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Individual And Group Performance On Insight Problems: The Effects Of Experimentally Induced Fixation, Christine M. Smith, Emily Bushouse, Jennifer Lord

Peer Reviewed Articles

Recent research has shown that the benefits associated with incubation periods during individual problem solving can be explained in terms of forgetting the material or of any strategy that serves to block progress toward success (e.g., Smith & Blankenship, 1991). While interacting groups reliably outperform individuals on both problem-solving and recall tasks, groups’ superior memory capacity may serve to hinder problem solving, especially when fixation has occurred. In the present study, individuals and three-person groups attempted to solve a set of 20 rebus puzzles on two different occasions. In the first session rebuses were accompanied by “clues,” that were designed …