Cognitive approaches to predicting group performance: Distraction, compensation and accentuation

On the basis of an interdependent task, contradictory predictions on group achievement were tested by comparing group performance with a single person condition. The distracter hypothesis claims that group members distract ea ch other from solving a task and that this distraction causes process losse s if cognitive load is high (worse performance in the group condition). Acc ording to the compensation hypothesis, however, assembly bonus effects may be expected because group members may better compensate for errors than ind ividuals (better performance in the group condition). Finally, the accentua tion hypothesis predicts a group advantage if single group members favour a dequate problem solving strategies (assembly bonus effect); however, if sub jects tend to use wrong strategies, process losses may be expected by accen tuating the usage of wrong strategies. Participants, who were first individ ually taught a correct strategy (goal-recursion procedure) or a wrong strat egy (move-pattern procedure), were asked to solve several Tower of Hanoi pr oblems either individually or in pairs. Results confirmed the accentuation hypothesis: If participants had access to a correct strategy, the pairs out performed the individuals (bonus effect); however, if participants had lear ned a wrong strategy which could not be directly applied to the tasks at ha nd, the single individuals outperformed the pairs (process losses).