ABSTRACT
We report some experiments designed to identify the components of general problem-solving ability, both capacities and strategies. The first experiment looked for group differences in a possible capacity, the ability to use weak retrieval cues of the sort provided by acrostic puzzles, an ability of general value in problem solving. Graduate students (good problem solvers, we assume) and a control group read words aloud and were then unexpectedly tested for memory of the words. The students were more able than the controls to use weak cues consisting of a few letters from each word but less able to recognize the words themselves. The group differences in recognition are ascribed to greater familiarity of all words to students. An attempt to equate effective frequency eliminated the group difference in recognition, a result suggesting that the groups do not differ in incidental-learning ability. The last two experiments look for group differences in strategies useful in discovery of rules or principles, such as spelling sound rules. Students are more likely to modify their own proposed rules on the basis of counterexamples and more likely to state principles spontaneously.
