There are two ways that we typically solve problems: analysis and insight. Analysis refers to the step-by-step, continuous processing of information towards a solution. A person may try different solutions until they finally arrive at the correct one, or they may not figure out a plausible answer at all. Insight, however, is the famous “Aha!” moment, and the processing of information during insight occurs all at once; a person is unaware of the steps he or she took to solve the problem presented. Surprisingly, the answers that we arrive at through insight are often the correct one. Solutions found by insight are often accompanied by confidence and result in 92% accuracy.
Research centered around insight has found that right hemisphere activation of the brain is associated with insight solving. Interestingly, researchers were able to prime subjects to solve a problem through insight by positioning solution word probes in the left visual field so that the right hemisphere would be directly activated first. The right hemisphere correlates with coarse semantic coding, which is particularly important for insight because as a word’s meaning is less specified, the more likely it is for the brain to connect that word to other words or concepts (Kounios and Beeman 77). Through a combination of EEG and fMRI testing, researchers found that at the exact moment that people solve problems by insight, there is high frequency (gamma-band) activity at the right temporal lobe and blood flow change in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus (78). Right before the spurt of gamma-band EEG activity during an insight, there was a surge of alpha-band EEG activity over the right occipital cortex (79), indicating that the brain attempts to “reduce noise from distracting inputs to facilitate retrieval of the weakly and unconsciously activated solution represented in the right temporal lobe” (80).
In Bruce Grierson’s “Eureka!”, he describes that insight does not occur only during problem-solving; we can have an insight that is deeply personal or even existential. Whether it is to solve a problem, to come up with a creative idea, or to suddenly decide to change your life considerably, insight allows us to realize something that we were blind to before. Grierson refers to William Miller’s book Quantum Change, in which Miller interviewed 55 people who had insights, specifically ones in which the person experienced a sudden realization that led to life transformations. These epiphanies included the decision to divorce one’s spouse, to quit daily habits such as smoking or gambling, or to spontaneously quit a job. What he found was that most people who had these epiphanies were doing insignificant, everyday activities such as watching TV, lying in bed, or getting ready to shower. Dr. Salvi also discussed this concept of the idle brain being more prone to having an insight.
The similarities between problem-solving insights and epiphanies leads some researchers to believe that the two are not vastly different from one another. Miller believes otherwise for several reasons. Miller found a shocking similarity among his subjects of a feeling of something foreign or mystical entering the minds of those who experienced quantum change, as well as a feeling that they had made an irreversible decision and could not turn back. Quantum change often had a moral dimension to the insight that led to a major life change. The subjects who Miller tested felt extraordinary internal pressure to change the way they were living prior to their insight. These characteristics are not seen during small “aha” moments that allow us to solve problems. This leads Miller to believe that problem-solving insights and epiphany insights cannot be the same and must involve activation of different parts of the brain or at least cause different connections to be made in the brain. However, there is still no proof that an existential epiphany is any different from a small insight.
Sources:
Grierson, Bruce. “Eureka!” Psychology Today, 9 Mar. 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201503/eureka.
Kounios, John, and Mark Beeman. “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight.” Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 65, no. 1, 2014, pp. 71–93., doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115154.
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