Insight solutions are correct more often than analytic solutions |
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| Authors: | Carola Salvi Emanuela Bricolo John Kounios Edward Bowden Mark Beeman |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology and Cognitive Brain Mapping Group, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA;2. Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Chicago, IL, USA;3. Department of Psychology, Milano-Bicocca University, Milano, Italy;4. Department of Psychology, Stratton Hall, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA;5. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, WI, USA |
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| Abstract: | How accurate are insights compared to analytical solutions? In four experiments, we investigated how participants' solving strategies influenced their solution accuracies across different types of problems, including one that was linguistic, one that was visual and two that were mixed visual-linguistic. In each experiment, participants' self-judged insight solutions were, on average, more accurate than their analytic ones. We hypothesised that insight solutions have superior accuracy because they emerge into consciousness in an all-or-nothing fashion when the unconscious solving process is complete, whereas analytic solutions can be guesses based on conscious, prematurely terminated, processing. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that participants' analytic solutions included relatively more incorrect responses (i.e., errors of commission) than timeouts (i.e., errors of omission) compared to their insight responses. |
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| Keywords: | Creativity insight problem solving |
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