Working Wonders? Investigating insight with magic tricks

We propose a new approach to differentiate between insight and noninsight problem solving, by introducing magic tricks as problem solving domain. We argue that magic tricks are ideally suited to investigate representational change, the key mechanism that yields sudden insight into the solution of a problem, because in order to gain insight into the magicians’ secret method, observers must overcome implicit constraints and thus change their problem representation. In Experiment 1, 50 participants were exposed to 34 different magic tricks, asking them to find out how the trick was accomplished. Upon solving a trick, participants indicated if they had reached the solution either with or without insight. Insight was reported in 41.1% of solutions. The new task domain revealed differences in solution accuracy, time course and solution confidence with insight solutions being more likely to be true, reached earlier, and obtaining higher confidence ratings. In Experiment 2, we explored which role self-imposed constraints actually play in magic tricks. 62 participants were presented with 12 magic tricks. One group received verbal cues, providing solution relevant information without giving the solution away. The control group received no informative cue. Experiment 2 showed that participants’ constraints were suggestible to verbal cues, resulting in higher solution rates. Thus, magic tricks provide more detailed information about the differences between insightful and noninsightful problem solving, and the underlying mechanisms that are necessary to have an insight.     

Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere

In one experiment, we tested for an association between semantic activation in the right hemisphere (RH) and left hemisphere (LH) and the Aha! experience when people recognize solutions to insight-like problems. The compound remote associate problems used in this experiment sometimes evoke an Aha! experience and sometimes do not. On each trial, participants (N = 44) attempted to solve these problems and, after 7 sec, named a target word, made a solution decision, and rated their insight experience of recognizing the solution. As in prior studies, the participants demonstrated more solution priming for solutions presented to the left visual field-RH (lvf-RH) than for solutions presented to the right visual field-LH (rvf-LH). As was predicted, following unsolved problems the participants showed greater priming for solutions that they rated as evoking an insight experience on the subsequent solution decision than for solutions that did not evoke an insight experience. This association was stronger for solutions presented to the lvf-RH than for those presented to the rvf-LH. These results tie the subjective experience of insight to an objective measure-semantic priming-and suggest that people have an Aha! experience in part because they already had semantic activation that could lead them to recognize the solution quickly. We believe semantic activation in both hemispheres cooperatively contributes to problem solving, but weak solution activation that contributes to the Aha! experience is more likely to occur in the RH than in the LH.     

The prepared mind: neural activity prior to problem presentation predicts subsequent solution by sudden insight

Insight occurs when problem solutions arise suddenly and seem obviously correct, and is associated with an "Aha!" experience. Prior theorizing concerning preparation that facilitates insight focused on solvers' problem-specific knowledge. We hypothesized that a distinct type of mental preparation, manifested in a distinct brain state, would facilitate insight problem solving independently of problem-specific knowledge. Consistent with this hypothesis, neural activity during a preparatory interval before subjects saw verbal problems predicted which problems they would subsequently solve with, versus without, self-reported insight. Specifically, electroencephalographic topography and frequency (Experiment 1) and functional magnetic resonance imaging signal (Experiment 2) both suggest that mental preparation leading to insight involves heightened activity in medial frontal areas associated with cognitive control and in temporal areas associated with semantic processing. The results for electroencephalographic topography suggest that noninsight preparation, in contrast, involves increased occipital activity consistent with an increase in externally directed visual attention. Thus, general preparatory mechanisms modulate problem-solving strategy.     

In search of the ‘Aha!’ experience: Elucidating the emotionality of insight problem‐solving

Although the experience of insight has long been noted, the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience, reflecting a sudden change in the brain that accompanies an insight solution, remains largely unknown. This work aimed to uncover the mystery of the ‘Aha!’ experience through three studies. In Study 1, participants were required to solve a set of verbal insight problems and then subjectively report their affective experience when solving the problem. The participants were found to have experienced many types of emotions, with happiness the most frequently reported one. Multidimensional scaling was employed in Study 2 to simplify the dimensions of these reported emotions. The results showed that these different types of emotions could be clearly placed in two‐dimensional space and that components constituting the ‘Aha!’ experience mainly reflected positive emotion and approached cognition. To validate previous findings, in Study 3, participants were asked to select the most appropriate emotional item describing their feelings at the time the problem was solved. The results of this study replicated the multidimensional construct consisting of approached cognition and positive affect. These three studies provide the first direct evidence of the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience. The potential significance of the findings was discussed.     

When the Solution Is on the Doorstep: Better Solving Performance,but Diminished Aha! Experience for Chess Experts on the Mutilated Checkerboard Problem

Insight problems are difficult because the initially activated knowledge hinders successful solving. The crucial information needed for a solution is often so far removed that gaining access to it through restructuring leads to the subjective experience of “Aha!”. Although this assumption is shared by most insight theories, there is little empirical evidence for the connection between the necessity of restructuring an incorrect problem representation and the Aha! experience. Here, we demonstrate a rare case where previous knowledge facilitates the solving of insight problems but reduces the accompanying Aha! experience. Chess players were more successful than non‐chess players at solving the mutilated checkerboard insight problem, which requires retrieval of chess‐related information about the color of the squares. Their success came at a price, since they reported a diminished Aha! experience compared to controls. Chess players’ problem‐solving ability was confined to that particular problem, since they struggled to a similar degree to non‐chess players to solve another insight problem (the eight‐coin problem), which does not require chess‐related information for a solution. Here, chess players and non‐chess players experienced the same degree of insight.     

Can People Recollect Well and Change Their Source Memory Bias of “Aha!” Experiences?

Although many scientific discoveries were frequently reported as kinds of insightful breakthrough that suddenly illuminated in one's mind, we can never exactly know whether these afterward reports were reliable or not. In this study, subjects were asked to solve a list of Remote Associate Test problems and got both subsets of the insightfully and routinely solved items. Then, this study examined whether people can recollect their “Aha!” experiences as well as “non‐Aha” ones. It was found that subjects were more accurate in recollecting their Aha! experiences relative to the routine ones. The study further examined if the report bias of Aha! or non‐Aha problem solving experiences could be changed by the afterward‐suggestive information that indicated the discovery is unique (rare) or not. It was found that the tendency for participants to falsely recollect their routine problem solving experience as Aha! ones if they were told the item they had solved was very rare, and the tendency to falsely recollect the Aha! problem solving experiences as routine ones if the item were said to be common.     

A factor related to the strength of an "Aha!" experience

Abstract: It is natural to assume that the strength of an "Aha!" becomes stronger when an unexpected solution is correct. In this study, this assumption is examined experimentally through a list of possible correct solutions. In the experiment, subjects listed the possible correct solutions before solving the problems, and evaluated the strength of their "Aha!" experience after they solved the problems. It was shown that the strength of the "Aha!" experience was strongest if the correct answer had not been included in the list of possible correct solutions; if included, the strength of the "Aha!" experience corresponded to the answer's position in the list, that is, the later the correct solution listed, the stronger the feeling became. It is suggested that the strength of an "Aha!" experience can be used as an error function in the learning process.     

再探猜谜作业中“顿悟”的ERP效应

采用事件相关电位(ERP)技术探讨顿悟问题（字谜）解决中提供答案后的脑内时程动态变化。结果发现,在250~400 ms内,“有顿悟”和“不理解”比“无顿悟”的ERP波形均有一个更为负向的偏移。在“有顿悟—无顿悟”和“不理解—无顿悟”的差异波中,这个负成分的潜伏期约为320 ms (N320),地形图显示,N320在中后部活动最强。进一步对“有顿悟—无顿悟”差异波作偶极子溯源分析,发现N320主要起源于扣带前回（ACC）附近。这似乎表明,N320可能反映了提供答案瞬间新旧思路之间的认知冲突,但是却不能真正揭示顿悟问题解决中思维定势的成功突破以及“恍然大悟”所对应的独特脑内时程变化     

Stepping out of history: mindfulness improves insight problem solving

Insight problem solving is hindered by automated verbal-conceptual processes. Because mindfulness meditation training aims at "nonconceptual awareness" which involves a reduced influence of habitual verbal-conceptual processes on the interpretation of ongoing experience, mindfulness may facilitate insight problem solving. This hypothesis was examined across two studies (total N=157). Participants in both studies completed a measure of trait mindfulness and a series of insight and noninsight problems. Further, participants in Study 2 completed measures of positive affect and a mindfulness or control training. The results indicated that (a) trait mindfulness predicts better insight but not noninsight problem solving (both studies), (b) this relation is maintained when controlling for positive affect (Study 2), (c) mindfulness training improves insight but not noninsight problem solving (Study 2) and (d) this improvement is partially mediated by state mindfulness (Study 2). These findings are the first to document a direct relation between mindfulness and creativity.     

新颖语义联结在顿悟促进记忆效果中的作用

采用成语谜题选择任务, 通过学习-测验范式探究顿悟促进记忆的认知神经机制。实验1采用行为实验, 验证成语谜题选择范式在探究顿悟促进记忆中的有效性, 结果显示, 相比于寻常联结条件, 新颖联结条件下被试在学习阶段具有更高的顿悟感得分, 在测试阶段具有更高的正确率, 范式的有效性得以验证。实验2采用fMRI技术探究顿悟促进记忆的关键脑区。结果显示, 相比于失败记忆新颖联结条件, 成功记忆新颖联结条件更强地激活了顿悟过程相关脑区, 包括海马、杏仁核、额中回、颞上回和颞中回。这说明在学习阶段的顿悟问题解决过程中, 对信息的深加工与积极情绪促进了随后的记忆; 对其进一步分析发现, 相比于寻常联结记忆, 新颖联结对记忆的促进效应主要与右侧海马激活有关, 它可能反映了在顿悟问题解决中新颖联结形成过程建立了情节记忆以及新颖且有价值的语义联结。研究结果表明新颖语义联结形成在顿悟促进记忆中发挥了重要作用。     

Cognitive Abilities Involved in Insight Problem Solving: An Individual Differences Model

This study investigated individual differences in cognitive abilities that contribute to solving insight problems. A model is proposed describing three types of cognitive ability that contribute independently to insight: convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and breaking frame. The model was tested in a large sample (N = 108) by regressing insight problem solving performance on measures of these three abilities. This analysis demonstrated that all three abilities predicted insight independently. Convergent thinking was further broken down into verbal intelligence and working memory, which also predicted insight independently of each other and of divergent thinking and breaking frame. Finally, when pitted against noninsight problem solving as a predictor in regression, only insight problem solving was uniquely associated with divergent thinking and breaking frame. The model is suggested as a potentially useful taxonomy for the study of ill-defined problems and cognitive abilities.     

Intuition in insight and noninsight problem solving

People’s metacognitions, both before and during problem solving, may be of importance in motivating and guiding problem-solving behavior. These metacognitions could also be diagnostic for distinguishing among different classes of problems, each perhaps controlled by different cognitive processes. In the present experiments, intuitions on classic insight problems were compared with those on noninsight and algebra problems. The findings were as follows: (1) subjective feeling of knowing predicted performance on algebra problems but not on insight problems; (2) subjects’ expectations of performance greatly exceeded their actual performance, especially on insight problems; (3) normative predictions provided a better estimate of individual performance than did subjects’ own predictions, especially on the insight problems; and, most importantly, (4) the patterns-of-warmth ratings, which reflect subjects’ feelings of approaching solution, differed for insight and noninsight problems. Algebra problems and noninsight problems showed a more incremental pattern over the course of solving than did insight problems. In general, then, the data indicated that noninsight problems were open to accurate predictions of performance, whereas insight problems were opaque to such predictions. Also, the phenomenology of insight-problem solution was characterized by a sudden, unforeseen flash of illumination. We propose that the difference in phenomenology accompanying insight and noninsight problem solving, as empirically demonstrated here, be used to define insight.     

The Aha! moment: Is insight a different form of problem solving?

In everyday life, we mainly solve problems with a conscious solution search (non-insight). However, sometimes a perplexing problem is resolved by a quantum leap in understanding. This phenomenon is known as the Aha! experience (insight). Although insight has a distinct phenomenological and behavioral signature, its driving mechanism remains debated. Weisberg (2015) proposed an integrated theory of insight arguing that insight, like non-insight, mainly depends on conscious, cognitive operations with restructuring as a distinguishing feature of insight. However, only if those operations lead to an impasse, insight is achieved through unconscious processes. We assessed some of the premises of this theory by asking participants (N = 42) to solve 70 word puzzles (CRAT) that can either be solved with insight or non-insight. For each puzzle, participants indicated word puzzle difficulty, solution confidence, solution suddenness, and the experiences of impasse and restructuring. As expected, participants reported higher suddenness of and confidence in insight solutions than non-insightful ones. Surprisingly, we could not corroborate the otherwise consistently reported higher solution accuracy and faster solution speed for insight. Crucially, as suggested by the integrated theory of insight, impasse was not a prerequisite for insight to occur. Although restructuring, indeed, preceded insight solutions more often, it seemed a more general problem-solving skill also applied for non-insight solutions. Moreover, early on, participants reported an increased experience of problem difficulty for puzzles later solved with insight. This ability to report on the solution search of insight demonstrates that, as proposed by the theory, insight involves conscious, cognitive operations.     

Accountability Reduces Unconscious Plagiarism

We investigated how holding participants accountable for their responses affected unconscious plagiarism when solving a Boggle puzzle task (finding words in a 4 × 4 letter matrix). Both experimental and control participants (N = 60) generated puzzle solutions with a computer partner, recalled their own previously generated solutions, and then produced new solutions to the puzzles. Accountability was manipulated by telling participants in the experimental group before beginning the initial‐generation phase that at the end of the session, they would review their generated responses with the researcher (accountable participants). Accountable participants plagiarized less than control participants when generating words with the computer and generating new solutions on their own but not when they were attempting to recall words they initially generated. The data are discussed in terms of the leading theoretical explanation of unconscious plagiarism, the source‐monitoring framework. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Aha! Moment: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight

ABSTRACT— A sudden comprehension that solves a problem, reinterprets a situation, explains a joke, or resolves an ambiguous percept is called an insight (i.e., the " Aha! moment"). Psychologists have studied insight using behavioral methods for nearly a century. Recently, the tools of cognitive neuroscience have been applied to this phenomenon. A series of studies have used electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural correlates of the " Aha! moment" and its antecedents. Although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected from the immediately preceding thought, these studies show that insight is the culmination of a series of brain states and processes operating at different time scales. Elucidation of these precursors suggests interventional opportunities for the facilitation of insight.     

The influences of partner accuracy and partner memory ability on social false memories

In this study, we examined whether increasing the proportion of false information suggested by a confederate would influence the magnitude of socially introduced false memories in the social contagion paradigm Roediger, Meade, & Bergman (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8:365–371, 2001). One participant and one confederate collaboratively recalled items from previously studied household scenes. During collaboration, the confederate interjected 0 %, 33 %, 66 %, or 100 % false items. On subsequent individual-recall tests across three experiments, participants were just as likely to incorporate misleading suggestions from a partner who was mostly accurate (33 % incorrect) as they were from a partner who was not at all accurate (100 % incorrect). Even when participants witnessed firsthand that their partner had a very poor memory on a related memory task, they were still as likely to incorporate the confederate’s entirely misleading suggestions on subsequent recall and recognition tests (Exp. 2). Only when participants witnessed firsthand that their partner had a very poor memory on a practice test of the experimental task itself were they able to reduce false memory, and this reduction occurred selectively on a subsequent individual recognition test (Exp. 3). These data demonstrate that participants do not always consider their partners’ memory ability when working on collaborative memory tasks.     

The recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narratives about a long-ago tornado

The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are thought to develop over the course of the first two decades of life. We used a 9-year follow-up test of recall of a devastating tornado and of non-tornado-related events from before and after the storm, to compare the recollective qualities of adolescents’ (n?=?20, ages 11 years, 11 months to 20 years, 8 months) and adults’ (n?=?14) autobiographical memories. At the time of the tornado, half of the adolescents had been younger than age 6. Nine years after the event, all participants provided evidence that they recall the event of the tornado. Adults also had high levels of recall of the non-tornado-related events. Adolescents recalled proportionally fewer non-tornado-related events; adolescents younger than 6 at the time of the events recalled the fewest non-tornado-related events. Relative to adolescents, adults produced longer narratives. With narrative length controlled, there were few differences in the recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narrative reports, especially in the case of the tornado; the recollective qualities were stronger among adolescents older at the time of the events. Overall, participants in both age groups provided evidence of the qualities of recollection that are characteristic of autobiographical memory.     

The Experience of Insight Facilitates Long-Term Semantic Priming in the Right Hemisphere

While past research has demonstrated a link between the subjective “Aha” experience of insight and verbal insight problem solution activation in the right hemisphere (RH), no one has yet linked insight to long term semantic priming. We propose that through a shared process of semantic integration both of these concepts are linked and thus the experience of insight should facilitate semantic priming in the RH. Participants attempted to solve a group of compound remote associate problems and afterwards completed a lexical decision task. The results showed that the experience of insight facilitated semantic priming in the RH, but only for unsolved compound remote associate problems. It was also shown that participants who indicated that they generated more solutions through insight that were incorrect demonstrated the most semantic priming in the RH. These results indicate that long-term semantic priming can occur as a result of insight solutions, and that this activation occurs predominantly in the RH. This study extends both the evidence for long-lasting semantic priming as well the theory of coarse semantic coding in the RH.     

Does feigning amnesia impair subsequent recall?

Defendants who are accused of serious crimes sometimes feign amnesia to evade criminal responsibility. Previous research has suggested that feigning amnesia might impair subsequent recall. In two experiments, participants read and heard a story about a central character, described as “you,” who was responsible for the death of either a puppy (Experiment 1) or a friend (Experiment 2). On free and cued recall tests immediately after the story, participants who had feigned amnesia recalled less than did participants who had recalled accurately. One week later, when all participants recalled accurately, participants who had previously feigned amnesia still performed worse than did participants who had recalled accurately both times. However, the participants who had formerly feigned amnesia did not perform worse than did a control group who had received only the delayed recall tests. Our results suggest that a “feigned amnesia effect” may reflect nothing more than differential practice at recall. Feigning amnesia for a crime need not impair memory for that crime when a person later seeks to remember accurately.     

Geographic Memory Bubbles: Recall of the Fifty United States

The participants (N?=?180) in this study resided in two different states (i.e., North Dakota (ND) and Georgia (GA)). Each participant completed two tasks in a counterbalanced order: 1) free recall of the fifty United States and 2) recall of the fifty United States using a numbered map of the United States where they matched the state name to the actual state on the map. There were significant differences in recall by task. Also, there were significant chi-square values and a significant interaction for the states recalled by ND participants and GA participants. Participants demonstrated high recall (70 % or higher) for the 5–7 states surrounding their state of residence (e.g., primary geographic memory bubble). All participants had high recall for the states of WA, CA, NV, TX, FL, ME, AK and HI (e.g., secondary geographic memory bubble). The implications of these results relating to geographic illiteracy, instruction, and memory are discussed.