My thought process was essentially -- "Oh, right; I can just move this piece here and this other piece there, and there are smaller ones and eventually they can all be migrated over and I can mess with the stackings and shit and I'll get the answer. Yeah that's good enough." So I had a halfassed solution in less than 20 seconds. I don't know whether that counts as having solved the problem in less than 3 minutes.
Here's the abstract for the actual research article:
How Extraversion + Leads to Problem-Solving Ability - Springer
The study states that Hedonism and Stimulation, two
subtraits of the Big Five's Extroversion trait that deal with "living life to its fullest," are linked to succeeding in this task. Since all of the subtraits in a trait are supposed to be at least somewhat positively correlated (otherwise, why lump Gregariousness and Hedonism into the same trait?), it's kind of extrapolated from there that Extroversion plays a role.
Being engaged in puzzles and deriving pleasure from solving them makes you better at solving those puzzles. The article, especially its title, doesn't follow from this at all.
But that doesn't mean that this phenomenon isn't interesting. It's still interesting as hell.
Just.. .. c'mon, media. C'mon.