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Should information be redundantly distributed among group members? Effective use of group memory in collaborative problem solving
Author(s) -
Ohtsubo Yohsuke
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1162
Subject(s) - pooling , psychology , group (periodic table) , memorization , task (project management) , social psychology , redundancy (engineering) , group testing , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , mathematics , combinatorics , chemistry , management , organic chemistry , economics , operating system
This study examined the relation between the redundancy in task assignment and group performance. It was predicted that assigning items to group members too redundantly would undermine group problem‐solving performance. To test this prediction, dyads and triads engaged in a problem‐solving task. A logic puzzle solvable with seven clues was employed as the task. Participants were asked to memorize the clues before engaging in group problem solving. In the shared condition, all seven clues were assigned to each group member. In the unshared condition, a portion of the seven clues was assigned to each member. Unshared triads whose members were assigned the smallest number of clues were most likely to return the correct solution. This result suggests that less redundant item assignment led to successful problem solving via information pooling among group members. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.