Figure 2.
An illustration of the sequence of events for each problem. The problem began with a 4-second fixation and then was followed by a problem that stayed on the screen until the participant answered or until 30 seconds were up. Participants responded by clicking the answer in the keypad with a mouse. This was followed by feedback on the correct answer and its derivation. After seeing the feedback for 5 seconds, participants were given a repetition-detection task for 12 seconds. In this task letters appeared on the screen at the rate of 1 per 1.25 seconds. Participants were instructed to click an onscreen button each time they detected a pair of letters that were the same. The function of this task was to distract the participant from the previous problem and return them to a relatively common neutral state.