ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
The Modulating Role of Sources of Difficulty in Interactive Matchstick Algebra
Provisionally accepted
- 1Rossijskaa akademia narodnogo hozajstva i gosudarstvennoj sluzby pri Prezidente Rossijskoj Federacii, Moscow, Russia
- 2Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
- 3Universitat Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany
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Interactive problem solving was proposed by Weller et al. (2011) as an experimental manipulation that significantly increased the success of solving various matchstick algebra problems by allowing solvers to interact with physical representations of the problems. In contrast to their work, we hypothesize that the influence of interactivity would vary based on the specific sources of difficulty inherent in the problems: perceptual chunks and cognitive constraints. We carried out a conceptual extended replication of the aforementioned experiment across three experimental series with conditions of varying degrees of interactivity, but failed to reproduce interactive solutions amongst our participants. A follow-up analysis of motor activity showed that the movements of the solvers did not contribute to chunk decomposition but significantly interfered with the relaxation of higher-level constraints. These findings suggest that motor activity can hinder performance when it does not align with the cognitive demands of the task. We therefore call for a more targeted and problem-specific understanding of how physical interaction contributes to restructuring in insight problem solving.
Keywords: cognitive constraints, insight problem solving, Interactivity, Motor Activity, perceptual chunks
Received: 24 Aug 2025; Accepted: 17 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Spiridonov, Erofeeva, Klowait, Morozov and Ardislamov. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nils Klowait
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