Abstract
A “failed” experiment (Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, 2021) tried to reveal the role played by materiality in solving an insight problem that made reference to embodied action, leading to valuable insights about the nature of cognition and the experimental method. In this commentary, we argue that this study reveals various forms of interactivity and brings new evidence against the idea that “pure” cognition can be isolated from either materiality or sociality. The question becomes, then, not whether the use of objects helps or hinders problem solving, but how objects, bodies, and other people participate in it, even in controlled lab settings, and to what effect. Reflections are offered on why and how cognition stays wild (i.e., embodied, dialogical, and surprising) and what this means for experimental work.