A laboratory study on distributed problem solving by taking different perspectives

In this study, we investigated effects of having different per-spectives in solving collaborative tasks. A simple reason-ing task was given to several pairs of participants, each of whom discussed their views with their partner. Protocol anal-ysis was performed to reveal how people exchange informa-tion with a partner who has a different perspective to achieve successful collaboration. In the experiment, we controlled participants ’ perspectives, where the appearance of visual im-ages was manipulated based on Gestalt psychological theory. Three conditions were set up: (1) the distributed-view condi-tion, where one of two different perspectives was presented separately to each of the participants in a pair; (2) the dual-view condition, where two equivalent perspectives were pre-sented together to both participants; and (3) the single-view condition, where only a single perspective was presented to both participants. The experimental results showed no sig-nificant differences in problem-solving performance between the distributed- and dual-view conditions; however, the partici-pants in the distributed-view condition performed significantly better than those in the single-view condition. The protocol analysis also indicated that the participants in the distributed-view condition engaged in the task with their partner in com-plementary interactive ways, highlighting the nature of suc-cessful interaction style in collaboration