an unfamiliar tight solution (a 1-solution problem). The results showed that, when comparing the enhanced-set and base-set conditions, both the accuracy rate and the response times for solving the test problem with a tight solution were worse in Experiment 1, whereas the response times were worse in Experiment 2. We concluded that perseveration of the short-term mental set was independent of the similarity between problem situations and discuss the differences in perseveration between two types of fixation.
Highlights
A mental set is known as the Einstellung effect, which represents a form of rigidity in which an individual behaves or believes in a certain manner
Chinese characters are composed of radicals, which are composed of strokes
Participants were asked to perform a practice problem that could be solved by a familiar loose solution followed by a test problem, or they were asked to repeatedly perform 5–8 practice problems followed by a test problem; the former task is the base-set condition, and the latter task is the enhancedset condition
Summary
A mental set is known as the Einstellung effect, which represents a form of rigidity in which an individual behaves or believes in a certain manner. In the field of psychology, this effect has typically been examined in the process of problem solving and refers to the brain’s tendency to stick with the most familiar solution and to stubbornly ignore alternatives (Schultz and Searleman, 2002). Both prior knowledge and a similar problem situation were considered the factors required to induce an attentional bias toward the familiar solution (Lovett and Anderson, 1996). Once the initial diagnosis is formed, it guides doctors in the search for supporting evidence, which in turn introduces a risk of missing important aspects unrelated to the initial diagnosis
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