I think that the "quick" adjective in the title is purposeful misleading. You are supposed to learn quickly the most general rule, but that is not so easy because there are many possible rules that could fit such a pattern. It seems that you should be rewarded for solving the puzzle quickly and then you fall in the trap.
I propose to change the title to "A puzzle to test your Generalization Abilities", and state clearly that you should try to find the most general rule that satisfies all patterns you can think of. In that case, I would expect the conclusion and results of the experiment to be completely different. So to summarize: the so "quick" adjective in the title has a very strong anchor effect.
Edit: changed for grammar and to express more clearly what I think.
Maybe it should be "a puzzle many people already know the answer to" in which case the conclusion and results are already obviously biased.
I was able to solve the puzzle without testing any numbers at all. Which really skews the relevance of "only nine percent of people saw three 'no's before answering."
I "got lucky" in the sense that my experiences have primed me to recognize that particular kind of question. If the article had actually modified the question framing at all, rather than just copying the existing one, it maybe wouldn't have worked that way.
It's the same reaction I have to the Monte Hall problem: I don't have to think or be clever to get the right answer. So naturally you couldn't effectively teach me anything by simply posing the question, and any information you collect by doing so won't accurately reflect what I learn or how well I think. You'd just be testing topical familiarity.
The question could have read the exact same way, with a different final rule as the answer. Without testing at all, you wouldn't/couldn't know that...and so you didn't solve it..you just guessed...
Edit: changed for grammar and to express more clearly what I think.