Memory Inhibition as a Critical Factor Preventing Creative Problem Solving (original) (raw)
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Testing the Cue Dependence of Problem-Solving-Induced Forgetting
The Journal of Problem Solving, 2012
Thinking and remembering can cause forgetting. In the context of remembering, retrieving one item can cause the forgetting of other items (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). A similar phenomenon has been observed in the context of creative problem solving-attempting to generate a target associate in the Remote Associates Test (RAT) can cause the forgetting of inappropriate associates (Storm, Angello, & Bjork, 2011). Experiment 1 examined whether this problem-solving-induced forgetting is cue dependent or cue independent by manipulating the cues used at final test. Whereas some participants were tested on the inappropriate associates using the same cues that were used during problem solving, other participants were tested using new, or independent, cues. Problem-solving-induced forgetting was observed in the same-cue condition, but not in the new-cue condition. Experiment 2 replicated the overall absence of problem-solvinginduced forgetting in the new-cue condition and found that individual differences in cue-independent forgetting did not predict problem-solving performance on a separate set of RAT problems.
jurnal American Psychological Association tentang memory (ingatan)
Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has shown that retrieval can cause the forgetting of related or competing items in memory (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In the present research, we examined whether an analogous phenomenon occurs in the context of creative problem solving. Using the Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962), we found that attempting to generate a novel common associate to 3 cue words caused the forgetting of other strong associates related to those cue words. This problem-solving-induced forgetting effect occurred even when participants failed to generate a viable solution, increased in magnitude when participants spent additional time problem solving, and was positively correlated with problem-solving success on a separate set of RAT problems. These results implicate a role for forgetting in overcoming fixation in creative problem solving. Keywords: inhibition, retrieval-induced forgetting, problem solving, Remote Associates Test, fixation
The different role of cognitive inhibition in early versus late creative problem finding
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
Previous research has suggested that ideas generated late in the creative process might require more executive control than those generated earlier. This in turn leads to the prediction that cognitive inhibition might play one role early in the process but a different role late in the process. The present investigation tested this prediction using a test of creative problem finding. Low cognitive inhibition was expected to facilitate an associative mode of processing, whereas high cognitive inhibition was expected to enable a deliberate, systematic mode of processing. An experiment involving 70 undergraduate students indicated that individuals' cognitive inhibition was correlated with fluency and flexibility, but not originality, on the problem-finding tasks. An interaction indicated that low cognitive inhibition enhanced originality initially, but later in the process, high cognitive inhibition was beneficial. Limitations of this investigation and future directions are explored.
Retrieval-induced forgetting: Testing the competition assumption of inhibition theory
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2012
Practicing the retrieval of some information can lead to poorer retrieval of other related information, a phenomenon called retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). This pattern has been explained as the result of inhibition of the related information during practice (Anderson, 2003). A core assumption of this inhibition account is that, to be suppressed, the related information must compete with the target information at the time of retrieval practice. Three experiments are reported that test this competition assumption. One experiment showed that RIF did not occur without specific retrieval practice of the target items when semantic generation of subordinates was performed. However, in 2 further experiments, RIF did occur when the semantic generation task was paired with category retrieval. Although there was no need for competition between target information and related information in these experiments, RIF was observed. These experiments undermine the competition assumption and hence the inhibition account.
… : Learning, Memory, and Cognition; Journal of …, 1987
Two experiments were conducted with a hybrid procedure that involved a battery of indirect criterion tests designed to study the activation and metacognition of inaccessible stored information. In each experiment, subjects first attempted to recall some rare target words in response to a series of deflnitions meant to tue retrieval from long.term semantic memory. For the words that could not be recalled initially, the subjects rated their feelings of knowing. They then performed a lexicaldecision task in which the target words and other control words were presented. Reaction times were measured as a function of the feeling-of-knowing ratings and the length of the interval between the initial exposure to the definitions and the subsequent lexical decisions. Faster decisions occurred for the target words than for the controls, especially when strong feelings of knowing had been expressed about the tarsets. Similar facilitation was obtained in a subsequent old-new recognition task. It appears that unsuccessful attempts to retrieve inaccessible stored information prime the later recognition of the information through a process of spreading activation. Such activation may sensitize people to future occurrences of stimulus inputs needed for insightful solutions of semantically rich problems.
Having the Memory of an Elephant: Long-Term Retrieval and the Use of Analogues in Problem Solving
The authors report 4 experiments exploring long-term analogical transfer from problem solutions in folk tales participants heard during childhood, many years before encountering the target problems. Substantial culture-specific analogical transfer was found when American and Chinese participants' performance was compared on isomorphs of problems solved in European versus Chinese folk tales. There was evidence of transfer even among participants who did not report being reminded of the source tale while solving the target problem. Comparisons of different versions of a target problem indicated that similarity of solution tool affected accessing, mapping, and executing components of problem solving, whereas similarity of goal object had only a moderate effect on accessing. High school students also evidenced greater transfer than did middle school students.
Incubation and suppression processes in creative problem solving
Thinking & Reasoning, 2014
The present study investigated the role of thought suppression in incubation, using a Delayed Incubation paradigm. A total of 301 participants were tested over five conditions, viz., Continuous Work Control, Incubation with a Mental Rotations interpolated task, Focussed Suppression, Unfocussed Suppression and a Conscious Expression condition. Checks were made for intermittent work during the Incubation condition. The target task was Alternative Uses for a brick. In the Incubation and suppression conditions, participants worked for 4 minutes then had a break during which Suppression or the interpolated task was carried out for 3 minutes before conscious work was resumed for a further 4 minutes on the Alternative Uses task. Results indicated that both Incubation with a distractor task and Suppression were effective in enhancing performance relative to Controls. The Intermittent work hypothesis was not upheld. The effects of Incubation/Suppression persisted over the post-incubation working period and the results suggested that Unfocussed Suppression effects on subsequent fluency lasted longer than Focussed Suppression effects.
Remembering Can Cause Inhibition: Retrieval-Induced Inhibition as Cue Independent Process
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2004
Previous experiments have mostly relied on recall as a dependent measure to assess whether retrieval of information from memory causes inhibition of related information. This study aimed to measure this inhibition in a more direct way. In Experiment 1, it was shown that repeated retrieval of exemplars from a category resulted in longer recognition latencies to nonretrieved exemplars from that same category, compared with recognition latencies to control exemplars. Experiment 2 obtained the same pattern of results using a lexical decision task. This was the 1st time that retrieval-induced forgetting was demonstrated on an implicit test of memory. To exclude noninhibitory explanations of the data, the exemplars were presented in both experiments without their categories as cues.
Think Outside the Box: The Effects of Cognitive Training on Creative Problem Solving
Cognitive Science, 2012
Think Outside the Box: The Effects of Cognitive Training on Creative Problem Solving Jared T. Ramsburg (jramsb2@uic.edu) University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Psychology (MC 285) 1007 West Harrison Street Chicago, Illinois, 60607-7137 Robert J. Youmans (ryouman2@gmu.edu) George Mason University Department of Psychology 4400 University Drive, MSN 3F5 Fairfax, VA 22030 Abstract Problem solving requires the use of higher mental functions, functions that can be improved with training (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007). The current study examines the effects of meditation on creative problem solving. Participants were undergraduate students (n = 81) who were randomly assigned to meditate or rest. Next, Pp were asked to solve a problem: fishing out a small object from inside a box using one of four available tools. Two of the available tools were potentially useful, but the other two were intentionally designed to be useless (i.e., they were incapable of retrieving the object). The...
Evidence for incubation effects in problem-solving is increasing, but the mechanisms that underlie incubation are unclear. An experiment tested two hypotheses about incubation: Spreading activation and opportunistic assimilation. Participants solved easy or difficult remote associates tasks without incubation period, or with an incubation period filled with high or low cognitive load tasks. A lexical decision task with cue and neutral words was given either before or after a second problem attempt. When solving difficult problems, the low-load incubation group benefitted more from the presence of a cue than the high-load incubation group, and the opposite was found with easy problems. Neither incubation nor an initial problem attempt affected lexical decision times to cue words. The results favour opportunistic assimilation as an explanation of incubation effects. They also suggest a differential role for attentional allocation depending on problem difficulty, easy problems benefitting from focused attention and difficult problems benefitting from diffuse attention.