It is magic! How impossible solutions prevent the discovery of obvious ones?
@article{Thomas2018ItIM, title={It is magic! How impossible solutions prevent the discovery of obvious ones?}, author={Cyril Thomas and Andr{\'e} Didierjean and Gustav Kuhn}, journal={Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology}, year={2018}, volume={71}, pages={2481 - 2487} }
When confronted with an insight problem, some factors limit our capacity to discover the optimal solution. Previous research on problem solving has shown that the first idea that comes to participants’ minds can inhibit them from finding better alternative solutions. We used a magic trick to demonstrate that this mind fixing effect is more general than previously thought: a solution that participants knew to be incorrect and impossible inhibited the discovery of an easy alternative. We show…
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