Error and Temporal Patterns in Tower of Hanoi Performance: Cognitive Mechanisms and Individual Differences

Thirty-seven adult subjects were given a 15-move Tower of Hanoi (TOH) disk-transfer problem, for which accuracy, errors, and length of pause prior to a move were recorded. Subjects were also questioned as to whether and why they paused during problem solving. The majority of errors occurred at the 1st, 5th, and 9th moves and may reflect the use of maladaptive heuristics. Optimal performers increased their average pause time significantly more before these 3 moves than did poor performers, particularly at the 9th move. Optimal performers and, to a lesser degree, self-correcting performers devoted a disproportionate amount of time to the 3 problem junctures. The majority of subjects mentioned planning their moves during their pauses; however, this acknowledgment was not related to quality of performance. The nature of these planning responses suggests that working memory may be involved in performance on the TOH.