Eureka effect
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The eureka effect (also known as the Aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. Some research describes the Aha! effect (also known as
insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...
or epiphany) as a memory advantage, but conflicting results exist as to where exactly it occurs in the brain, and it is difficult to predict under what circumstances one can predict an Aha! moment.
Insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...
is a psychological term that attempts to describe the process in problem solving when a previously unsolvable puzzle becomes suddenly clear and obvious. Often this transition from not understanding to spontaneous comprehension is accompanied by an exclamation of joy or satisfaction, an Aha! moment. A person utilizing insight to solve a problem is able to give accurate, discrete, all-or-nothing type responses, whereas individuals not using the insight process are more likely to produce partial, incomplete responses. A recent theoretical account of the Aha! moment started with four defining attributes of this experience. First, the Aha! moment appears suddenly; second, the solution to a problem can be processed smoothly, or fluently; third, the Aha! moment elicits positive affect; fourth, a person experiencing the Aha! moment is convinced that a solution is true. These four attributes are not separate but can be combined because the experience of processing fluency, especially when it occurs surprisingly (for example, because it is sudden), elicits both positive affect and judged truth. Insight can be conceptualized as a two phase process. The first phase of an Aha! experience requires the problem solver to come upon an impasse, where they become stuck and even though they may seemingly have explored all the possibilities, are still unable to retrieve or generate a solution. The second phase occurs suddenly and unexpectedly. After a break in mental fixation or re-evaluating the problem, the answer is retrieved.Qiu & Zhang (2008) ''"Aha! Effects in a Guessing Chinese Logograph Task: An Event-Related Potential Study.'' Chinese Science Bulletin. 53 (3), 384–391. Some research suggest that insight problems are difficult to solve because of our mental fixation on the inappropriate aspects of the problem content. In order to solve insight problems, one must "
think outside the box Thinking outside the box (also thinking out of the box or thinking beyond the box and, especially in Australia, thinking outside the square) is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. The phrase al ...
". It is this elaborate rehearsal that may cause people to have better memory for Aha! moments. Insight is believed to occur with a break in mental fixation, allowing the solution to appear transparent and obvious.


History and etymology

The effect is named from a story about
ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientis ...
. In the story, Archimedes was asked (c. 250 BC) by the local king to determine whether a crown was pure gold. During a subsequent trip to a public bath, Archimedes noted that water was displaced when his body sank into the bath, and particularly that the
volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). ...
of water displaced equaled the volume of his body immersed in the water. Having discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular object, and conceiving of a method to solve the king's problem, Archimedes allegedly leaped out and ran home naked, shouting εὕρηκα (''eureka'', "I have found it!"). This story is now thought to be fictional, because it was first mentioned by the Roman writer
Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...
nearly 200 years after the date of the alleged event, and because the method described by Vitruvius would not have worked. However, Archimedes certainly did important, original work in
hydrostatics Fluid statics or hydrostatics is the branch of fluid mechanics that studies the condition of the equilibrium of a floating body and submerged body "fluids at hydrostatic equilibrium and the pressure in a fluid, or exerted by a fluid, on an imme ...
, notably in his ''
On Floating Bodies ''On Floating Bodies'' ( el, Περὶ τῶν ἐπιπλεόντων σωμάτων) is a Greek-language work consisting of two books written by Archimedes of Syracuse (287 – c. 212 BC), one of the most important mathematicians, physicis ...
''.


Research


Initial research

Research on the Aha! moment dates back more than 100 years, to the Gestalt psychologists' first experiments on chimpanzee cognition. In his 1921 book,
Wolfgang Köhler Wolfgang Köhler (21 January 1887 – 11 June 1967) was a German psychologist and phenomenologist who, like Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, contributed to the creation of Gestalt psychology. During the Nazi regime in Germany, he prote ...
described the first instance of insightful thinking in animals: One of his chimpanzees, Sultan, was presented with the task of reaching a banana that had been strung up high on the ceiling so that it was impossible to reach by jumping. After several failed attempts to reach the banana, Sultan sulked in the corner for a while, then suddenly jumped up and stacked a few boxes upon each other, climbed them and thus was able to grab the banana. This observation was interpreted as insightful thinking. Köhler's work was continued by
Karl Duncker Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austri ...
and
Max Wertheimer Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. He is known for his book, ''Productive Thinking'', an ...
. The Eureka effect was later also described by Pamela Auble, Jeffrey Franks and Salvatore Soraci in 1979. The subject would be presented with an initially confusing sentence such as "The haystack was important because the cloth ripped". After a certain period of time of non-comprehension by the reader, the cue word (parachute) would be presented, the reader could comprehend the sentence, and this resulted in better recall on memory tests. Subjects spend a considerable amount of time attempting to solve the problem, and initially it was hypothesized that elaboration towards comprehension may play a role in increased recall. There was no evidence that elaboration had any effect for recall. It was found that both "easy" and "hard" sentences that resulted in an Aha! effect had significantly better recall rates than sentences that subjects were able to comprehend immediately. In fact equal recall rates were obtained for both "easy" and "hard" sentences which were initially noncomprehensible. It seems to be this noncomprehension to comprehension which results in better recall. The essence of the aha feeling underlining insight problem solving was systemically investigated by Danek et al. and Shen and his colleagues. Recently an attempt has been made in trying to understand the neurobiological basis of Eureka moment.


How people solve insight problems

Currently there are two theories for how people arrive at the solution for insight problems. The first is the progress monitoring theory. The person will analyze the distance from their current state to the goal state. Once a person realizes that they cannot solve the problem while on their current path, they will seek alternative solutions. In insight problems this usually occurs late in the puzzle. The second way that people attempt to solve these puzzles is the representational change theory. The problem solver initially has a low probability for success because they use inappropriate knowledge as they set unnecessary constraints on the problem. Once the person relaxes his or her constraints, they can bring previously unavailable knowledge into working memory to solve the problem. The person also utilizes
chunk Chunk or chunky may refer to: __NOTOC__ Fictional characters * Chunk (comics), a DC Comics character * Chunk (''Toy Story 3''), in the 2010 film ''Toy Story 3'' * Chunk, in the 1985 film '' The Goonies'' * Chunk Palmer, in ''Bull'', a 2016 Americ ...
decomposition, where he or she will separate meaningful chunks into their component pieces. Both constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition allow for a change in representation, that is, a change in the distribution of activation across working memory, at which point they may exclaim, "Aha!" Currently both theories have support, with the progress monitoring theory being more suited to multiple step problems, and the representational change theory more suited to single step problems. The Eureka effect on memory occurs only when there is an initial confusion. When subjects were presented with a clue word before the confusing sentence was presented, there was no effect on recall. If the clue was provided after the sentence was presented, an increase in recall occurred.


Memory

It had been determined that recall is greater for items that were generated by the subject versus if the subject was presented with the stimuli. There seems to be a memory advantage for instances where people are able to produce an answer themselves, recall was higher when Aha! reactions occurred. They tested sentences that were initially hard to understand, but when presented with a cued word, the comprehension became more apparent. Other evidence was found indicating that effort in processing visual stimuli was recalled more frequently than the stimuli that were simply presented. This study was done using connect-the-dots or verbal instruction to produce either a nonsense or real image. It is believed that effort made to comprehend something when encoding induces activation of alternative cues that later participate in recall.


Cerebral lateralization

Functional magnetic resonance imaging Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...
and
electroencephalogram Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...
studies have found that problem solving requiring insight involves increased activity in the right
cerebral hemisphere The vertebrate cerebrum ( brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemisphere ...
as compared with problem solving not requiring insight. In particular, increased activity was found in the right hemisphere anterior
superior temporal gyrus The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is one of three (sometimes two) gyri in the temporal lobe of the human brain, which is located laterally to the head, situated somewhat above the external ear. The superior temporal gyrus is bounded by: * the l ...
.


Sleep

Some unconscious processing may take place while a person is asleep, and there are several cases of scientific discoveries coming to people in their dreams.
Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz Friedrich may refer to: Names * Friedrich (surname), people with the surname ''Friedrich'' * Friedrich (given name), people with the given name ''Friedrich'' Other * Friedrich (board game), a board game about Frederick the Great and the Seven Year ...
claimed that the ring structure of
benzene Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each. Because it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms ...
came to him in a dream where a snake was eating its own tail. Studies have shown increased performance at insight problems if the subjects slept during a break between receiving the problem and solving it. Sleep may function to restructure problems, and allow new insights to be reached.
Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "Th ...
stated that he valued sleep as a time for "unconscious thought" that helped him break through problems.


Other theories

Professor Stellan Ohlsson believes that at the beginning of the problem-solving process, some salient features of the problem are incorporated into a mental representation of the problem. In the first step of solving the problem, it is considered in the light of previous experience. Eventually, an
impasse A bargaining impasse occurs when the two sides negotiating an agreement are unable to reach an agreement and become deadlocked. An impasse is almost invariably mutually harmful, either as a result of direct action which may be taken such as a s ...
is reached, where all approaches to the problem have failed, and the person becomes frustrated. Ohlsson believes that this impasse drives unconscious processes which change the mental representation of a problem, and cause novel solutions to occur.Scientific American Mind
October/November 2006


General procedure for conducting ERP and EEG studies

When studying insight, or the Aha! effect, ERP or EEG general methods are used. Initially a baseline measurement is taken, which generally asks the subject to simply remember an answer to a question. Following this, subjects are asked to focus on the screen while a logogriph is shown, and then they are given time with a blank screen to get the answer, once they do they are required to press a key. After which the answer appears on the screen. The subjects are then asked to press one key to indicate that they thought of the correct answer and another to indicate if they got the answer wrong, finally, not to press a key at all if they were unsure or did not know the answer.


Evidence in EEG studies

Resting-state neural activity has a standing influence on cognitive strategies used when solving problems, particularly in the case of deriving solutions by methodical search or by sudden insight. The two cognitive strategies used involve both search and analysis of current state of a problem, to the goal state of that problem, while insight problems are a sudden awareness of the solution to a problem. Subjects studied were first recorded on the base-line resting state of thinking. After being tested using the method described in the General Procedure for Conducting ERP and EEG Studies, the ratio of insight versus non-insight solution were made to determine whether an individual is classified as a high insight (HI) or a low insight (LI) individual. Discriminating between HI and LI individuals were important as both groups use different cognitive strategies to solve anagram problems used in this study. Right hemisphere activation is believed to be involved in Aha! effects, so it comes as no surprise that HI individuals would show greater activation in the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere when compared to the LI individuals. Evidence was found to support this idea, there was greater activation in HI subjects at the right dorsal-frontal (low-alpha band), right inferior-frontal (beta and gamma bands) and the right parietal (gamma band) areas. As for LI subjects, left inferior-frontal and left anterior-temporal areas were active (low-alpha band). There were also differences in attention between individuals of HI and LI. It has been suggested that individuals who are highly creative exhibit diffuse attention, thus allowing them a greater range of environmental stimuli. It was found that individuals who displayed HI would have less resting state occipital alpha-band activity, meaning there would be less inhibition of the visual system. Individuals that were less creative were found to focus their attention, thus causing them to sample less of their environment. Although, LI individuals were shown to have more occipital beta activity, consistent with heightened focused attention.


Evidence in ERP studies

Source localization is hard in ERP studies, and it may be difficult to distinguish signals of insight from signals of the existing cognitive skills it builds on or the unwarranted mental fixation it breaks, but the following conclusions have been offered. One study found that "Aha" answers produced more negative ERP results, N380 in the ACC, than the "No-Aha" answers, 250–500 ms, after an answer was produced. The authors suspected that this N380 in the ACC is a sign of breaking the mental set, and reflects the Aha! effect. Another study was done showed that an Aha! effect elicited an N320 in the central-posterior region. A third study, by Qiu and Zhang (2008), found that there was a N350 in the
posterior cingulate cortex The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is the caudal part of the cingulate cortex, located posterior to the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the upper part of the " limbic lobe". The cingulate cortex is made up of an area around the midline of th ...
for successful guessing, not in the
anterior cingulate cortex In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involve ...
. The
posterior cingulate cortex The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is the caudal part of the cingulate cortex, located posterior to the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the upper part of the " limbic lobe". The cingulate cortex is made up of an area around the midline of th ...
seems to play a more non-executive function in monitoring and inhibiting the mind set and cognitive function. Another significant finding of this study was a late positive component (LPC) in successful guessing and then recognition of the answer at 600 and 700 ms, post-stimulus, in the
parahippocampal gyrus The parahippocampal gyrus (or hippocampal gyrus') is a grey matter cortical region of the brain that surrounds the hippocampus and is part of the limbic system. The region plays an important role in memory encoding and retrieval. It has been in ...
(BA34). The data suggests that the
parahippocampus The parahippocampal gyrus (or hippocampal gyrus') is a grey matter cortical region of the brain that surrounds the hippocampus and is part of the limbic system. The region plays an important role in memory encoding and retrieval. It has been inv ...
is involved in searching for a correct answer by manipulating it in working memory, and integrating relationships. The parahippocampal gyrus may reflect the formation of novel associations while solving insight problems. A fourth ERP study is fairly similar, but this study claims to have
anterior cingulate cortex In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involve ...
activation at N380, which may be responsible for the mediation of breaking the mental set. Other areas of interest were
prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA ...
(PFC), the
posterior parietal cortex The posterior parietal cortex (the portion of parietal neocortex posterior to the primary somatosensory cortex) plays an important role in planned movements, spatial reasoning, and attention. Damage to the posterior parietal cortex can produce a ...
, and the
medial temporal lobe The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in p ...
. If subjects failed to solve the riddle, and then were shown the correct answer, they displayed the feeling of insight, which was reflected on the
electroencephalogram Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...
recordings.


Evidence in fMRI studies

A study with the goal of recording the activity that occurs in the brain during an Aha! moment using
fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...
s was conducted in 2003 by Jing Luo and Kazuhisa Niki. Participants in this study were presented with a series of Japanese riddles, and asked to rate their impressions toward each question using the following scale: (1) I can understand this question very well and know the answer; (2) I can understand this question very well and feel it is interesting, but I do not know the answer; or (3) I cannot understand this question and do not know the answer. This scale allowed the researchers to only look at participants who would experience an Aha! moment upon viewing the answer to the riddle. In previous studies on insight, researchers have found that participants reported feelings of insight when they viewed the answer to an unsolved riddle or problem. Luo and Niki had the goal of recording these feelings of insight in their participants using
fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...
s. This method allowed the researchers to directly observe the activity that was occurring in the participant's brains during an Aha! moment. :An example of a Japanese riddle used in the study: ''The thing that can move heavy logs, but cannot move a small nail'' → ''A river.'' Participants were given 3 minutes to respond to each riddle, before the answer to the riddle was revealed. If the participant experienced an Aha! moment upon viewing the correct answer, any brain activity would be recorded on the
fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...
. The
fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...
results for this study showed that when participants were given the answer to an unsolved riddle, the activity in their right
hippocampus The hippocampus (via Latin from Greek , 'seahorse') is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic syste ...
increased significantly during these Aha! moments. This increased activity in the right
hippocampus The hippocampus (via Latin from Greek , 'seahorse') is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic syste ...
may be attributed to the formation of new associations between old nodes. These new associations will in turn strengthen memory for the riddles and their solutions. Although various studies using EEGs, ERPs, and fMRI's report activation in a variety of areas in the brain during Aha! moments, this activity occurs predominantly in the right hemisphere. More details on the neural basis of insight see a recent review named "New advances in the neural correlates of insight: A decade in review of the insightful brain"


Insight problems and problems with insight


Insight problems


The Nine Dot Problem

The Nine Dot Problem is a classic spatial problem used by psychologists to study insight. The problem consists of a 3 × 3 square created by 9 black dots. The task is to connect all 9 dots using exactly 4 straight lines, without retracing or removing one's pen from the paper. Kershaw & Ohlsson report that in a laboratory setting with a time limit of 2 or 3 minutes, the expected solution rate is 0%. The difficulty with the Nine Dot Problem is that it requires respondents to look beyond the conventional figure-ground relationships that create subtle, illusory spatial constraints and (literally) "
think outside of the box Thinking outside the box (also thinking out of the box or thinking beyond the box and, especially in Australia, thinking outside the square) is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. The phrase al ...
". Breaking the spatial constraints shows a shift in attention in working memory and utilizing new knowledge factors to solve the puzzle.


Verbal riddles

Verbal
riddle A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requ ...
s are becoming popular problems in insight research. Example: "A man was washing windows on a high-rise building when he fell from the 40-foot ladder to the concrete path below. Amazingly, he was unhurt. Why? nswerHe slipped from the bottom rung!"


Matchstick arithmetic

A subset of matchstick puzzles, matchstick arithmetic, which was developed and used by G. Knoblich, involves matchsticks that are arranged to show a simple but incorrect math equation in Roman numerals. The task is to correct the equation by moving only one matchstick.


Anagrams

Anagram An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into ''nag a ram'', also the word ...
s involve manipulating the order of a given set of letters in order to create one or many words. The original set of letters may be a word itself, or simply a jumble. Example: ''Santa'' can be transformed to spell ''Satan''.


Rebus puzzles

Rebus A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+ ...
puzzles, also called "wordies", involve verbal and visual cues that force the respondent to restructure and "read between the lines" (almost literally) to solve the puzzle. Some examples: # Puzzle: you just me 'Answer: just between you and me''# Puzzle: PUNISHMENT 'Answer: capital punishment''# Puzzle: i i i
OOOOO 'Answer: circles under the eyes''


Remote Associates Test (RAT)

The Remote Associates Test (known as the RAT) was developed by Martha Mednick in 1962 to test creativity. However, it has recently been utilized in insight research. The test consists of presenting participants with a set of words, such as ''lick'', ''mine'', and ''shaker''. The task is to identify the word that connects these three seemingly unrelated ones. In this example, the answer is ''salt''. The link between words is associative, and does not follow rules of logic, concept formation or problem solving, and thus requires the respondent to work outside of these common heuristical constraints. Performance on the RAT is known to correlate with performance on other standard insight problems.


The Eight Coin Problem

In this problem a set of 8 coins is arranged on a table in a certain configuration, and the subject is told to move 2 coins so that all coins touch exactly three others. The difficulty in this problem comes from thinking of the problem in a purely 2-dimensional way, when a 3-dimensional approach is the only way to solve the problem.


Problems with insight

Insight research is problematic because of the ambiguity and lack of agreement among psychologists of its definition. This could largely be explained by the phenomenological nature of insight, and the difficulty in catalyzing its occurrence, as well as the ways in which it is experimentally "triggered". The pool of insight problems currently employed by psychologists is small and tepid, and due to its heterogeneity and often high difficulty level, is not conducive of validity or reliability. One of the biggest issues surrounding insight problems is that for most participants, they are simply too difficult. For many problems, this difficulty revolves around the requisite restructuring or re-conceptualization of the problem or possible solutions, for example, drawing lines beyond the square composed of dots in the Nine-Dot Problem. Furthermore, there are issues related to the taxonomy of insight problems. Puzzles and problems that are utilized in experiments to elicit insight may be classified in two ways. "Pure" insight problems are those that necessitate the use of insight, whereas "hybrid" insight problems are those that can be solved by other methods, such as the trial and error. As Weisberg (1996) points out, the existence of hybrid problems in insight research poses a significant threat to any evidence gleaned from studies that employ them. While the phenomenological experience of insight can help to differentiate insight-solving from non-insight solving (by asking the respondent to describe how they solved the problem, for example), the risk that non-insight solving has been mistaken for insight solving still exists. Likewise, issues surrounding the validity of insight evidence is also threatened by the characteristically small sample sizes. Experimenters may recruit an initially adequate sample size, but because of the level of difficulty inherent to insight problems, only a small fraction of any sample will successfully solve the puzzle or task given to them; placing serious limits on usable data. In the case of studies using hybrid problems, the final sample is at even greater risk of being very small by way of having to exclude whatever percentage of respondents solved their given puzzle without utilizing insight.


The Aha! effect and scientific discovery

There are several examples of scientific discoveries being made after a sudden flash of insight. One of the key insights in developing his
special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The law ...
came to
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
while talking to his friend
Michele Besso Michele Angelo Besso ( Riesbach, 25 May 1873 – Geneva, 15 March 1955) was a Swiss-Italian engineer best known for working closely with Albert Einstein. Biography Besso was born in Riesbach from a family of Italian Jewish (Sephardi) descen ...
: However, Einstein has said that the whole idea of special relativity did not come to him as a sudden, single eureka moment, and that he was "led to it by steps arising from the individual laws derived from experience". Similarly,
Carl Friedrich Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...
said after a eureka moment: "I have the result, only I do not yet know how to get to it."
Sir Alec Jeffreys Sir Alec John Jeffreys, (born 9 January 1950) is a British geneticist known for developing techniques for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used worldwide in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve ...
had a eureka moment in his lab in Leicester after looking at the
X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10  nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
film image of a DNA experiment at 9:05 am on Monday 10 September 1984, which unexpectedly showed both similarities and differences between the DNA of different members of his technician's family. Within about half an hour, he realized the scope of
DNA profiling DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's DNA characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is called DNA barcoding. DNA profiling is a forensic t ...
, which uses variations in the
genetic code The genetic code is the set of rules used by living cells to translate information encoded within genetic material ( DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets, or codons) into proteins. Translation is accomplished by the ribosome, which links ...
to identify individuals. The method has become important in
forensic science Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...
to assist detective work, and in resolving paternity and immigration disputes. It can also be applied to non-human species, such as in wildlife
population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and po ...
studies. Before his methods were commercialised in 1987, Jeffreys' laboratory was the only centre carrying out DNA fingerprinting in the world.


See also

*
Insight phenomenology Insight is a sudden understanding of a problem or a strategy that aids in solving a problem. Usually, this involves conceptualizing the problem in a completely new way. Although insights may appear to be sudden, they are actually the result of pr ...
*
Apprehension (understanding) In psychology, apprehension (Lat. ''ad'', "to"; ''prehendere'', "to seize") is a term applied to a model of consciousness in which nothing is affirmed or denied of the object in question, but the mind is merely aware of ("seizes") it. "Judgment" ( ...
*
Rubber duck debugging In software engineering, rubber duck debugging (or rubberducking) is a method of debugging code by articulating a problem in spoken or written natural language. The name is a reference to a story in the book '' The Pragmatic Programmer'' in which ...
*
Principles of grouping The principles of grouping (or Gestalt laws of grouping) are a set of principles in psychology, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists to account for the observation that humans naturally perceive objects as organized patterns and objects, a pri ...


Notes

{{reflist, 30em Sources of knowledge