The temporal dynamics of insight problem solving – restructuring might not always be sudden

Abstract

Insight problems are likely to trigger an initial, inappropriate mental representation, which needs to be restructured in order to find the solution. Despite the widespread theoretical assumption that this restructuring process happens suddenly, which leads to the typical Aha! experience, the evidence is inconclusive. Among the reasons for this lack of clarity is a reluctance to measure solvers’ subjective experience of the solution process. Here, we overcome previous methodological problems by measuring the dynamics of the solution process using eye movements in combination with the subjective Aha! experience. Our results demonstrate that in a problem that requires restructuring of the initial mental representation, paying progressively more attention to the crucial elements of the problem often preceded the finding of the solution. Most importantly, the sooner solvers started paying attention to the crucial elements, the less sudden and surprising the solution felt to them. The close link between the eye movement patterns and self-reported Aha! experience in the present study underlines the necessity of measuring both the cognitive and the affective components of insight to capture the essence of this phenomenon.

Keywords:

• Insight
• Aha! experience
• problem solving
• restructuring
• eye movements

Acknowledgement

The help and cooperation from participants is greatly appreciated, as is Matthew Bladen’s contribution in preparing the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The simple arithmetic tasks are useful for checking the eye tracking equipment, as well as providing participants with confidence as the problems are easily solvable. In this particular context, they may have led participant to further fixate on values, which would in turn suppress solution rates in Problem B (which needed focus on operators for solution). We do not believe that this is the case as the solution rates of Problem B are almost identical to those in Knoblich et al 2001 study.

2 As for the values, the first value attracted a lot of attention, more than the second (see Figure 4) although they were the same (both VI). A possible reason for this could be that the same value (VI) was used in the previous problem and that it was the crucial element there, which needed to be changed for successful solution. It is therefore possible that the initial focus on the first value (twice as much as on the second) is a carry-over from the previous problem.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by OeNB Jubil€aumsfondsprojekt 16449, Fortune Grant € F1354213, and DFG project BI 1450/1-2 to MB and DFG grant DA 1683/1-1, national grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, see www.dfg.de).