Working Wonders? Investigating insight with magic tricks

Danek, Amory H.; Fraps, Thomas; Müller, A.; Grothe, Benedikt; Öllinger, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.003

Cited by 103 publications

(192 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…According to Slovic and Fischhoff (1977), the conditional presentation of a problem may activate simultaneously and in parallel the probability that the prior solution (here the FS) is incorrect and the probability that it is correct. Moreover, when participants are confronted with an unnatural event (e.g., a magic trick), the conflict between what they see (e.g., levitation) and what they know about the laws of the nature (e.g., gravity laws) could create an uncomfortable mental state that they try to resolve with the most accessible solution (the FS) (Danek, Fraps, von Müller, Grothe, & Öllinger, 2014;Parris, Kuhn, Mizon, Benattayallah, & Hodgson, 2009). It is only when the magician verbally excludes a particular solution that spectators are forced to abandon the FS by deactivating its representation as a probable solution.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…It is likely that an obvious FS might lead to an Aha! experience (a feeling of surprise and obviousness that appears when a solution suddenly comes to mind), which might facilitate the retention and the activation of the FS in long-term memory, increasing the robustness of the fixing effect (see Danek, Fraps, von Müller, Grothe, & Öllinger, 2013;Danek et al, 2014;Thomas et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Magicians fix your mind: How unlikely solutions block obvious ones

Thomas

Didierjean

2016

Cognition

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magicians fix your mind: How unlikely solutions block obvious ones

Thomas

Didierjean

2016

Cognition

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“…experiences has the advantage that it offers researchers the possibility to compare insight with noninsight solutions instead of just assuming that problems are being solved with insight. This was first successfully done by Jung-Beeman and colleagues (2004) with their set of CRA problems, but other promising new approaches to insight research, such as Rebus puzzles (MacGregor & Cunningham, 2008) or magic tricks (Danek, Fraps, von Müller, Grothe, & Öllinger, 2013, 2014b, offer the same possibility because a large set of tasks can be created. In particular, the domain of magic tricks seems ideally suited to investigate insight because the typical constraints encountered by problem solvers are well-known and systematically manipulated by the magician, triggering an initial problem representation that is misleading.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solving Classical Insight Problems Without Aha! Experience: 9 Dot, 8 Coin, and Matchstick Arithmetic Problems

Danek¹,

Wiley²,

Öllinger³

2016

The Journal of Problem Solving

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Insightful problem solving is a vital part of human thinking, yet very difficult to grasp. Traditionally, insight has been investigated by using a set of established "insight tasks, " assuming that insight has taken place if these problems are solved. Instead of assuming that insight takes place during every solution of the 9 Dot, 8 Coin, and Matchstick Arithmetic Problems, this study explored the likelihood that solutions evoked the "Aha! experience, " which is often regarded as the defining characteristic of insight. It was predicted that the rates of selfreported Aha! experiences might vary based on the necessary degree of constraint relaxation. The main assumption was that the likelihood of experiencing an Aha! would decrease with increasing numbers of constraints that must be relaxed, because several steps are needed to achieve a representational change and solve the problem, and thus, the main feature of suddenness of a solution might be lacking. The results supported this prediction, and demonstrated that in many cases participants do solve these classical insight problems without any Aha! experience. These results show the importance of obtaining insight ratings from participants to determine whether any given problem is solved with insight or not.

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“…The positive relationship of Aha! to later memory was larger for the presented videos of magic tricks than for the black and white Mooney images (Danek et al, 2013a;Danek, Fraps, von Müller, Grothe, & Öllinger, 2013b;Kizilirmak et al, 2015). It would be plausible that positive relationship between Aha!…”

Section: The Subjective Aha! Experiencementioning

confidence: 98%

Problem Solving as an Encoding Task: A Special Case of the Generation Effect

Kizilirmak

Wiegmann²,

Richardson‐Klavehn³

2016

The Journal of Problem Solving

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Recent evidence suggests that solving problems through insight can enhance long-term memory for the problem and its solution. Previous findings have shown that generation of the solution as well as experiencing a feeling of Aha! can have a beneficial relationship to later memory. These findings lead to the question of how learning in problem-solving tasks in which a novel solution needs to be generated-such as in tasks used to study insightdiffers from the classical generation effect. Because previous studies on learning from insight on one hand and the generation effect on the other hand have measured different types of memory, the present study examined two kinds of memory measures: indirect (solving old and new problems at test) and direct (recognition memory). At encoding, we manipulated whether participants had the chance to solve Compound Remote Associates Task items and compared later memory for generated solutions (generate condition) to solutions that were presented after failing to generate one (fail-to-generate condition), and to solutions that were presented without a chance at generation (read condition). Participants also reported if they had an Aha! experience for each problem. While both Aha! experiences and generated solutions were associated with more positive emotional responses, only the generation variable was associated with differences in later memory performance. While attempts to generate had an advantage over the read condition in recognition memory performance (generate > fail-to-generate > read), only when generation was successful did it enhance the solution rate of old items during testing (generate > read > fail-to-generate). Contrary to generation effects with other verbal stimuli, these results suggest that the generation effect in problem-solving tasks in which a novel solution needs to be found differs from the classical generation effect. Seeing a correct solution for a longer time (read) seems in the current case to be more helpful for solving the same problem later on, compared to being presented with the solution after a failed attempt at problem solving.

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Working Wonders? Investigating insight with magic tricks

Cited by 103 publications

References 39 publications

Magicians fix your mind: How unlikely solutions block obvious ones

Magicians fix your mind: How unlikely solutions block obvious ones

Solving Classical Insight Problems Without Aha! Experience: 9 Dot, 8 Coin, and Matchstick Arithmetic Problems

Problem Solving as an Encoding Task: A Special Case of the Generation Effect

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