The Emergence of Abstract Representations in Dyad Problem Solving

Three experiments examined whether group cognitions generate a product that is not easily ascribed to the cognitions that similar individuals have working alone. In each study, secondary-school students solved novel problems working either as individuals or in two-person groups called dyads. An examination of their problem-solving representations demonstrated that the dyads constructed abstractions well above the rate one would expect given a "most competent member" model of group performance applied to the empirical rate of individual abstractions. In the first experiment, dyads induced a numerical parity rule for determining the motions of linked gears four times more often than individuals, who instead tended to rely exclusively on modeling the gears' physical behaviors. In a second experiment requiring the construction of visualizations on the topic of biological transmissions, dyads made abstract visualizations (e.g., directed graphs) significantly more often than individuals. In a third experiment requiring a visualization of organisms and their habitat requirements, dyads made abstract visualizations (e.g., matrices) five times more often than individuals, who instead tended to draw pictures. These results are striking because a long history of experimentation has found little evidence that group performances can match the performances of the most competent individuals, let alone exceed them. The extremely high frequency of abstract representations among dyads suggests that the abstract representations emerged from collaborative cognitions not normally available to isolated individuals. The results are interpreted to be a natural result of the collaborative task demand of creating a common ground. To facilitate discourse, dyads negotiated a common representation that could serve as a touchstone for coordinating the members' different perspectives on the problem. Because the representation bridged multiple perspectives of the problem structure, it tended...