Numerous studies of insight problem solving are focused on both the control and storage systems of working memory. We obtained contradictory data about how working memory systems are involved in insight problem solving process. We argue that measuring the dynamics of the control system and storage systems through the course of problem solving can provide a more refined view on the processes involved, as a whole, and explain the existing controversies. We theorize that specific insight mechanisms require varying working memory capacities at different stages of the problem solving process. Our study employed a dual task paradigm to track the dynamics of working memory systems load during problem solving by measuring the reaction time in a secondary probe-task during different stages of problem solving. We varied the modality (verbal, visual) and the complexity of the probe-task during insight and non-insight problem solving. The results indicated that the dynamics of working memory load in insight problems differs from those in non-insight problems. Our first experiment shows that the complexity of the probe-task affects overall probe-task reaction times in both insight and non-insight problem solving. Our second experiment demonstrates that the solution of a non-insight problem is primarily associated with the working memory control system, while insight problems rely on relevant storage systems. Our results confirm that insight process requires access to various systems of working memory throughout the solution. We found that working memory load in non-insight problems increases from stage to stage due to allocation of the attentional control resources to interim calculations. The nature of the dynamics of working memory load in insight problems remains debatable. We claim that insight problem solving demands working memory storage during the entire problem solving process and that control system plays an important role just prior to the solution.

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Владимиров Илья Юрьевич, кандидат психологических наук, доцент кафедры общей психологии, Ярославский государственный университет имени П.Г. Демидова, Ярославль, Россия.

TThe paper focuses on the issue of research methods in studying insight. Since the process of insight is quite difficult to verbalize, researchers are presented with the methodological challenge of its objectifica- tion. One of the possible methods is the analysis of gnostic actions as components of a single integrated system of perceptive and thinking activity aimed at problem solving. The paper analyzes past and present periods in the explorations of insight with this method and suggests that eye tracking in problem solving is the most perspective technology. It reviews the studies of G. Knoblich, J. Ellis, E, Grant and M. Spivey, L. Thomas and A. Lleras, D. Kahneman, J.T. Wang and others. The paper compares various characteristics of eye movements and their content and discusses perspectives for the study on insight using the method of eye movement tracking, that is, testing the theoretical assumptions concerning the mechanisms of insight in problem solving and revealing the processes underlying insight.

The present paper investigates the problem of mechanisms of the development of the effect of mental set, which is at the core of the processes of the implicit learning, development of the experience and solving creative tasks. As such mechanisms we investigate the change of the parameters of functioning of executive control and working memory subsystems. As a result of an experimental study, based on modified tasks by A. Luchins, it was found that mechanisms of the development of the effect of mental set have a systematic nature and include such factors as the change of the parameters of the executive functions and the specifics of the processing and storage of information in modality-specific blocks of the working memory. The role of the executive control is dual: it is necessary for keeping in the sphere of the attention the operations during their automatization, and at the same it, it makes the automatized scheme conscient by destructing the developed effect of the mental set. The executive control plays a role of the element which sets the structure of mechanisms of the development and overcoming of the mental set effect. Processes which proceed during the information processing in working memory subsystems also play an important role in the development of the mental set effect, however their nature requires supplementary research.