Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study examined whether collaboration helps or constrains insight problem solving using the Mutilated Checkerboard Problem, a classic task requiring representational change. One hundred participants solved the problem either individually, using think-aloud protocols (n = 50), or in dyads, using free conversation (n = 25 dyads). Dyads did not outperform individuals in solution rate or solution time, and solved the problem significantly less often than nominal dyads generated from individual performance. In unsolved cases, dyads also produced substantially more covering attempts than individuals, consistent with the possibility that partners became jointly fixated on a misleading strategy. Verbal-protocol analyses showed that successful solving was associated with producing more solution-relevant invariants and referring less often to invariant dimensions that were not relevant to the solution. Overall, collaboration appeared to constrain rather than enhance insight problem solving, suggesting that interaction may sometimes stabilize a shared but unproductive problem representation.