Cognitive mechanisms of insight: The role of heuristics and representational change in solving the eight-coin problem

Michael Öllinger*, Gary Jones, Amory H. Faber, Günther Knoblich

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The 8-coin insight problem requires the problem solver to move 2 coins so that each coin touches exactly 3 others. Ormerod, MacGregor, and Chronicle (2002) explained differences in task performance across different versions of the 8-coin problem using the availability of particular moves in a 2-dimensional search space. We explored 2 further explanations by developing 6 new versions of the 8-coin problem in order to investigate the influence of grouping and self-imposed constraints on solutions. The results identified 2 sources of problem difficulty: first, the necessity to overcome the constraint that a solution can be found in 2-dimensional space and, second, the necessity to decompose perceptual groupings. A detailed move analysis suggested that the selection of moves was driven by the established representation rather than the application of the appropriate heuristics. Both results support the assumptions of representational change theory (Ohlsson, 1992).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)931-939
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition
Volume39
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Keywords

  • Heuristics
  • Insight
  • Problem solving
  • Representational change

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