Fig. 1. Experimental task and design.

(A) The task consisted of minimizing the time it took a wheel to travel down an inclined track. The wheel had four radial spokes. On each spoke, a weight could be moved closer to or farther from the center of the wheel on 12 positions. (B) The participants performed the task as members of chains of five participants. Each of the participants had five trials to improve the wheel system by modifying the wheel configuration. The experimenter transmitted to each participant (except those of the first generation) the information about the last two trials (gray) of the previous participant. After the five trials, the participants’ understanding of the wheel system was assessed with an understanding test (12 center-of-mass items and 12 inertia items). (C) In the Speed-Only condition, only the wheel speeds of the last two trials (gray) were transmitted to the next participant. In the Configurations+Speed+Noise condition, the participants were given two weight configurations and their associated speeds (gray). The configurations came from the previous participant in the chain but were modified by randomly moving the four weights six positions closer to or farther from the center of the wheel.