New approaches to demystifying insight

Bowden, Edward M.; Jung-Beeman, Mark; Fleck, Jessica I.; Kounios, John

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.05.012

Cited by 518 publications

(487 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

459

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Rating a solution as insight does not guarantee that impasse and restructuring processes associated with the traditional view of insight truly occurred. However, Bowden and colleagues (2003b;2005;2007) claim CRA problems exhibit phenomenological features and components of insight found in classic insight problems and, therefore, can be used to study insight. The characteristics they claim are that the processes leading to solution are often unreportable, the problems misdirect (or fail to direct) retrieval processes, and solvers report an "Aha!"…”

Section: Cra Problem Solving and Characteristics Of Insightmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Is Insight Always the Same? A Protocol Analysis of Insight in Compound Remote Associate Problems

Cranford¹,

Moss²

2012

The Journal of Problem Solving

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Compound Remote Associate (CRA) problems have been used to investigate insight problem solving using both behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. However, it is unclear to what extent CRA problems exhibit characteristics of insight such as impasses and restructuring. CRA problem-solving characteristics were examined in a study in which participants solved CRA problems while providing concurrent verbal protocols. The results show that solutions subjectively judged as insight by participants do exhibit some characteristics of insight. However, the results also show that there are at least two different ways in which people experience insight when solving CRA problems. Sometimes problems are solved and judged as insight when the solution is the first thing considered, but these solutions do not exhibit any characteristics of insight aside from the "Aha!" experience. In other cases, the solution is derived after a longer period of problem solving, and the solution process more closely resembles insight as it is has been traditionally defined in the literature. The results show that separating these two types of solution processes may provide a better understanding of the behavioral and neuroanatomical correlates of insight solutions.

show abstract

Section: Cra Problem Solving and Characteristics Of Insightmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The "Aha!" experience is often characterized as sudden and surprising, nonconscious, and unintended (i.e., the solver does not intentionally try to solve the problem through insightful processes; Bowden et al, 2005;Ohlsson, 1984;Öllinger, Jones, & Knoblich, 2008).…”

Section: Phenomenological Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Insight Always the Same? A Protocol Analysis of Insight in Compound Remote Associate Problems

Cranford¹,

Moss²

2012

The Journal of Problem Solving

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Yet most theories of problem solving have focused on explicit processes that gradually bring the problem solver closer to the solution in a deliberative way (Dorfman, Shames, & Kihlstrom, 1996). However, when an ill-defined or complex problem has to be solved (e.g., when the initial state or the goal state can lead to many different interpretations or when the solution paths are highly complex), the solution is often found by sudden insight (Pols, 2002;Reber, 1989;Schooler & Melcher, 1995;Schooler, Ohlsson, & Brooks, 1993), and regular problem-solving theories are for the most part unable to account for this apparent absence of deliberative strategy (Bowden, Jung-Beeman, Fleck, & Kounios, 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Incubation, insight, and creative problem solving: A unified theory and a connectionist model.

Hélie

Sun

2010

Psychological Review

322

217

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article proposes a unified framework for understanding creative problem solving, namely, the explicit-implicit interaction theory. This new theory of creative problem solving constitutes an attempt at providing a more unified explanation of relevant phenomena (in part by reinterpreting/integrating various fragmentary existing theories of incubation and insight). The explicit-implicit interaction theory relies mainly on 5 basic principles, namely, (a) the coexistence of and the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge, (b) the simultaneous involvement of implicit and explicit processes in most tasks, (c) the redundant representation of explicit and implicit knowledge, (d) the integration of the results of explicit and implicit processing, and (e) the iterative (and possibly bidirectional) processing. A computational implementation of the theory is developed based on the CLARION cognitive architecture and applied to the simulation of relevant human data. This work represents an initial step in the development of process-based theories of creativity encompassing incubation, insight, and various other related phenomena.

show abstract

“…For example, Kershaw and Ohlsson (2004) discovered that insight problem solving involves searching through related concepts in memory for relevant information. Bowden et al (2005) also suggested that insight-related problem solving involves the activation of concepts in memory, including ones that are unrelated to the solution, followed later by the weak activation of concepts that are critical to the solution. Indeed, research has already shown that true memories can be used to prime problem solving and reasoning tasks successfully (e.g., Kokinov, 1990), so it may not be too far-fetched to anticipate that false memories might also prime problem solutions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A brighter side to memory illusions: False memories prime children’s and adults’ insight-based problem solving

Howe

Garner

Charlesworth

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract Can false memories have a positive consequence on human cognition? In two experiments we investigated whether false memories could prime insight problem-solving tasks. Children and adults were asked to solve compound remote associate task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been primed by the presentation of Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists whose critical lure was also the solution to the problem. In Experiment 1 the results showed that regardless of age, when the critical lure was falsely recalled, CRAT problems were solved more often and significantly faster than problems that were not primed by a DRM list. When the critical lure was not falsely recalled, CRAT problem solution rates and times were no different than when there was no DRM priming. In Experiment 2, without an intervening recall test, children and adults still exhibited higher solution rates and faster solution times to CRATs that were primed than CRATs that were not primed. This latter result shows that priming occurred as a result of false memory generation at encoding and not at retrieval during the recall test. Together these findings demonstrate that when false memories are generated at encoding they can prime solutions to insight-based problems in both children and adults. Permanent repository link

show abstract

New approaches to demystifying insight

Cited by 518 publications

References 38 publications

Is Insight Always the Same? A Protocol Analysis of Insight in Compound Remote Associate Problems

Is Insight Always the Same? A Protocol Analysis of Insight in Compound Remote Associate Problems

Incubation, insight, and creative problem solving: A unified theory and a connectionist model.

A brighter side to memory illusions: False memories prime children’s and adults’ insight-based problem solving

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About