Looking at the lego structure in the article, it's pretty obvious that you could remove the "pillar support" and get a stable structure.
But... without an explicit description of the goals of the structure, you don't know if there's some reason that the roof was supposed to be raised. An additive solution is less risky, essentially, and can be implemented in the face of incomplete knowledge. That's Chesterton's fence in a nutshell.
In this structure, a roof is supported by a pillar at one corner of a building. When a brick is placed on top, the roof will collapse onto the figurine. Adams et al. asked study participants to stabilize the structure so that it would support the brick above the figurine, and analysed the ways in which participants solved the problem.
And in more detail from the notes on the original paper:
Participants could stabilize the top platform of the Lego structure so it could hold a masonry brick above the head of the action figure by adding new supports to reinforce the single corner block or by removing the corner block and letting the platform sit flush on the layer below. They earned $1 for successful completion, but adding Lego bricks cost money. The most profitable solution was to remove the single support. Participants were randomly assigned to instructions that explicitly stated ‘removing pieces is free’ (cue condition) or instructions that did not mention removing pieces (control condition).
It seems to me the problem to be solved was clearly stated (in the supplementary material, it is even more clear that the reference to a 'masonry brick' is an actual terracotta brick weighing ~3lbs, not an additional lego brick); the specific result was that In the control condition, 41% produced a subtractive transformation
and in the subtraction-cue condition 61% produced a subtractive transformation; but a follow-up experiment involving reviews of possible solutions shows they were perceived as equally valid (also in the SM).
I guess it's possible that what's being measured here is confused by a variable of whether people take things at face value, or assume 'there must be more to this even if not stated,' but even when told that removing bricks is acceptable, 40% of people choose not to.
Looking at the LEGO diagram, here's one thing that's "more to this" that isn't stated: shape.
When I saw the problem description, my natural inclination was to add a support brick in a way that doesn't stick out, to stabilize roof in that direction without altering the building's appearance from both ground level (how the action figures would see it) and air level (how a human would see it). Remove that main pillar instead, and the building is now a meaningfully different one. Additive solution feels much less invasive, and it's something I'd default for in real life, on the assumption the original architects / owners liked the existing looks, and would prefer it not to be visibly altered.
Of course, I then thought, "since looks are technically not a part of the problem definition, I could solve it by removing the middle brick" - but that's my software engineering experience kicking in. The way this thought feels is the same as if I discovered a neat work-minimizing hack when writing code, or in general, how I feel when solving logic puzzles. But in logic puzzles, I already know the whole point is to find the solutions that feel clever.
I think people do have some natural, subconscious intuition for Chesterton's fence - for minimizing unknown unknowns. And to shut it off, it takes more than just saying "removing bricks are allowed", you need to convince them to switch their thinking into puzzle mode, make them explicitly discount the solutions that feel obvious.
It seems kinda ironic to me that you're arguing for people being wired a certain way when the outcome of this (and the other experiments, which involved sandwich recipes) seems to point to the fact that people are not wired the same. I default to the opposite position of yours, ie taking the problem exactly as stated. Indeed, I find it quite challenging when posing some sort of hypothetical to people (eg in debate) and they import additional considerations rather than addressing an issue as stated - although this paper and this conversation give me a better understanding of why that might be.
You're right, I jumped to conclusions in the last paragraph. I definitely shouldn't assume people are wired the same. I myself am not exactly "neurotypical", so I know it first-hand.
So I'll revise my position to: based on my personal experience, observing people I know and general impression I get from reading and hearing things, I believe there is a non-trivial subset of the population, of which I'm a member, that has a sort of subconscious intuition for Chesterton's fence, and do not, by default, take problems at face value.
I hope they'll build on this research as there are benefits and costs to both thinking styles, and as you say there could be great value in knowing which when to make use of which thinking mode, rather than designating one as The Right Way and expecting people to always use it.
By the way I think you might find this paper of interest - about social dilemmas rather than cognitive styles, but I wonder if the results might not be rooted in the same sort of implicit assumption/intuition that you're positing.
But... without an explicit description of the goals of the structure, you don't know if there's some reason that the roof was supposed to be raised. An additive solution is less risky, essentially, and can be implemented in the face of incomplete knowledge. That's Chesterton's fence in a nutshell.