Topolinski Sascha, Bakhtiari Giti, Erle Thorsten M
University of Cologne, Germany.
University of Wuerzburg, Germany.
Cognition. 2016 Jan;146:439-52. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.10.019. Epub 2015 Nov 9.
When assessing a problem, many cues can be used to predict solvability and solving effort. Some of these cues, however, can be misleading. The present approach shows that a feature of a problem that is actually related to solving difficulty is used as a cue for solving ease when assessing the problem in the first place. For anagrams, it is an established effect that easy-to-pronounce anagrams (e.g., NOGAL) take more time to being solved than hard-to-pronounce anagrams (e.g., HNWEI). However, when assessing an anagram in the first place, individuals use the feature of pronounceability to predict solving ease, because pronounceability is an instantiation of the general mechanism of processing fluency. Participants (total N=536) received short and long anagrams and nonanagrams and judged solvability and solving ease intuitively without actually solving the items. Easy-to-pronounce letter strings were more frequently judged as being solvable than hard-to-pronounce letters strings (Experiment 1), and were estimated to require less effort (Experiments 2, 4-7) and time to be solved (Experiment 3). This effect was robust for short and long items, anagrams and nonanagrams, and presentation timings from 4 down to 0.5s, and affected novices and experts alike. Spontaneous solutions did not mediate this effect. Participants were sensitive to actual solvability even for long anagrams (6-11 letters long) presented only for 500 ms.
在评估一个问题时，可以使用许多线索来预测其可解决性和解决难度。然而，其中一些线索可能会产生误导。目前的研究方法表明，一个问题中实际上与解决难度相关的特征，在最初评估该问题时，会被用作解决难易程度的线索。对于字谜来说，一个已被证实的效应是，容易发音的字谜（如NOGAL）比难以发音的字谜（如HNWEI）需要更多时间来解决。然而，在最初评估一个字谜时，人们会利用可发音性这一特征来预测解决的难易程度，因为可发音性是加工流畅性这一一般机制的一个实例。参与者（总共N = 536）收到了短的和长的字谜以及非字谜，并在不实际解决这些项目的情况下直观地判断其可解决性和解决难易程度。容易发音的字母串比难以发音的字母串更常被判断为可解决（实验1），并且估计解决起来需要更少的努力（实验2、4 - 7）和时间（实验3）。这种效应对于短的和长的项目、字谜和非字谜，以及从4秒到0.5秒的呈现时间都是稳健的，并且对新手和专家都有影响。自发的解决方案并没有介导这种效应。即使对于仅呈现500毫秒的长字谜（6 - 11个字母长），参与者对实际的可解决性也很敏感。
