In search of the ‘Aha!’ experience: Elucidating the emotionality of insight problem-solving

The involvement of decomposition and composition processes in restructuring during problem solving

Decomposition of chunks has been widely accepted as a critical proxy of restructuring, but the role of composition in forming new representations has been largely neglected. This study aims to investigate the roles of both decomposition and composition processes in chunk restructuring, as well as their relationships with "aha" experiences during problem-solving. Participants were asked to move a part of a character to another character to create two new characters. Across three experiments, the characters to be decomposed or composed were varied in terms of tight or loose chunks. The results showed that decomposition or composition of tight chunks led to lower success rates, longer response times, and significantly stronger "Aha!" emotional experiences (mainly in terms of surprise and suddenness). This study provides evidence for the contribution of both decomposition and composition processes to restructuring in creative insight.

The Aha! experience is associated with a drop in the perceived difficulty of the problem

The study investigated the correlation between the intensity of the Aha! experience and participants' subjective difficulty ratings of problems before and after finding their solutions. We assumed that the Aha! experience arises from a shift in processing fluency triggered by changing from an initially incoherent problem representation to a coherent one, which ultimately leads to the retrieval of a solution with unexpected ease and speed. First, we hypothesized that higher Aha! experience ratings would indicate more sudden solutions, manifesting in a reduced correlation between the initial difficulty ratings and solution times. Second, we hypothesized that higher Aha! experience ratings would correspond to a greater shift in the subjective difficulty ratings between the initial and retrospective assessments. To test our hypotheses, we developed a novel set of rebus puzzles. A total of 160 participants solved rebuses and provided initial (within 5 s of problem presentation) and retrospective difficulty ratings (following the generation or presentation of a correct solution). They also rated their Aha! experience (after solution generation or presentation), confidence in solutions, and the likability of each rebus. Our findings revealed that the initial ratings of the problem's subjective difficulty were positively correlated with the solution time and that this correlation decreased in the case of a stronger Aha! experience. Aha! experience ratings were positively correlated with the differences between initial and retrospective difficulty ratings, confidence, solution accuracy, and rebus likability. We interpreted our results to be in line with the processing fluency and metacognitive prediction error accounts.

The difference between induced insight by hints and induced insight by answers: an event-related potential study

We can solve insight problems by ourselves, by hints or by answers. This study compared the temporal features of different types of insight (spontaneous insight, induced insight by hints and induced insight by answers). Fifteen college students participated in the Chinese Remote Association Task. If they did not come up with an answer, the cue word was presented. Finally, they needed to judge whether the answer was correct or not. Participants' brain electroencephalography-event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Induced insight by hints elicited a more negative ERP deflection than spontaneous insight within 260-400 ms (N2). Induced insight by hints and induced insight by answers elicited a more negative late negative component (LNC) than spontaneous insight. Induced insight by hints elicited a more positive ERP deflection than induced insight by answers and spontaneous insight in the right frontal area. Spontaneous insight and induced insight by answers elicited a more positive ERP deflection than induced insight by hints in the right part of the central region. When solving insight problems, the N2 may be related to representation restructuring. The first LNC may be related to the breaking of mental set. The positive component of the right frontal area before pressing the button may be related to the formation of novel associations, and the positive component of the right part of the central region may be related to the intensity of the 'Aha!' experience.

Curiosity evolves as information unfolds

When people feel curious, they often seek information to resolve their curiosity. Reaching resolution, however, does not always occur in a single step but instead may follow the accumulation of information over time. Here, we investigated changes in curiosity over a dynamic information-gathering process and how these changes related to affective and cognitive states as well as behavior. Human participants performed an Evolving Line Drawing Task, during which they reported guesses about the drawings' identities and made choices about whether to keep watching. In Study 1, the timing of choices was predetermined and externally imposed, while in Study 2, participants had agency in the timing of guesses and choices. Using this dynamic paradigm, we found that even within a single information-gathering episode, curiosity evolved in concert with other emotional states and with confidence. In both studies, we showed that the relationship between curiosity and confidence depended on stimulus entropy (unique guesses across participants) and on guess accuracy. We demonstrated that curiosity is multifaceted and can be experienced as either positive or negative depending on the state of information gathering. Critically, even when given the choice to alleviate uncertainty immediately (i.e., view a spoiler), higher curiosity promoted continuing to engage in the information-gathering process. Collectively, we show that curiosity changes over information accumulation to drive engagement with external stimuli, rather than to shortcut the path to resolution, highlighting the value inherent in the process of discovery.

Insight and the selection of ideas

Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms underlying this Eureka heuristic are explained within an active inference framework. First, implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction leads to a higher-order prediction error (i.e., the content of insight). Second, dopaminergic precision-weighting of the prediction error accounts for the intuitive confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (i.e., the feeling of insight). This insight as precision account is consistent with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. We conclude by reflecting on dangers of the Eureka Heuristic, including the arising and entrenchment of false beliefs and the vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.

Solving problems with an Aha! increases risk preference

Solving problems with insight culminates in an "Aha! moment": a feeling of confidence and pleasure. In daily life, insights are often followed by important decisions, such as deciding what to do with a new idea. Here, we investigated whether having an Aha! moment affects subsequent decision-making. Because Aha! moments tend to elicit positive affect, which is generally associated with an increased risk-taking tendency, we hypothesized that people would favor a monetary payout with more upside despite greater uncertainty after solving a problem with insight. Participants were asked to solve verbal puzzles and report whether they solved them with insight or without insight. After each puzzle, they chose between two bonuses: a fixed payout or a risk payout with 50% chance of receiving a high or a low payout. Participants were more likely to choose the risk payout after they solved with insight compared to without, suggesting a temporarily higher risk preference. The study provided preliminary evidence of a carryover effect - the impact of an Aha! moment on the subsequent risk choice - that can have implications in everyday decision-making.

Studying perceptual bias in favor of the from-above Necker cube perspective in a goal-directed behavior

When viewing a completely ambiguous image, different interpretations can switch involuntarily due to internal top-down processing. In the case of the Necker cube, an entirely ambiguous stimulus, observers often display a bias in perceptual switching between two interpretations based on their perspectives: one with a from-above perspective (FA) and the other with a from-below perspective (FB). Typically, observers exhibit a priori top-down bias in favor of the FA interpretation, which may stem from a statistical tendency in everyday life where we more frequently observe objects from above. However, it remains unclear whether this perceptual bias persists when individuals voluntarily decide on the Necker cube's interpretation in goal-directed behavior, and the impact of ambiguity in this context is not well-understood. In our study, we instructed observers to voluntarily identify the orientation of a Necker cube while manipulating its ambiguity from low (LA) to high (HA). Our investigation aimed to test two hypotheses: (i) whether the perspective (FA or FB) would result in a bias in response time, and (ii) whether this bias would depend on the level of stimulus ambiguity. Additionally, we analyzed electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to identify potential biomarkers that could explain the observed perceptual bias. The behavioral results confirmed a perceptual bias in favor of the from-above perspective, as indicated by shorter response times. However, this bias diminished for stimuli with high ambiguity. For the LA stimuli, the occipital theta-band power consistently exceeded the frontal theta-band power throughout most of the decision-making time. In contrast, for the HA stimuli, the frontal theta-band power started to exceed the occipital theta-band power during the 0.3-s period preceding the decision. We propose that occipital theta-band power reflects evidence accumulation, while frontal theta-band power reflects its evaluation and decision-making processes. For the FB perspective, occipital theta-band power exhibited higher values and dominated over a longer duration, leading to an overall increase in response time. These results suggest that more information and more time are needed to encode stimuli with a FB perspective, as this template is less common for the observers compared to the template for a cube with a FA perspective.

The nonlinearity of pupil diameter fluctuations in an insight task as criteria for detecting children who solve the problem from those who do not

Insights, characterized by sudden discoveries following unsuccessful problem-solving attempts, are fascinating phenomena. Dynamic systems perspectives argue that insight arises from self-organizing perceptual and motor processes. Entropy and fractal scaling are potential markers for emerging new and effective solutions. This study investigated whether specific features associated with self-organization in dynamical systems can distinguish between individuals who succeed and those who fail in solving insight tasks. To achieve this, we analyzed pupillary diameter fluctuations of children aged 6 to 12 during the 8-coin task, a well-established insight task. The participants were divided into two groups: successful (n = 24) and unsuccessful (n = 43) task completion. Entropy, determinism, recurrence ratio, and the β scaling exponent were estimated using Recurrence Quantification and Power Spectrum Density analyses. The results indicated that the solver group exhibited more significant uncertainty and lower predictability in pupillary diameter fluctuations before finding the solution. Recurrence Quantification Analysis revealed changes that went unnoticed by mean and standard deviation measures. However, the β scaling exponent did not differentiate between the two groups. These findings suggest that entropy and determinism in pupillary diameter fluctuations can identify early differences in problem-solving success. Further research is needed to determine the exclusive role of perceptual and motor activity in generating insights and investigate these results' generalizability to other tasks and populations.

Does Thinking in Opposites in Order to Think Differently Improve Creativity?

In this paper, we focus on the link between thinking in opposites and creativity. Thinking in opposites requires an intuitive, productive strategy, which may enhance creativity. Given the importance of creativity for the well-being of individuals and society, finding new ways to enhance it represents a valuable goal in both professional and personal contexts. We discuss the body of evidence that exists concerning the importance of the first representation of the structure of a problem to be solved, which determines the baseline representation and sets limits on the area within which a problem solver will explore. We then review a variety of interventions described in the literature on creativity and insight problem solving that were designed to overcome fixedness and encourage people to move away from stereotypical solutions. Special attention is paid to the research carried out in the context of problem solving, which provides evidence that prompting people to "think in opposites" is beneficial. We suggest that an extended investigation of the effects of this strategy in various types of tasks related to creativity is an interesting line of research to follow. We discuss the rationale supporting this claim and identify specific questions, both theoretical and methodological, for future research to address.

Restructuring insight: An integrative review of insight in problem-solving, meditation, psychotherapy, delusions and psychedelics

Occasionally, a solution or idea arrives as a sudden understanding - an insight. Insight has been considered an "extra" ingredient of creative thinking and problem-solving. Here we propose that insight is central in seemingly distinct areas of research. Drawing on literature from a variety of fields, we show that besides being commonly studied in problem-solving literature, insight is also a core component in psychotherapy and meditation, a key process underlying the emergence of delusions in schizophrenia, and a factor in the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. In each case, we discuss the event of insight and its prerequisites and consequences. We review evidence for the commonalities and differences between the fields and discuss their relevance for capturing the essence of the insight phenomenon. The goal of this integrative review is to bridge the gap between the different views and inspire interdisciplinary research efforts for understanding this central process of human cognition.

The Neural Mechanisms of the Effect of Spontaneous Insight on Re-Solution: An ERP Study

The insight memory advantage refers to the situation in which memory performance could be improved by solving a problem with an Aha experience. In re-solution tests and recognition tests, studies demonstrate an insight memory advantage by spontaneous insight or induced insight. For the re-solution test, the neural mechanisms of the effect of induced insight were studied by the fMRI technique. However, the neural mechanisms of the effect of insight on re-solution in the temporal dimension were not known. The neural mechanisms of the effect of spontaneous insight on re-solution were not known. In the present study, we use the compound remote-associated (CRA) task to reveal the neural mechanisms of the effect of spontaneous insight on re-solution by the event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. The 25 participants were asked to solve a series of Chinese verbal CRA tasks and then perform a re-solution test 1 day later. Our results indicated that the solution with the Aha experience evoked a larger N400 in the early solution phase and a more negative wave in the late solution phase than the solution with no Aha experience. In the re-solution phase, items with an Aha during the solution phase were re-solved better with higher Aha rates than items with no Aha. In the re-solution phase, compared with items with no Aha, items with an Aha during the solution phase evoked a larger positive ERP in the 250 to 350 ms time window in the early phase, and a more negative deflection before the response (-900 to -800 ms) in the later phase. In one word, spontaneous insight during the solution phase could promote re-solution and elicit ERP deflection in the re-solution phase.

Insight Problem Solving Ability Predicts Reduced Susceptibility to Fake News, Bullshit, and Overclaiming

The information humans are exposed to has grown exponentially. This has placed increased demands upon our information selection strategies resulting in reduced fact-checking and critical-thinking time. Prior research shows that problem solving (traditionally measured using the Cognitive Reflection Test-CRT) negatively correlates with believing in false information. We argue that this result is specifically related to insight problem solving. Solutions via insight are the result of parallel processing, characterized by filtering external noise, and, unlike cognitively controlled thinking, it does not suffer from the cognitive overload associated with processing multiple sources of information. We administered the Compound Remote Associate Test (problems used to investigate insight problem solving) as well as the CRT, 20 fake and real news headlines, the bullshit, and overclaiming scales to a sample of 61 participants. Results show that insight problem solving predicts better identification of fake news and bullshit (over and above traditional measures i.e., the CRT), and is associated with reduced overclaiming. These results have implications for understanding individual differences in susceptibility to believing false information.

Where Does Eureka Come From? The Effect of Unreportable Hints on the Phenomenology of Insight

Insight interests researchers given its special cognitive mechanisms and phenomenology (an Aha! experience or Eureka moment). There is a considerable amount of research on the effect of hints on performance in insight problem solving. However, only a few studies address the effect of hints on the subjective experiences of solvers, and the picture their results provide is unclear. We analyze the effect of unreportable true and false hints on different dimensions of the Aha! experience (subjective suddenness, Aha! experience as an effect, and certainty). Using the processing fluency framework, we predict that true hints lead to more insights and stronger Aha! experience and certainty, while false hints lead to the opposite results due to the controlled inhibition of the inappropriate representation. The results showed that false hints decreased the chance of finding a correct solution. The true-hint condition did not lead to more correct solutions but made solutions feel sudden more often than the control condition. The ratings of the Aha! experience and certainty were higher for solutions obtained after true hints than after false hints. We obtained partial support for the effect of unreportable hints on "Eureka!" moments.

Processing visual ambiguity in fractal patterns: Pareidolia as a sign of creativity

Creativity is a highly valued and beneficial skill that empirical research typically probes using "divergent thinking" (DT) tasks such as problem solving and novel idea generation. Here, in contrast, we examine the perceptual aspect of creativity by asking whether creative individuals are more likely to perceive recognizable forms in ambiguous stimuli -a phenomenon known as pareidolia. To this end, we designed a visual task in which participants were asked to identify as many recognizable forms as possible in cloud-like fractal images. We found that pareidolic perceptions arise more often and more rapidly in highly creative individuals. Furthermore, high-creatives report pareidolia across a broader range of image contrasts and fractal dimensions than do low creatives. These results extend the established body of work on DT by introducing divergent perception as a complementary manifestation of the creative mind, thus clarifying the perception-creation link while opening new paths for studying creative behavior in humans.

The role of creative cognitive reappraisals in positively transforming negative emotions

Recent studies have found the connections between cognitive reappraisals' creativity and their regulatory efficacy. The present study proposed and tested a novel hypothesis on the function of cognitive reappraisals, especially creative ones. That is, whether they could positively alter negative emotional arousal toward unpleasant stimuli. To this end, two questions were investigated: (a) whether the creative reappraisals were more capable than ordinary ones of transforming the negative stimuli (pictures) to be perceived as positive, and (b) whether these two kinds of reappraisals made the "negative-to-positive transformation" through different mechanisms. To answer the first question, we examined the power of the creative and ordinary reappraisals in making the "negative-to-positive transformation" using an indirect and delayed "positive-or-negative" picture-sorting task (Exp. 1, n = 41 with a statistical power of 0.877), or using a direct and immediate subjective rating (Exp. 2, n = 31 with a statistical power of 0.768). To answer the second question, we checked how the factor of creativeness (creative vs. ordinary reappraisal) interacted with the factor of "timing" (simultaneous vs. delayed reappraisal delivery, Exp. 1), or with that of "dose" (one vs. three reappraisal applications; Exp. 2), in making the "negative-to-positive transformation," respectively, and examined if the variation of "timing" or "dose" factors would exert different effects on the creative and ordinary reappraisals' regulatory function. Our results generally proved that creative reappraisal was more capable of making the "negative-to-positive transformation" than the ordinary reappraisal, regardless of the direct and indirect emotion evaluation ratings as well as the variations in the timing and dose of reappraisal delivery. Moreover, we found that these two kinds of reappraisals could show dissociable dose-dependent effects (but not timing-dependent ones), thus partially implying that creative and ordinary reappraisal might make the "negative-to-positive transformation" through fundamentally different processes or mechanisms.

Uncovering neural distinctions and commodities between two creativity subsets: A meta-analysis of fMRI studies in divergent thinking and insight using activation likelihood estimation

The dual‐process theory that two different systems of thought coexist in creative thinking has attracted considerable attention. In the field of creative thinking, divergent thinking (DT) is the ability to produce multiple solutions to open‐ended problems in a short time. It is mainly considered an associative and fast process. Meanwhile, insight, the new and unexpected comprehension of close‐ended problems, is frequently marked as a deliberate and time‐consuming thinking process requiring concentrated effort. Previous research has been dedicated to revealing their separate neural mechanisms, while few studies have compared their differences and similarities at the brain level. Therefore, the current study applied Activation Likelihood Estimation to decipher common and distinctive neural pathways that potentially underlie DT and insight. We selected 27 DT studies and 30 insight studies for retrospective meta‐analyses. Initially, two single analyses with follow‐up contrast and conjunction analyses were performed. The single analyses showed that DT mainly involved the inferior parietal lobe (IPL), cuneus, and middle frontal gyrus (MFG), while the precentral gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), parahippocampal gyrus (PG), amygdala (AMG), and superior parietal lobe were engaged in insight. Compared to insight, DT mainly led to greater activation in the IPL, the crucial part of the default mode network. However, insight caused more significant activation in regions related to executive control functions and emotional responses, such as the IFG, MFG, PG, and AMG. Notably, the conjunction analysis detected no overlapped areas between DT and insight. These neural findings implicate that various neurocognitive circuits may support DT and insight.

Atonal Music as a Model for Investigating Exploratory Behavior

Atonal music is often characterized by low predictability stemming from the absence of tonal or metrical hierarchies. In contrast, Western tonal music exhibits intrinsic predictability due to its hierarchical structure and therefore, offers a directly accessible predictive model to the listener. In consequence, a specific challenge of atonal music is that listeners must generate a variety of new predictive models. Listeners must not only refrain from applying available tonal models to the heard music, but they must also search for statistical regularities and build new rules that may be related to musical properties other than pitch, such as timbre or dynamics. In this article, we propose that the generation of such new predictive models and the aesthetic experience of atonal music are characterized by internal states related to exploration. This is a behavior well characterized in behavioral neuroscience as fulfilling an innate drive to reduce uncertainty but which has received little attention in empirical music research. We support our proposal with emerging evidence that the hedonic value is associated with the recognition of patterns in low-predictability sound sequences and that atonal music elicits distinct behavioral responses in listeners. We end by outlining new research avenues that might both deepen our understanding of the aesthetic experience of atonal music in particular, and reveal core qualities of the aesthetic experience in general.

How Difficult Was It? Metacognitive Judgments About Problems and Their Solutions After the Aha Moment

The insight phenomenon is thought to comprise two components: cognitive and affective (the Aha! experience). The exact nature of the Aha! experience remains unclear; however, several explanations have been put forward. Based on the processing fluency account, the source of the Aha! experience is a sudden increase in processing fluency, associated with emerging of a solution. We hypothesized that in a situation which the Aha! experience accompanies the solution in, the problem would be judged as less difficult, regardless of the objective difficulty. We also planned to confirm previously discovered associations between the Aha! experience and accuracy, confidence, and pleasure. To test the proposed hypothesis, during the preliminary stage of the study, we developed a set of 100 remote associate problems in Russian (RAT-RUS) and asked 125 participants to solve problems and indicate the Aha! moment (after solution generation or solution presentation), confidence, difficulty, and likability of each problem. As expected, the Aha! experience often accompanied correct solutions and correlated with confidence judgments. We also found a positive correlation between the Aha! experience and problem likability. As for the main hypothesis, we confirmed that the Aha! experience after the presentation of the solution was associated with a decrease in subjective difficulty. When participants could not solve a problem but experienced the Aha! moment after the solution was presented to them, the problem was perceived as easier than one without the Aha! experience. We didn’t find the same effect for the Aha! after solution generation. Thus, our study partially supports the processing fluency account and demonstrates the association between the Aha! experience and metacognitive judgments about the accuracy and difficulty of problems.

Does Machine Understanding Require Consciousness?

This article addresses the question of whether machine understanding requires consciousness. Some researchers in the field of machine understanding have argued that it is not necessary for computers to be conscious as long as they can match or exceed human performance in certain tasks. But despite the remarkable recent success of machine learning systems in areas such as natural language processing and image classification, important questions remain about their limited performance and about whether their cognitive abilities entail genuine understanding or are the product of spurious correlations. Here I draw a distinction between natural, artificial, and machine understanding. I analyse some concrete examples of natural understanding and show that although it shares properties with the artificial understanding implemented in current machine learning systems it also has some essential differences, the main one being that natural understanding in humans entails consciousness. Moreover, evidence from psychology and neurobiology suggests that it is this capacity for consciousness that, in part at least, explains for the superior performance of humans in some cognitive tasks and may also account for the authenticity of semantic processing that seems to be the hallmark of natural understanding. I propose a hypothesis that might help to explain why consciousness is important to understanding. In closing, I suggest that progress toward implementing human-like understanding in machines—machine understanding—may benefit from a naturalistic approach in which natural processes are modelled as closely as possible in mechanical substrates.

Holistic View of Intuition and Analysis in Leadership Decision-Making and Problem-Solving

Making decisions is a key task for leaders and managers. Senior leaders are currently exposed to increasing amounts of data which they must process quickly in our current dynamic world. Complex factors in the business world are not always best approached through an analytical framework. Using tacit knowledge gained through intuition can enable a more holistic understanding of the deep nature of today’s problems. This paper takes an expansive view of decision-making with intuition right at the centre and canvasses understandings of intuition arising from philosophy, psychology, Western and Eastern beliefs; and proposes a model that relates intuition to other problem-solving approaches. The paper presents the results of interviews with senior leaders who must make difficult decisions in complex turbulent environments. The interview schedule is based on questions raised in a prior literature search concerning the relationship between intuition and analysis in complexity decision-making and problem-solving, the usefulness to this group of respondents, the possibilities of combining both approaches and any conflict arising from that combination, and understandings of the concept of intuition by these respondents. The resultant model presents a visual description of a process that moves from exterior assessment achieved via sensing and analysis, through to deeper understandings and a more holistic discernment gained through intuition. The model has the potential to assist leaders faced with difficult-to-solve problems in providing a better understanding of the steps involved in tackling problems of increasing levels of complexity.

Current Understanding of the "Insight" Phenomenon Across Disciplines

Despite countless anecdotes and the historical significance of insight as a problem solving mechanism, its nature has long remained elusive. The conscious experience of insight is notoriously difficult to trace in non-verbal animals. Although studying insight has presented a significant challenge even to neurobiology and psychology, human neuroimaging studies have cleared the theoretical landscape, as they have begun to reveal the underlying mechanisms. The study of insight in non-human animals has, in contrast, remained limited to innovative adjustments to experimental designs within the classical approach of judging cognitive processes in animals, based on task performance. This leaves no apparent possibility of ending debates from different interpretations emerging from conflicting schools of thought. We believe that comparative cognition has thus much to gain by embracing advances from neuroscience and human cognitive psychology. We will review literature on insight (mainly human) and discuss the consequences of these findings to comparative cognition.

Quantifying the roles of conscious and unconscious processing in insight-related memory effectiveness within standard and creative advertising

To maximize marketing effectiveness, many conscious and unconscious elements are simultaneously employed within campaign advertising. However, little is known about the individual contributions that conscious and unconscious processes make to the cognitive effectiveness of creative advertisements, some of which may also induce insight experiences. To quantify the roles of conscious and unconscious processes in memory effectiveness within commercial advertising, a dual-process, signal-detection technique was adopted to separate the contributions of conscious recollection and unconscious discrimination induced by 80 printed advertisements, among which half were considered standard and the other half creative. A total of 51 participants completed immediate (5 min later) and delayed (3 days later) memory recognition tests. In contrast to standard advertising, creative advertising was found to enhance recognition and to demonstrate advantages in both conscious and unconscious memory, which decreased across the test-time intervals. Further analyses showed that a moment of insight induced by an advertisement, regardless of whether it is standard or creative, can consolidate unconscious memory, whereas advertisements that do not induce insight improve conscious memory. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The Aha! moment: Is insight a different form of problem solving?

In everyday life, we mainly solve problems with a conscious solution search (non-insight). However, sometimes a perplexing problem is resolved by a quantum leap in understanding. This phenomenon is known as the Aha! experience (insight). Although insight has a distinct phenomenological and behavioral signature, its driving mechanism remains debated. Weisberg (2015) proposed an integrated theory of insight arguing that insight, like non-insight, mainly depends on conscious, cognitive operations with restructuring as a distinguishing feature of insight. However, only if those operations lead to an impasse, insight is achieved through unconscious processes. We assessed some of the premises of this theory by asking participants (N = 42) to solve 70 word puzzles (CRAT) that can either be solved with insight or non-insight. For each puzzle, participants indicated word puzzle difficulty, solution confidence, solution suddenness, and the experiences of impasse and restructuring. As expected, participants reported higher suddenness of and confidence in insight solutions than non-insightful ones. Surprisingly, we could not corroborate the otherwise consistently reported higher solution accuracy and faster solution speed for insight. Crucially, as suggested by the integrated theory of insight, impasse was not a prerequisite for insight to occur. Although restructuring, indeed, preceded insight solutions more often, it seemed a more general problem-solving skill also applied for non-insight solutions. Moreover, early on, participants reported an increased experience of problem difficulty for puzzles later solved with insight. This ability to report on the solution search of insight demonstrates that, as proposed by the theory, insight involves conscious, cognitive operations.

Continuity in intuition and insight: from real to naturalistic virtual environment

Intuition and insight can be deployed on the same continuum. Intuition is the unconscious ability to create links between information; insight is a process by which a sudden comprehension and resolution of a situation arises (i.e. euréka). In the present study, real and virtual environments were used to trigger intuition and insight. The study hypothesised that immersion in real primed environments would facilitate the emergence of intuition and insight in a virtual environment. Forty nine healthy participants were randomly assigned to two groups: “primed” and “non primed.” “Primed” participants were immersed in a real environment with olfactory and visual cues; “non primed” participants did not receive any cues. All participants were exposed to a 3D naturalistic virtual environment which represented a district in Paris via a Head Mounted Display (HMD). Locations presented in the virtual scene (i.e. café places) were related to both olfactory and visual primes (i.e. café) and were based on the continuity between real and virtual environments. Once immersed in the virtual environment, all participants were instructed to use their intuition to envision the selected locations during which Skin Conductance Responses (SCRs) and verbal declarations were recorded. When initiation (a) and immersion (b) phases in the virtual environment were considered, “primed” participants had higher SCRs during the immersion phase than the initiation phase in the virtual environment. They showed higher SRCs during the first part of the virtual immersion than “non primed” participants. During the phenomenological interview, “primed” participants reported a higher number of correct intuitive answers than “non primed” participants. Moreover, “primed” participants “with” insight had higher SCRs during real environment immersion than “primed” participants “without” insight. The findings are consistent with the idea that intuitive decisions in various tasks are based on the activation of pre-existing knowledge, which is unconsciously retrieved, but nevertheless can elicit an intuitive impression of coherence and can generate insight.

An Updated Evaluation of the Dichotomous Link Between Creativity and Mental Health

The theory of the mad genius, a popular cultural fixture for centuries, has received widespread attention in the behavioral sciences. Focusing on a longstanding debate over whether creativity and mental health are positively or negatively correlated, this study first summarized recent relevant studies and meta-analyses and then provided an updated evaluation of this correlation by describing a new and useful perspective for considering the relationship between creativity and mental health. Here, a modified version of the dual-pathway model of creativity was developed to explain the seemingly paradoxical relationship between creativity and mental health. This model can greatly enrich the scientific understanding of the so-called mad genius controversy and further promote the scientific exploration of the link between creativity and mental health or psychopathology.

What makes creative advertisements memorable? The role of insight

Sudden insight is often observed during creative problem solving and studies have suggested that advertisements can likewise evoke an insight experience. To date, however, there is limited empirical evidence on whether advertisements can trigger ideational insight, and, if so, whether such insight plays a role in advertising memorability. This study aimed to explore the insight experience evoked by advertisements and to examine the role of such experimentally-induced insight in predicted memory and metamemory performance. Participants viewed standardized advertising images sequentially, with each image presentation being followed immediately by a second presentation either with or without a brief description of the advertising idea. Next, participants were asked to recall the three most impressive advertisements. Finally, participants were randomly divided to complete either immediate (5 min later) or delayed (3 days later) recognition tests and to provide retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs). Recall of creative advertisements was better than standard advertisements and most of them evoked insight. In addition, recognition accuracy was greater for creative advertisements relative to standard advertisements and metamemory performance as elicited through RCJs was enhanced. Further analyses confirmed the documented importance of insight for memory consolidation. The findings suggest that insight makes advertisements more memorable, especially those that are creative.

In search of the emotional experience of innovative products across categories

Although the innovative designs deliver, superior customer value has long been noted. However, the emotional experience of innovative products brings remains mostly unknown. This work focuses on two kinds of innovative products: function innovation (FI) and design innovation (DI), to uncover the mystery of the emotional experience, these two types of innovative designs bring. Participants in Study 1 were required to subjectively report their practical, emotional experience of the two kinds of innovative designs. The result showed that the emotional experience of innovation products might be a mixture of emotionality. Also, FI and DI products may cause different emotional experiences performance. Multidimensional scaling was employed in Study 2 to simplify the dimensions of these reported emotions to investigate the difference of emotion dimensions distribution that FI and DI brings. The results showed that DI products mainly reflected strong arouse than FI in positive emotions. However, DI product brings more negative emotions than positive emotions. Whereas, FI product did not show the quantitative differences between positive and negative emotions. In Study 3, the difference between FI and DI in emotion intensity was investigated, and the result indicates that both FI and DI products can bring high-intensity positive emotion. However, the DI brings higher intensity negative emotion and lower intensity positive emotion than FI. These studies demonstrate the first direct evidence of the essence of the difference between FI and DI emotion experience and suggest possible guidance for consumers to avoid the effect of the emotions when choosing innovative products.

The effects of risk-taking, exploitation, and exploration on creativity

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effects of risk-taking, exploitation, and exploration on creativity by taking a model-based computational approach to both divergent and convergent thinking as primary ingredients of creativity. We adopted a reinforcement learning framework of Q learning to provide a simple, rigorous account of behavior in the decision-making process and examined the determinants of divergent and convergent thinking. Our findings revealed that risk-taking has positive effects on divergent thinking, but not related to convergent thinking. In particular, divergent thinkers with a high learning capacity were more likely to engage in risk-taking when facing losses than when facing gains. This risk-taking behavior not only contributes to the rapid achievement of learning convergence, but is also associated with high performance in divergent thinking tasks. Conversely, both exploitation and exploration had no significant effects on creativity once these risk attitudes were considered. Moreover, while convergent thinking relied on personality characteristics, it was not associated with risk-taking, exploitation, or exploration.

How Does Knowledge About an Artist's Disability Change the Aesthetic Experience?

Based on concepts of cognitive mastering and the rewarding effect of making sense of challenging visual art (taken from a psychological model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments of Leder et al., 2004), we hypothesised that viewers who have knowledge about an artist’s disability will appreciate their ambiguous works more than viewers who do not have such knowledge. Additionally, we aimed to explore how information about the artist’s disability changes the viewer’s aesthetic emotions. We investigated the effect of information on the creator’s visual disability on aesthetic experience in relation to three categories of visual art: photos, sculptures, and drawings. We showed digital reproductions of artworks (N = 32) produced by amateur artists with severe visual impairment to nonexperts in art (N = 145). Viewers assessed their aesthetic appreciation (understood as liking and value) and aesthetic emotions on the Self-Assessment Manikin scales for valence, arousal, dominance, origin, and significance. In accordance with our hypothesis, knowledge of the artists' disability had a positive influence on appreciation, but the effect of information was moderated by artwork category and was significant only in the case of sculptures and drawings (works created using these techniques were assessed in the preliminary study as more difficult to interpret than photos). A similar pattern of results was found for the dependent variables of arousal and significance. Therefore, the positive influence of information about the artists' disabilities on aesthetic experience is mainly revealed when the artworks are characterised by low detectability (defined as the difficulty in interpreting an artwork due to difficulty in recognizing what it depicts).

The mediating role of thriving: Mindfulness and contextual performance among Turkish nurses

AIMS

To examine the role of thriving in the relationship between mindfulness and contextual performance.

BACKGROUND

Thriving has been known as one of the most important components in the professional development of nurses. Previous studies have also shown that mindfulness and contextual performance have an effective role in workplace. Yet, we still know relatively little about the underlying mechanisms that explain the relationship among mindfulness, thriving and contextual performance in a nursing context.

METHODS

Data were collected from nurses from various hospitals in Turkey (N = 398). We used the structural equation model to test the mediation model.

RESULTS

Empirical results indicate that thriving mediates the link between employee mindfulness and contextual performance.

CONCLUSIONS

This study contributes to the existing literature on thriving by explaining the mediating mechanisms through which mindfulness affects contextual performance and provides implications for practitioners by showing that employees with higher levels of mindfulness engage in more extra-role behaviours when their thriving is high.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Managers should pay attention to finding ways to improve mindfulness and thriving in organisations in order to increase nurses' contextual performance.

Unpacking Impasse-Related Experience during Insight

Mental impasse has long been recognized as a hallmark of creative insight, but its precise role has been unexplored. The aim of the present work, consisting of two studies, was to experimentally probe mental impasse perspective from insight experience, namely impasse-related experience during insight. In Study 1, participants were requested to complete a compound remote association task and a forced-choice subjective experience depiction task that could provide data on impasse-related experience. The results showed that reports of negative experience, such as feelings of loss (t = -5.51, p < .001, Cohen d = 1.07) and personal experience (mirrored by 'other' response; t = -2.62, p < .05, Cohen d = 0.48), were more common in the impasse condition than in the no-impasse condition; correspondingly positive affect and positive cognitive experiences such as happiness (t = 4.20, p < .001, Cohen d = 0.77), ease (t = 5.90, p < .001, Cohen d = 1.20), certainty (t = 7.46, p < .001, Cohen d = 1.36) and calmness (t = 4.42, p < .001, Cohen d = 0.81) were experienced more frequently in the no-impasse condition. These findings were replicated in Study 2, in which participants were invited to solve a set of classic insight problems and to freely report any feelings of being at an impasse. Across two studies, this work suggests that impasse-related experience during insight problem solving is multi-faceted and consists of negative affective and cognitive components. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The relationships between bilingual learning, willingness to study abroad and convergent creativity

Convergent creativity is a form of creative thinking that uses existing knowledge or traditional methods to analyze available information and generate an appropriate solution. The differences in the performance of participants in convergent creativity caused by bilingual learning is a popular research area in creativity. A final sample of 68 participants was asked to complete the remote associates test (RAT). The results indicate that a moderate positive correlation exists between bilingual learning and convergent creativity. Students who want to study abroad perform better on the RAT than those who do not, and this effect is mediated by second language proficiency. These findings suggest that improving students' English proficiency and increasing their opportunities to study abroad may be effective ways to promoting convergent creativity.

Feeling the Insight: Uncovering Somatic Markers of the "aha" Experience

Whether internal insight can be recognized by experiencing (somatic feeling) remains an unexplored problem. This study investigated the issue by examining potential somatic markers of the "aha" experience occurring at the moment of sudden insight. Participants were required to solve a set of compound remote associates (CRA) problems and were simultaneously monitored via electrodermal and cardiovascular recordings. The "aha"-related psychological components and somatic markers were determined by contrasting insightful solutions with non-insightful solutions. Results showed that the "aha" experience was an amalgam entailing positive affects and approached cognition accompanied by a greater mean skin conductance response (mSCR) amplitude and a marginally accelerated heart rate than the "no-aha" one. These results confirm and extend findings of the multidimensionality of the "aha" feeling and offer the first direct evidence of somatic markers, particularly an electrodermal signature of an "aha" feeling, which suggests a sudden insight could likely be experienced by individuals' external soma.

How and When? Metacognition and Solution Timing Characterize an "Aha" Experience of Object Recognition in Hidden Figures

The metacognitive feelings of an "aha!" experience are key to comprehending human subjective experience. However, behavioral characteristics of this introspective cognition are not well known. An aha experience sometimes occurs when one gains a solution abruptly in problem solving, a subjective experience that subserves the conscious perception of an insight. We experimentally induced an aha experience in a hidden object recognition task, and analyzed whether this aha experience was associated with metacognitive judgments and behavioral features. We used an adaptation of Mooney images, i.e., morphing between a grayscale image and its binarised image in 100 steps, to investigate the phenomenology associated with insight: aha experience, confidence, suddenness, and pleasure. Here we show that insight solutions are more accurate than non-insight solutions. As metacognitive judgments, participants' confidence in the correctness of their solution is higher in insight than non-insight problem solving. Intensities of the aha feeling are positively correlated with subjective rating scores of both suddenness and pleasure, features that show marked signs of unexpected positive emotions. The strength of the aha experience is also positively correlated with response times from the onset of presentation until finding the solution, or with task difficulty only if the solution confidence is high enough. Our findings provide metacognitive and temporal conditions for an aha experience, characterizing features distinct from those supporting non-aha experience.

Once more with feeling: Normative data for the aha experience in insight and noninsight problems

Despite the presumed ability of insight problems to elicit the subjective feeling of insight, as well as the use of so-called insight problems to investigate this phenomenon for over 100 years, no research has collected normative data regarding the ability of insight problems to actually elicit the feeling of insight in a given individual. The work described in this article provides an overview of both classic and contemporary problems used to examine the construct of insight and presents normative data on the success rate, mean time to solution, and mean rating of aha experience for each problem and task type. We suggest using these data in future work as a reference for selecting problems on the basis of their ability to elicit an aha experience.

Computational Simulation of Team Creativity: The Benefit of Member Flow

This study simulates the team cognition model through NetLogo 6.0.2 to view a dynamic changing of team creativity during knowledge sharing when the team members perform problem-solving tasks. A hypothesis is proposed: (a) when people possess various characteristics, members who own high-level normal knowledge and have high communication frequency are suited to perform problem construction process and members who own high-level creative knowledge and have less communication frequency are suited to perform divergent exploration process; (b) member flow that old-timer is replaced by a new member, can improve the team creativity and keep it more stable. The team cognition model is based on the social network of the team, where members are assigned cognition tasks. Also, the simulation experiments are conducted in 6 conditions and each condition has one situation including "MemberFlow" procedure, and one excluding "MemberFlow" procedure. Each experiment contains 500 repetitive experiments and in each repetition, there are 100 steps of "GO" procedure are performed. The results show that the team creativity is maximal and stable in the condition of hypothesis (a), and member flow can optimize the team creativity.

The Effect of the Embodied Guidance in the Insight Problem Solving: An Eye Movement Study

Insight is an important cognitive process in creative thinking. The present research applied embodied cognitive perspective to explore the effect of embodied guidance on insight problem solving and its underlying mechanisms by two experiments. Experiment 1 used the matchstick arithmetic problem to explore the role of embodied gestures guidance in problem solving. The results showed that the embodied gestures facilitate the participants’ performance. Experiment 2 investigated how embodied attention guidance affects insight problem solving. The results showed that participants performed better in prototypical guidance condition. Experiment 2a adopted the Duncker’s radiation problem to explore how embodied behavior and prototypical guidance influence problem solving by attention tracing techniques. Experiment 2b aimed to further examine whether implicit attention transfer was the real cause which resulted in participants over-performing in prototypical guidance condition in Experiment 2a. The results demonstrated that overt physical motion was unnecessary for individuals to experience the benefits of embodied guidance in problem solving, which supported the reciprocal relation hypothesis of saccades and attention. In addition, the questionnaire completed after experiments showed that participants did not realize the relation between guidance and insight problem solving. Taken together, the current study provided further evidence for that embodied gesture and embodied attention both facilitated the insight problem solving and the facilitation is implicit.

Connect 4: A Novel Paradigm to Elicit Positive and Negative Insight and Search Problem Solving

Researchers have typically defined insight as a sudden new idea or understanding accompanied by an emotional feeling of Aha. Recently, examples of negative insight in everyday creative problem solving have been identified. These are seen as sudden and sickening moments of realization experienced as an Uh-oh rather than Aha. However, such experiences have yet to be explored from an experimental perspective. One barrier to doing so is that methods to elicit insight in the laboratory are constrained to positive insight. This study therefore aimed to develop a novel methodology that elicits both positive and negative insight solving, and additionally provides the contrasting experiences of analytic search solving in the same controlled conditions. The game of Connect 4 was identified as having the potential to produce these experiences, with each move representing a solving episode (where best to place the counter). Eighty participants played six games of Connect 4 against a computer and reported each move as being a product of positive search, positive insight, negative search or negative insight. Phenomenological ratings were then collected to provide validation of the experiences elicited. The results demonstrated that playing Connect 4 saw reporting of insight and search experiences that were both positive and negative, with the majority of participants using all four solving types. Phenomenological ratings suggest that these reported experiences were comparable to those elicited by existing laboratory methods focused on positive insight. This establishes the potential for Connect 4 to be used in future problem solving research as a reliable elicitation tool of insight and search experiences for both positive and negative solving. Furthermore, Connect 4 may be seen to offer more true to life solving experiences than other paradigms where a series of problems are solved working toward an overall superordinate goal rather than the presentation of stand-alone and un-related problems. Future work will need to look to develop versions of Connect 4 with greater control in order to fully utilize this methodology for creative problem solving research in experimental psychology and neuroscience contexts.

Paving the Way to Eureka-Introducing "Dira" as an Experimental Paradigm to Observe the Process of Creative Problem Solving

"Dira" is a novel experimental paradigm to record combinations of behavioral and metacognitive measures for the creative process. This task allows assessing chronological and chronometric aspects of the creative process directly and without a detour through creative products or proxy phenomena. In a study with 124 participants we show that (a) people spend more time attending to selected vs. rejected potential solutions, (b) there is a clear connection between behavioral patterns and self-reported measures, (c) the reported intensity of Eureka experiences is a function of interaction time with potential solutions, and (d) experiences of emerging solutions can happen immediately after engaging with a problem, before participants explore all potential solutions. The conducted study exemplifies how "Dira" can be used as an instrument to narrow down the moment when solutions emerge. We conclude that the "Dira" experiment is paving the way to study the process, as opposed to the product, of creative problem solving.

Ultra-high-field fMRI insights on insight: Neural correlates of the Aha!-moment

Finding creative solutions to difficult problems is a fundamental aspect of human culture and a skill highly needed. However, the exact neural processes underlying creative problem solving remain unclear. Insightful problem solving tasks were shown to be a valid method for investigating one subcomponent of creativity: the Aha!-moment. Finding insightful solutions during a remote associates task (RAT) was found to elicit specific cortical activity changes. Considering the strong affective components of Aha!-moments, as manifested in the subjectively experienced feeling of relief following the sudden emergence of the solution of the problem without any conscious forewarning, we hypothesized the subcortical dopaminergic reward network to be critically engaged during Aha. To investigate those subcortical contributions to insight, we employed ultra-high-field 7 T fMRI during a German Version of the RAT. During this task, subjects were exposed to word triplets and instructed to find a solution word being associated with all the three given words. They were supposed to press a button as soon as they felt confident about their solution without further revision, allowing us to capture the exact event of Aha!-moment. Besides the finding on cortical involvement of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG), here we showed for the first time robust subcortical activity changes related to insightful problem solving in the bilateral thalamus, hippocampus, and the dopaminergic midbrain comprising ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and caudate nucleus. These results shed new light on the affective neural mechanisms underlying insightful problem solving.

"The Penny Drops": Investigating Insight Through the Medium of Cryptic Crosswords

A new protocol for eliciting insight (“Aha!”/Eureka) moments is proposed, involving the solving of British-style cryptic crosswords. The mechanics of cryptic crossword clues are briefly explained, and the process is set into the insight literature, with parallels being drawn between several different types of cryptic crossword clues and other insight-triggering problems such as magic, jokes, anagrams, rebus, and remote association puzzles (RAT), as well as “classic” thematic or spatial challenges. We have evidence from a previous survey of cryptic crossword solvers that the “Aha!” moment is the most important driver of continued participation in this hobby, suggesting that the positive emotional “payback” has an energizing effect on a participant's motivation to continue solving. Given the success with which a good quality cryptic crossword elicits “Aha!” moments, cryptics should prove highly valuable in exploring insight under lab conditions. We argue that the crossword paradigm overcomes many of the issues which beset other insight problems: for example, solution rates of cryptic crossword clues are high; new material can easily be commissioned, leading to a limitless pool of test items; and each puzzle contains clues resembling a wide variety of insight problem types, permitting a comparison of heterogeneous solving mechanisms within the same medium. Uniquely among insight problems, considerations of expertise also come into play, allowing us to explore how crossword solving experts handle the deliberate misdirection of the cryptic clue more effectively than non-expert, but equally experienced, peers. Many have debated whether there is such a thing as an “insight problem” per se: typically, problems can be solved with or without insight, depending on the context. We argue that the same is true for cryptic crosswords, and that the key to the successful triggering of insight may lie in both the difficulty of the challenge and the degree to which misdirection has been used. Future research is outlined which explores the specific mechanisms of clue difficulty. This opens the way to an exploration of potential links between solving constraints and the experiencing of the “Aha!” moment, which may shed light on the cognitive processes involved in insight solution.

In Search of Somatic Precursors of Spontaneous Insight

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).

Pleasures of the Mind: What Makes Jokes and Insight Problems Enjoyable

In this paper, a parallel analysis of the enjoyment derived from humor and insight problem solving is presented with reference to a “general” Theory of the Pleasures of the Mind (TPM) (Kubovy, 1999) rather than to “local” theories regarding what makes humor and insight problem solving enjoyable. The similarity of these two cognitive activities has already been discussed in previous literature in terms of the cognitive mechanisms which underpin getting a joke or having an insight experience in a problem solving task. The paper explores whether we can learn something new about the similarities and differences between humor and problem solving by means of an investigation of what makes them pleasurable. In the first part of the paper, the framework for this joint analysis is set. Two descriptive studies are then presented in which the participants were asked to report on their experiences relating to solving visuo-spatial insight problems (Study 1) or understanding cartoons (Study 2) in terms of whether they were enjoyable or otherwise. In both studies, the responses were analyzed with reference to a set of categories inspired by the TPM. The results of Study 1 demonstrate that finding the solution to a problem is associated with a positive evaluation, and the most frequent explanations for this were reported as being Curiosity, Virtuosity and Violation of expectations. The results of Study 2 suggest that understanding a joke (Joy of verification) and being surprised by it (Feeling of surprise) were two essential conditions: when they were not present, the cartoons were perceived as not enjoyable. However, this was not enough to explain the motivations for the choice of the most enjoyable cartoons. Recognizing a Violation of expectations and experiencing a Diminishment in the cleverness or awareness initially attributed to the characters in the cartoon were the aspects which were most frequently indicated by the participants to explain why they enjoyed the joke. These findings are evaluated in the final discussion, together with their limitations and potential future developments.

Active Inference, Curiosity and Insight

This article offers a formal account of curiosity and insight in terms of active (Bayesian) inference. It deals with the dual problem of inferring states of the world and learning its statistical structure. In contrast to current trends in machine learning (e.g., deep learning), we focus on how people attain insight and understanding using just a handful of observations, which are solicited through curious behavior. We use simulations of abstract rule learning and approximate Bayesian inference to show that minimizing (expected) variational free energy leads to active sampling of novel contingencies. This epistemic behavior closes explanatory gaps in generative models of the world, thereby reducing uncertainty and satisfying curiosity. We then move from epistemic learning to model selection or structure learning to show how abductive processes emerge when agents test plausible hypotheses about symmetries (i.e., invariances or rules) in their generative models. The ensuing Bayesian model reduction evinces mechanisms associated with sleep and has all the hallmarks of "aha" moments. This formulation moves toward a computational account of consciousness in the pre-Cartesian sense of sharable knowledge (i.e., con: "together"; scire: "to know").