Solving stumpers, CRT and CRAT: Are the abilities related?

Abstract

Bar-Hillel, Noah and Frederick (2018) studied a class of riddles they called stumpers, which have simple, but curiously elusive, solutions. A canonical example is: “Andy is Bobbie’s brother, but Bobbie is not Andy’s brother. How come?” Though not discussed there, we found that the ability to solve stumpers correlates significantly with performance on items resembling the CRT (Cognitive Reflection Test) but not with performance on items from the CRAT (Compound Remote Associates Test). We report those results here.

Keywords

• stumpers
• riddles
• problem solving
• CRT
• CRAT
• insight problems
• cognitive ability
• representation