scholarly journals How Working Memory Provides Representational Change During Insight Problem Solving

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei Korovkin ◽  
Ilya Vladimirov ◽  
Alexandra Chistopolskaya ◽  
Anna Savinova
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Insight Problem ◽  
Insight Problem Solving ◽  
Representational Change

scholarly journals Insight and Search in Katona’s Five-Square Problem

2014 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Öllinger ◽  
Gary Jones ◽  
Günther Knoblich
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Problem Representation ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Insight Problem ◽  
Insight Problem Solving ◽  
Representational Change ◽  
Human Thinking

Insights are often productive outcomes of human thinking. We provide a cognitive model that explains insight problem solving by the interplay of problem space search and representational change, whereby the problem space is constrained or relaxed based on the problem representation. By introducing different experimental conditions that either constrained the initial search space or helped solvers to initiate a representational change, we investigated the interplay of problem space search and representational change in Katona’s five-square problem. Testing 168 participants, we demonstrated that independent hints relating to the initial search space and to representational change had little effect on solution rates. However, providing both hints caused a significant increase in solution rates. Our results show the interplay between problem space search and representational change in insight problem solving: The initial problem space can be so large that people fail to encounter impasse, but even when representational change is achieved the resulting problem space can still provide a major obstacle to finding the solution.

scholarly journals Working memory in insight problem solving

Insight ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 105-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Gilhooly ◽  
Margaret E. Webb
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Insight Problem ◽  
Insight Problem Solving

scholarly journals From “Hmmm…” to “Aha!”: Emotional Monitoring of Representational Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 658-681
Author(s):  
И.Ю. Владимиров ◽  
И.Н. Макаров
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Solution Process ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Insight Problem ◽  
Multimodal Corpora ◽  
Insight Problem Solving ◽  
Representational Change ◽  
The Relationship

There are two common approaches to researching insight: the study of the emotional response to a solution (Aha! experience) and the study of the restructuring of representations. The relationship between them can be found by comparing functions they perform relative to each other. For the experimental investigation of insight, problems that are typically being used can be solved within a little amount of time and are highly similar in their structure. We believe that such laboratory designs of the tasks often lead to researchers missing out on the moments of impasse and initial restructuring of the search space. In the current study, using the method of multimodal corpora constructed from individual solutions, we gained partial confirmation of the key statements of the model of emotional regulation of the representational change. According to the model, an insight solution process is accompanied by emotions regulating the process of representational change. A feeling of impasse is a response to the lack of progress towards the solution. An Aha! experience appears in response to solvers performing actions that bring them a huge step closer to the solution of a problem. We believe that these emotional responses are experienced before the solution reaches consciousness and they motivate the solver to adapt their search space accordingly. The model we propose is a development of the ideas of Ya.A. Ponomarev on the role of emotions in regulating of insight problem solving andmodel of M. Ollinger and colleagues describing the phases of insight problem solving.

In Search of Somatic Precursors of Spontaneous Insight

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wangbing Shen ◽  
Yuan Yuan ◽  
Chaoying Tang ◽  
Chunhua Shi ◽  
Chang Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Electrodermal Activity ◽  
Cardiovascular Responses ◽  
Solution Time ◽  
Problem Solution ◽  
Insight Problem ◽  
Creative Insight ◽  
Insight Problem Solving ◽  
Analytic Problem

Abstract. A considerable number of behavioral and neuroscientific studies on insight problem solving have revealed behavioral and neural correlates of the dynamic insight process; however, somatic correlates, particularly somatic precursors of creative insight, remain undetermined. To characterize the somatic precursor of spontaneous insight, 22 healthy volunteers were recruited to solve the compound remote associate (CRA) task in which a problem can be solved by either an insight or an analytic strategy. The participants’ peripheral nervous activities, particularly electrodermal and cardiovascular responses, were continuously monitored and separately measured. The results revealed a greater skin conductance magnitude for insight trials than for non-insight trials in the 4-s time span prior to problem solutions and two marginally significant correlations between pre-solution heart rate variability (HRV) and the solution time of insight trials. Our findings provide the first direct evidence that spontaneous insight in problem solving is a somatically peculiar process that is distinct from the stepwise process of analytic problem solving and can be represented by a special somatic precursor, which is a stronger pre-solution electrodermal activity and a correlation between problem solution time and certain HRV indicators such as the root mean square successive difference (RMSSD).

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