2004/01/01 by Edward P. Chronicle, James N. MacGregor, Thomas C. Ormerod · 7 citations
Psychology · Engineering · #Creativity in Education and Neuroscience #Design Education and Practice #Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
paper · doi:10.1037/0278-7393.30.1.14
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Four experiments investigated transformation problems with insight characteristics. In Experiment 1, performance on a version of the 6-coin problem that had a concrete and visualizable solution followed a hill-climbing heuristic. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the difficulty of a version of the problem that potentially required insight for solution stems from the same hill-climbing heuristic, which creates an implicit conceptual block. Experiment 3 confirmed that the difficulty of the potential insight solution is conceptual, not procedural. Experiment 4 demonstrated the same principles of move selection on the 6-coin problem and the 10-coin (triangle) problem. It is argued that hill-climbing heuristics provide a common framework for understanding transformation and insight problem solving. Postsolution receding may account for part of the phenomenology of insight.