Einstellung effect
(This is consistent with the famous remark of Blaise Pascal: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time.")
The water jar test, first described in Abraham S. Luchins' 1942 classic experiment,[1] is a commonly cited example of an Einstellung situation.
In a nutshell, inductive reasoning is the act of inferring a rule based on a finite number of instances.
Regarding the Einstellung effect, one can view noncontinuity theory as a way of explaining the tendency to maintain a specific behavior until it fails to work.
Where theories of inductive reasoning tend to diverge from the idea of the Einstellung effect is when analyzing the fact that, even after an instance where the Einstellung rule failed to work, many subjects reverted to the old solution when later presented with a problem for which it did work (again, this problem also had a better solution).
Neurologically, the idea of synaptic plasticity, which is an important neurochemical explanation of memory, can help to understand the Einstellung effect.
Essentially, a Hebbian explanation of Einstellung could be as follows: stimuli are presented in such a way that the subject recognizes themself as being in a situation which they have been in before.
The subject then must process the stimuli which are presented in such a way that they exhibit a behavior which is appropriate for the situation (be it run, throw, eat, etc.).
Regarding the Luchins' experiment,[1] the stimulus presented was a water-jar problem (or to be more technical, the stimulus was a piece of paper which had words and numbers on it which, when interpreted correctly, portray a water-jar problem) and the invoked response was B − A − 2C.
Even when college students were told ahead of time to use the direct method in order to avoid mistakes made by children, the college students continued to exhibit rigidity under time pressure.
The results of these studies showed that the emphasis on speed increased the Einstellung effect on the water jar problems.
Experimenters observed that the mirror-tracing task caused more drawing outside the boundaries, increased overt signs of stress and anxiety, and required more time to accurately complete.
The mirror-tracing situation produced 89% Einstellung solution on the first two criticals instead of the 71% observed for normal tracing.
There were no marked differences between the stutterers and the fluent speakers for the arithmetical and mirror maze tests.
However, the results reveal a significant difference between the performance of the stutterers and the fluent speakers on the "speech test".
Luchins devised another experiment to determine the difference between Einstellung effects in children and in adults.
Einstellung effects prior to the extinction task increased with age: the observed Einstellung effects for the extinction task were 56, 68, and 69 percent for young adults, children, and older adults respectively.
A similar experiment conducted by Heglin in 1955, also found this relationship when the three age groups were equated for IQ.
"Don't be blind" was meant as a reminder to pay attention and guard against rigidity for the sixth problem.
The alternative interpretations occurred more frequently in girls and increased with IQ score within the female group.
This difference in interpretation of "don't be blind" may account for the fact that the male DBB group showed more direct solutions than their female counterparts.
To determine sex differences in adults, Luchins gave college students the maze Einstellung test.
[15] In general, large Einstellung effects were observed for all subject groups regardless of IQ score.
