Huang Furong, Tang Shuang, Hu Zhujing
School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China.
Front Psychol. 2018 Dec 11;9:2568. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02568. eCollection 2018.
A mental set generally refers to the brain's tendency to stick with the most familiar solution to a problem and stubbornly ignore alternatives. This tendency is likely driven by previous knowledge (the long-term mental set) or is a temporary by-product of procedural learning (the short-term mental set). A similar problem situation is considered the factor required for perseveration of the long-term mental set, which may not be essential for the short-term mental set. To reveal the boundary conditions for perseveration of the short-term mental set, this study adopted a Chinese character decomposition task. Participants were asked to perform a practice problem that could be solved by a familiar loose chunk decomposition (loose solution) followed by a test problem, or they were asked to repeatedly perform 5-8practice problems followed by a test problem; the former is the base-set condition, and the latter is the enhanced-set condition. In Experiment 1, the test problem situation appeared to be similar to the practice problem and could be solved using the reinforced loose solution and also an unfamiliar tight chunk decomposition (tight solution) (a 2-solution problem). In Experiment 2, the test problem situation differed from the practice problem and could only be solved using an unfamiliar tight solution (a 1-solution problem). The results showed that, when comparing the enhanced-set and base-set conditions, both the accuracy rate and the response times for solving the test problem with a tight solution were worse in Experiment 1, whereas the response times were worse in Experiment 2. We concluded that perseveration of the short-term mental set was independent of the similarity between problem situations and discuss the differences in perseveration between two types of fixation.
思维定式通常是指大脑倾向于坚持对问题最熟悉的解决方案，而顽固地忽略其他可能性。这种倾向可能是由先前的知识驱动的（长期思维定式），或者是程序性学习的临时副产品（短期思维定式）。类似的问题情境被认为是长期思维定式持续存在所需的因素，而这对短期思维定式可能并非必不可少。为了揭示短期思维定式持续存在的边界条件，本研究采用了汉字分解任务。要求参与者先执行一个可以通过熟悉的松散组块分解（松散解法）解决的练习问题，然后是一个测试问题，或者要求他们反复执行5-8个练习问题，然后是一个测试问题；前者是基础组条件，后者是强化组条件。在实验1中，测试问题情境似乎与练习问题相似，可以使用强化的松散解法以及不熟悉的紧密组块分解（紧密解法）来解决（一个双解法问题）。在实验2中，测试问题情境与练习问题不同，只能使用不熟悉的紧密解法来解决（一个单解法问题）。结果表明，在比较强化组和基础组条件时，实验1中使用紧密解法解决测试问题的准确率和反应时间都更差，而实验2中的反应时间更差。我们得出结论，短期思维定式的持续存在与问题情境之间的相似性无关，并讨论了两种固定类型在持续存在方面的差异。
