Evaluating language models for mathematics through interactions

There is much excitement about the opportunity to harness the power of large language models (LLMs) when building problem-solving assistants. However, the standard methodology of evaluating LLMs relies on static pairs of inputs and outputs; this is insufficient for making an informed decision about which LLMs are best to use in an interactive setting, and how that varies by setting. Static assessment therefore limits how we understand language model capabilities. We introduce CheckMate, an adaptable prototype platform for humans to interact with and evaluate LLMs. We conduct a study with CheckMate to evaluate three language models (InstructGPT, ChatGPT, and GPT-4) as assistants in proving undergraduate-level mathematics, with a mixed cohort of participants from undergraduate students to professors of mathematics. We release the resulting interaction and rating dataset, MathConverse. By analyzing MathConverse, we derive a taxonomy of human query behaviors and uncover that despite a generally positive correlation, there are notable instances of divergence between correctness and perceived helpfulness in LLM generations, among other findings. Further, we garner a more granular understanding of GPT-4 mathematical problem-solving through a series of case studies, contributed by experienced mathematicians. We conclude with actionable takeaways for ML practitioners and mathematicians: models that communicate uncertainty, respond well to user corrections, and can provide a concise rationale for their recommendations, may constitute better assistants. Humans should inspect LLM output carefully given their current shortcomings and potential for surprising fallibility.

The effect of episodic specificity inductions on cognitive tasks involving episodic retrieval: A quantitative review

A growing body of research suggests that an episodic specificity induction (ESI), that is, training in recalled details of a (recent) past event, impacts performance on subsequent tasks that require episodic retrieval processes. The constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter and Addis, 2007) posits that various tasks which require, at least partially, episodic retrieval processes rely on a single, flexible episodic memory system. As such, a specificity induction activates that episodic memory system and improves subsequent performance on tasks that require use of that memory system. The present quantitative review analyzed the literature demonstrating that the Episodic Specificity Induction (ESI) improves performance on subsequence cognitive tasks that require (at least partial) episodic retrieval processes. Twenty-three studies met criteria for measuring the impact of ESI, compared to a non-specificity control induction(s), on subsequent tasks requiring edpisodic retrieval, including memory, imagination, problem solving, divergent thinking. The results of this review demonstrate a strong, positive effect of ESI on episodic memory, imagination, divergent thinking, and problem-solving tasks.

Exploring the Relationship Between Work Stress and Work-related Rumination

Current studies lack adequate analysis of the antecedents of the two forms of work-related rumination. However, understanding the relationship between different types of stress and the two forms of rumination is of profound significance for eliminating the influence of negative rumination. In this project, three studies were conducted to investigate the cumulative and immediate effects of challenge and hindrance stress on affective rumination and problem-solving rumination based on one-time, two-time points and daily measurements. Participants were 1109, 605 and 111 employees from a variety of jobs in Chinese mainland. The results showed the relationship between hindrance stress and affective rumination varies over different time course. There was no significant correlation between hindrance stress and problem-solving rumination over any time course. The relationship between challenge stress and two forms of work-related rumination varies over different time course. The results of this study suggest that the antecedent analysis of work-related rumination should not only give attention to the type of work stress, but also consider the time of work stress when analyzing its aftereffects.

Does Employment Complexity Promote Healthy Cognitive Aging in Down Syndrome?

Adults with Down syndrome (DS) experience high risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but there is variability in the timing of transition from a cognitively stable state to prodromal AD and dementia. The present study examined the association between a modifiable lifestyle factor, employment complexity, and cognitive decline across two time points in adults with DS. Employment complexity, defined as the degree of problem-solving or critical thinking required for employment activities, was operationalized using the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, a system which classifies occupations based on three categories: Data, People, and Things. Eighty-seven adults with DS (M = 36.28 years, SD = 6.90 years) were included in analyses. Partial correlations revealed that lower employment complexity involving People and Things were associated with increased dementia symptoms. Lower employment complexity involving Things was also associated with memory decline. These findings have implications for vocational programs focused on job training and placement for adults with DS.

Functional fixedness in chimpanzees

Differences in the tool use of non-human primates and humans are subject of ongoing debate. In humans, representations of object functions underpin efficient tool use. Yet, representations of object functions can lead to functional fixedness, which describes the fixation on a familiar tool function leading to less efficient problem solving when the problem requires using the tool for a new function. In the current study, we examined whether chimpanzees exhibit functional fixedness. After solving a problem with a tool, chimpanzees were less efficient in solving another problem which required using the same tool with a different function compared to a control group. This fixation effect was still apparent after a period of nine months and when chimpanzees had learned about the function of a tool by observation of a conspecific. These results suggest that functional fixedness in our closest living relatives likely exists and cast doubt on the notion that stable function representations are uniquely human.

Question-asking as a mechanism of information seeking

Ivancovsky et al. explore the relationship between curiosity and creativity, by suggesting they align through novelty-seeking mechanisms. We argue that a general mechanism linking both capacities together is question-asking: Curiosity drives question-asking that leads to creative problem solving. Yet, current findings from our lab suggest that question complexity relates to creativity, but not necessarily to curiosity, warranting further investigation.

Investigating low intelligence stereotype threat in adults with developmental dyslexia

Stereotype threat (ST) is a phenomenon that leads to decreased test performance and occurs when one deals with added pressure of being judged on the basis of stereotyped group membership. The ST effect has been previously investigated in many contexts but not in individuals with dyslexia who are often stereotyped as less intelligent. Prevalent use of intelligence tests in job selection processes and employment gap between people with dyslexia and those without warrants this investigation. Sixty-three participants (30 with dyslexia and 33 without dyslexia; mean age = 33.7; SD = 13.7; 47 F, 13 M, three non-binary) were asked to complete intelligence test typically used in selection processes. All participants were randomly assigned to one of three test instruction conditions: (1) they were told the test was diagnostic of their intelligence (ST triggering instruction); (2) test was a measure of their problem-solving skills (reduced threat); (3) or they were simply asked to take the test (control). Results showed that participants with dyslexia in ST condition performed poorer than those in other conditions and those in the same condition who did not have dyslexia. This study provides preliminary evidence for diminishing effects of ST in individuals with dyslexia.

Form perception is a cognitive correlate of the relation between subitizing ability and math performance

"Subitizing" defines a phenomenon whereby approximately four items can be quickly and accurately processed. Studies have shown the close association between subitizing and math performance, however, the mechanism for the association remains unclear. The present study was conducted to investigate whether form perception assessed on a serial figure matching task is a potential non-numerical mechanism between subitizing ability and math performance. Three-hundred and seventy-three Chinese primary school students completed four kinds of dot comparison tasks, serial figure matching task, math performance tasks (including three arithmetic computation tasks and math word problem task), and other cognitive tasks as their general cognitive abilities were observed as covariates. A series of hierarchical regression analyses showed that after controlling for age, gender, nonverbal matrix reasoning, and visual tracking, subitizing comparison (subitizing vs. subitizing, subitizing vs. estimation) still contributed to simple addition or simple subtraction but not to complex subtraction ability or math word problem. After taking form perception as an additional control variable, the predictive power of different dot comparison conditions disappeared. A path model also showed that form perception fully mediates the relation between numerosity comparison (within and beyond the subitizing range) and arithmetic performance. These findings support the claim that form perception is a non-numerical cognitive correlate of the relation between subitizing ability and math performance (especially arithmetic computation).

Neural Correlates of Analogical Reasoning on Syntactic Patterns

Analogical reasoning is central to thought and learning. However, previous neuroscience studies have focused mainly on neural substrates for visuospatial and semantic analogies. There has not yet been research on the neural correlates of analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns generated by the syntactic rules, a key feature of human language faculty. The present investigation took an initial step to address this paucity. Twenty-four participants, whose brain activity was monitored by fMRI, engaged in first-order and second-order relational judgments of syntactic patterns as well as simple and complex working memory tasks. After scanning, participants rated the difficulty of each step during analogical reasoning; these ratings were related to signal intensities in activated regions of interest using Spearman correlation analyses. After prior research, differences in activation levels during second-order and first-order relational judgments were taken as evidence of analogical reasoning. These analyses showed that analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns recruited brain regions consistent with those supporting visuospatial and semantic analogies, including the anterior and posterior parts of the left middle frontal gyrus, anatomically corresponding to the left rostrolateral pFC and the left dorsolateral pFC. The correlation results further revealed that the posterior middle frontal gyrus might be involved in analogical access and mapping with syntactic patterns. Our study is the first to investigate the process of analogical reasoning on syntactic patterns at the neurobiological level and provide evidence of the specific functional roles of related regions during subprocesses of analogical reasoning.

Potential cognitive risks of generative transformer-based AI chatbots on higher order executive functions

BACKGROUND

Chat generative retrained transformer (ChatGPT) represents a groundbreaking advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI-chatbot) technology, utilizing transformer algorithms to enhance natural language processing and facilitating their use for addressing specific tasks. These AI chatbots can respond to questions by generating verbal instructions similar to those a person would provide during the problem-solving process.

AIM

ChatGPT has become the fastest growing software in terms of user adoption in history, leading to an anticipated widespread use of this technology in the general population. Current literature is predominantly focused on the functional aspects of these technologies, but the field has not yet explored hypotheses on how these AI chatbots could impact the evolutionary aspects of human cognitive development. Thesis: The "neuronal recycling hypothesis" posits that the brain undergoes structural transformation by incorporating new cultural tools into "neural niches," consequently altering individual cognition. In the case of technological tools, it has been established that they reduce the cognitive demand needed to solve tasks through a process called "cognitive offloading." In this theoretical article, three hypotheses were proposed via forward inference about how algorithms such as ChatGPT and similar models may influence the cognitive processes and structures of upcoming generations.

CONCLUSIONS

By forecasting the neurocognitive effects of these technologies, educational and political communities can anticipate future scenarios and formulate strategic plans to either mitigate or enhance the cognitive influence that these factors may have on the general population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of problem domain on Bayesian inferences: A systematic investigation

Sparse (and occasionally contradictory) evidence exists regarding the impact of domain on probabilistic updating, some of which suggests that Bayesian word problems with medical content may be especially challenging. The present research aims to address this gap in knowledge through three pre-registered online studies, which involved a total of 2,238 participants. Bayesian word problems were related to one of three domains: medical, daily-life, and abstract. In the first two cases, problems presented realistic content and plausible numerical information, while in the latter, problems contained explicitly imaginary elements. Problems across domains were matched in terms of all relevant statistical values and, as much as possible, wording. Studies 1 and 2 utilized the same set of problems, but different response elicitation methods (i.e., an open-ended and a multiple-choice question, respectively). Study 3 involved a larger number of participants per condition and a smaller set of problems to more thoroughly investigate the magnitude of differences between the domains. There was a generally low rate of correct responses (17.2%, 17.4%, and 14.3% in Studies 1, 2, and 3, respectively), consistent with accuracy levels commonly observed in the literature for this specific task with online samples. Nonetheless, a small but significant difference between domains was observed: participants' accuracy did not differ between medical and daily-life problems, while it was significantly higher in corresponding abstract problems. These results suggest that medical problems are not inherently more difficult to solve, but rather that performance is improved with abstract problems for which participants cannot draw from their background knowledge.

Neural mechanisms distinguishing two types of cooperative problem-solving approaches: An fNIRS hyperscanning study

Collaborative cooperation (CC) and division of labor cooperation (DLC) are two prevalent forms of cooperative problem-solving approaches in daily life. Despite extensive research on the neural mechanisms underlying cooperative problem-solving approaches, a notable gap exists between the neural processes that support CC and DLC. The present study utilized a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning technique along with a classic cooperative tangram puzzle task to investigate the neural mechanisms engaged by both friends and stranger dyads during CC versus DLC. The key findings of this study were as follows: (1) Dyads exhibited superior behavioral performance in the DLC task than in the CC task. The CC task bolstered intra-brain functional connectivity and inter-brain synchrony (IBS) in regions linked to the mirror neuron system (MNS), spatial perception (SP) and cognitive control. (2) Friend dyads showed stronger IBS in brain regions associated with the MNS than stranger dyads. (3) Perspective-taking predicted not only dyads' behavioral performance in the CC task but also their IBS in brain regions associated with SP during the DLC task. Taken together, these findings elucidate the divergent behavioral performance and neural connection patterns between the two cooperative problem-solving approaches. This study provides novel insights into the various neurocognitive processes underlying flexible coordination strategies in real-world cooperative contexts.

The involvement of decomposition and composition processes in restructuring during problem solving

Decomposition of chunks has been widely accepted as a critical proxy of restructuring, but the role of composition in forming new representations has been largely neglected. This study aims to investigate the roles of both decomposition and composition processes in chunk restructuring, as well as their relationships with "aha" experiences during problem-solving. Participants were asked to move a part of a character to another character to create two new characters. Across three experiments, the characters to be decomposed or composed were varied in terms of tight or loose chunks. The results showed that decomposition or composition of tight chunks led to lower success rates, longer response times, and significantly stronger "Aha!" emotional experiences (mainly in terms of surprise and suddenness). This study provides evidence for the contribution of both decomposition and composition processes to restructuring in creative insight.

Peripheral vision and crowding in mental maze-solving

Solving a maze effectively relies on both perception and cognition. Studying maze-solving behavior contributes to our knowledge about these important processes. Through psychophysical experiments and modeling simulations, we examine the role of peripheral vision, specifically visual crowding in the periphery, in mental maze-solving. Experiment 1 measured gaze patterns while varying maze complexity, revealing a direct relationship between visual complexity and maze-solving efficiency. Simulations of the maze-solving task using a peripheral vision model confirmed the observed crowding effects while making an intriguing prediction that saccades provide a conservative measure of how far ahead observers can perceive the path. Experiment 2 confirms that observers can judge whether a point lies on the path at considerably greater distances than their average saccade. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that peripheral vision plays a key role in mental maze-solving.

A contribute to the default-interventionist and parallel accounts in deductive reasoning. The effect of decisional styles on logic and belief

Classical theories of reasoning equate System 1 with biases and System 2 with correct responses. Refined theories of reasoning propose the parallel model to explain the two systems. The first purpose of the present article is to give a contribution to the debate on the parallel and default-interventionfist models: we hypothesized when logic and belief conflict both logical validity and belief judgments will be affected with greater level of response errors and/or longer response times. The second purpose of this article is to assess the relationship between decisional styles and performance in deductive reasoning. Seventy-two participants participated in the experiment and completed 64 modus ponens and modus tollens syllogistic reasoning tasks. Accordingly, we found that belief and logic judgments were affected by the conflict condition, both in easy syllogisms (i.e., modus ponens) and in complex syllogisms (i.e., modus tollens). Findings showed also that participants with a rational decision-making style were more strongly influenced by logic than belief, whereas those with an intuitive decision-making style were more strongly influenced by belief than logic.

Cognitive processes that underlie mathematically gifted emergent bilinguals

The purpose of this study was to determine those cognitive measures that increase the likelihood of identifying mathematically gifted students who are emerging bilinguals. Elementary school children (Grades 1, 2, and 3) were administered a battery of math, vocabulary, reading, and cognitive measures (short-term memory, inhibition, and working memory in their first language (L1: Spanish) and second language (L2: English). Multilevel polytomous logistic modeling compared mathematically gifted children with children who were average math achievers or low math achievers. The results indicated that cognitive parameters that included estimation and working memory in the L2 and problem-solving in the L1 were unique predictors that significantly influenced whether a child was categorized as gifted relative to average achievers. Relative to average achievers, L2 parameters (magnitude judgment) and English reading were significantly related to the identification of children with low math computation. The results are discussed in terms of a multidimensional model that taps domain-specific skills and general cognitive processes that increase the ability to correctly identify children who score in the gifted range in both their L1 and L2.

Eye movements reveal that young school children shift attention when solving additions and subtractions

Adults shift their attention to the right or to the left along a spatial continuum when solving additions and subtractions, respectively. Studies suggest that these shifts not only support the exact computation of the results but also anticipatively narrow down the range of plausible answers when processing the operands. However, little is known on when and how these attentional shifts arise in childhood during the acquisition of arithmetic. Here, an eye-tracker with high spatio-temporal resolution was used to measure spontaneous eye movements, used as a proxy for attentional shifts, while children of 2nd (8 y-o; N = 50) and 4th (10 y-o; N = 48) Grade solved simple additions (e.g., 4+3) and subtractions (e.g., 3-2). Gaze patterns revealed horizontal and vertical attentional shifts in both groups. Critically, horizontal eye movements were observed in 4th Graders as soon as the first operand and the operator were presented and thus before the beginning of the exact computation. In 2nd Graders, attentional shifts were only observed after the presentation of the second operand just before the response was made. This demonstrates that spatial attention is recruited when children solve arithmetic problems, even in the early stages of learning mathematics. The time course of these attentional shifts suggests that with practice in arithmetic children start to use spatial attention to anticipatively guide the search for the answer and facilitate the implementation of solving procedures. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Additions and subtractions are associated to right and left attentional shifts in adults, but it is unknown when these mechanisms arise in childhood. Children of 8-10 years old solved single-digit additions and subtractions while looking at a blank screen. Eye movements showed that children of 8 years old already show spatial biases possibly to represent the response when knowing both operands. Children of 10 years old shift attention before knowing the second operand to anticipatively guide the search for plausible answers.

Time course of EEG power during creative problem-solving with insight or remote thinking

Problem-solving often requires creativity and is critical in everyday life. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative problem-solving remain poorly understood. Two mechanisms have been highlighted: the formation of new connections among problem elements and insight solving, characterized by sudden realization of a solution. In this study, we investigated EEG activity during a modified version of the remote associates test, a classical insight problem task that requires finding a word connecting three unrelated words. This allowed us to explore the brain correlates associated with the semantic remoteness of connections (by varying the remoteness of the solution word across trials) and with insight solving (identified as a Eurêka moment reported by the participants). Semantic remoteness was associated with power increase in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) in a left parieto-temporal cluster, the beta band (13-30 Hz) in a right fronto-temporal cluster in the early phase of the task, and the theta band (3-7 Hz) in a bilateral frontal cluster just prior to participants' responses. Insight solving was associated with power increase preceding participants' responses in the alpha and gamma (31-60 Hz) bands in a left temporal cluster and the theta band in a frontal cluster. Source reconstructions revealed the brain regions associated with these clusters. Overall, our findings shed new light on some of the mechanisms involved in creative problem-solving.

Comparison of Mathematics Problem-Solving Abilities in Autistic and Non-autistic Children: the Influence of Cognitive Profile

This study examines relationships between mathematical problem-solving performance (in terms of strategies used and accuracy) and the main cognitive domains associated with mathematical learning (i.e. executive functions, verbal comprehension and social perception) of children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD and non-ASD resp.). The study involved 26 ASD and 26 non-ASD children without intellectual disabilities, between 6 and 12 years old, matched by sex, age and school (grade and classroom). The results show a higher percentage of ASD children with problem solving difficulties than non-ASD (57% vs. 23% resp.). Poor performing ASD children showed comparatively lower scores in inhibition, theory of mind and verbal comprehension. Implications for the design of mathematical interventions for ASD students are discussed.

Resisting the urge to calculate: The relation between inhibitory control and perceptual cues in arithmetic performance

Subtle visual manipulations to the presentation of mathematical notation influence the way that students perceive and solve problems. While there is a consistent impact of perceptual cues on students' problem-solving, other cognitive skills such as inhibitory control may interact with perceptual cues to affect students' arithmetic problem-solving performance. We present an online experiment in which college students completed a version of the Stroop task followed by arithmetic problems in which the spacing between numbers and operators was either congruent (e.g., 2 + 3×4) or incongruent (e.g., 2+3 × 4) to the order of precedence. We found that students were comparably accurate between problem types but might have spent longer responding to problems with congruent than incongruent spacing. There was no main effect of inhibitory control on students' performance on these problems. However, an exploratory analysis on a combined performance measure of accuracy and response time revealed an interaction between problem type and inhibitory control. Students with higher inhibitory control performed better on congruent versus incongruent problems, whereas students with lower inhibitory control performed worse on congruent versus incongruent problems. Together, these results suggest that the relation between inhibitory control and arithmetic performance may not be straightforward. Furthermore, this work advances perceptual learning theory and contributes new findings on the contexts in which perceptual cues, such as spacing, influence arithmetic performance.

Revisiting the narrow latent scope bias in explanatory reasoning

Humans are capable explainers and lay people tend to share the same explanatory virtues held in high regard by philosophers and scientists. However, a recent line of studies found a striking deviation from normativity in lay people's explanations, termed the "narrow latent scope bias". When competing explanations with identical a priori probabilities fit observed evidence equally well - but differ in the number of unobserved pieces of evidence they predict (latent scope) - reasoners seem to prefer explanations that predict fewer unobserved pieces of evidence (narrow latent scope). This tendency has been described as a robust explanatory reasoning bias. The present paper empirically demonstrates across six experiments (N=2200) that this bias is less robust than has been claimed, and influenced by nuanced pragmatic inferences on the side of participants. Pragmatic factors shown to influence the bias are assumptions about how easily an unobserved piece of evidence should have been observed if it was present ("feature diagnosability"), and the formulation of the test question being asked. Across studies, genuine narrow latent scope biases resulting from fallacious reasoning were found only in a fraction of participants. It is also demonstrated that the magnitude of the bias depends on response options: it is stronger if participants are forced to commit an error, but at best weak if they are allowed to give the correct answer.

Neural evidence for procedural automatization during cognitive development: Intraparietal response to changes in very-small addition problem-size increases with age

Cognitive development is often thought to depend on qualitative changes in problem-solving strategies, with early developing algorithmic procedures (e.g., counting when adding numbers) considered being replaced by retrieval of associations (e.g., between operands and answers of addition problems) in adults. However, algorithmic procedures might also become automatized with practice. In a large cross-sectional fMRI study from age 8 to adulthood (n = 128), we evaluate this hypothesis by measuring neural changes associated with age-related reductions in a behavioral hallmark of mental addition, the problem-size effect (an increase in solving time as problem sum increases). We found that age-related decreases in problem-size effect were paralleled by age-related increases of activity in a region of the intraparietal sulcus that already supported the problem-size effect in 8- to 9-year-olds, at an age the effect is at least partly due to explicit counting. This developmental effect, which was also observed in the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex, was restricted to problems with operands ≤ 4. These findings are consistent with a model positing that very-small arithmetic problems-and not larger problems-might rely on an automatization of counting procedures rather than a shift towards retrieval, and suggest a neural automatization of procedural knowledge during cognitive development.

Neural activity and network analysis for understanding reasoning using the matrix reasoning task

Reasoning requires the ability to manipulate mental representations and understand relationships between objects. There is a paucity of research regarding the functional connections between multiple brain areas that may interact during commonly used reasoning tasks. The present study aimed to examine functional activation and connectivity of frontoparietal regions during a Matrix Decision Making Task, completed by twenty-one right-handed healthy participants while undergoing fMRI. Voxel-wise whole brain analysis of neural response to the task revealed activation spanning dorsal and lateral prefrontal, occipital, and parietal regions. Utilizing Group Iterative Multiple Model Estimation, a data-driven approach that estimates the presence and direction of connectivity between specific ROIs, connectivity between prefrontal and sensory processing regions were revealed. Moreover, the magnitude of connectivity strength between the left precentral gyrus and left dorsal cingulate (dACC) was positively correlated with MR behavioral performance. Taken together, results are consistent with earlier work demonstrating involvement of regions comprising the central executive network in relational reasoning. These data expand existing knowledge regarding communication of key brain regions during the task and demonstrate that understanding how key brain regions are interconnected can effectively predict the quality of behavioral output.

Response generation, not response execution, influences feelings of rightness in reasoning

It has been argued that the experience of ease (i.e., the ability to quickly generate an initial response) during processing influences one's likelihood of engaging reflectively when reasoning. This is a key facet of Metacognitive Reasoning Theory (MRT) and numerous studies have found support for this claim by showing that answers that come to mind quickly, are associated with higher feelings of rightness (FORs), and less reflective processing. However, the possibility remains that the critical determinant of FORs may be the speed of executing a response and not generating a response, given the nature of the evidence for this claim. Across two experiments, we manipulated the duration of the response execution to identify whether participants' FOR judgements are at least partially based on factors occurring after the initial mental generation of an answer. We found no evidence that FORs nor reflection are influenced by a manipulation of response execution. Broadly, the present investigation provides evidence that the relation between speed of response and FORs is likely due to the speed with which an answer is generated internally, and not the response execution phase. These findings are consistent with Metacognitive Reasoning Theory and provide further support for the suggestion that answer fluency is the critical variable in determining FORs. All data, scripts, and materials can be found at https://osf.io/f48az/.

Protecting against mental impasses: Evidence of selective retrieval mitigating the impact of fixation in creative problem solving

A common issue in creative problem solving is the unintended fixation on strongly associated, yet inappropriate solutions. In two experiments, we investigated whether lowering their accessibility by means of selective retrieval can positively affect subsequent problem-solving performance in a Compound Remote Associate test. Misleading associates were strengthened by letting participants memorize them alongside with neutral words. Half of the participants then selectively retrieved the neutral words in a cued recall test, temporarily weakening the activation level of induced fixation. In both experiments, this resulted in less impairment of subsequent performance for fixated CRA problems in early problem-solving stages (0-30 s). Additional results further revealed that participants who had engaged in prior selective retrieval perceived an increased feeling of having had immediate access to target solutions. These findings correspond to the assumption of inhibitory processes being a critical factor in both retrieval-induced forgetting and overcoming fixation in creative problem solving or preventing it from occurring in the first place. Also, they provide important insight into how strongly problem solving success is influenced by fixation.