The Effects Of Clues In Anagram Solving

Insight is one of the problems which are so popular in creative thinking research recently. Insight problem solving is a complex psychological phenomenon, involving so many cognitive processes. Both consciousness and unconsciousness play important role in insight problem solving, and have their own processing mechanism. Seven experiments were conducted to explore the impact of clues in Chinese anagrams solving. Experiment 1 to 4 tested the effects of clues'type, its effectiveness and conscious level which it was shown. Experiment 5 to 7 focused on the activation of answer from clues, the relation between metacognition judgement and answer activation in anagram solving.The main results and conclusions are as follows:1 The use of clues in anagrams solving depends on their style, effectiveness and conscious level they have been shown. 1) When clues are shown consciously, semantic clues is more effective than guessing rules. When they are shown unconsciously, guessing rules is more effective than semantic clues. 2) When valid clues are shown consciously, semantic clues and guessing rules can activate more information. When they are shown unconsciously, semantic clues have no use in problem solving while guessing rules'impact keep still. 3) Invalid clues interfere with problem solving when they are shown consciously. But the interference is unavailable when they are shown unconsciously. Interference effect has no relation with clues'style.2 Semantic clues can activate the word from semantic memory directly while the guessing rules can't.3 FOK can predict the activation of routine problem accurately, while not the insight problem. Moreover, the right answer always get high FOK, wrong answer get lower FOK in two types problem solving.This study supports memory-sensitization hypothesis. At the same time, experiment 4 found that unconscious activation is sensitive to same domain information. This conclusion further complemented memory-sensitization hypothesis.