If you’ve experienced the highs and lows of creative thinking, you know that sometimes the creative well is dry, while at other times creativity is free flowing. It is during the latter times that people often experience so-called “Aha!” moments — those moments of clarity when the solution to a vexing problem falls into place with a sudden insight and you see connections that previously eluded you.
But why do “Aha!” moments sometimes come easily and sometimes not at all? A new study reveals that patterns of brain activity before people even see a problem predict whether they will solve it with or without such an insight, and these brain activity patterns are likely linked to distinct types of mental preparation.
The current study reveals that the distinct patterns of brain activity leading to “Aha!” moments of insight begin much earlier than the time a problem is solved. The research suggests that people can mentally prepare to have an “Aha!” solution even before a problem is presented. Specifically, as people prepare for problems that they solve with insight, their pattern of brain activity suggests that they are focusing attention inwardly, are ready to switch to new trains of thought, and perhaps are actively silencing irrelevant thoughts. These findings are important because they show that people can mentally prepare to solve problems with different thinking styles and that these different forms of preparation can be identified with specific patterns of brain activity. This study may eventually lead to an understanding of how to put people in the optimal “frame of mind” to deal with particular types of problems.
This research team’s previous study revealed that just prior to an “Aha!” solution, after a person has been working on solving a problem, the brain momentarily reduces visual inputs, with an effect similar to a person shutting his or her eyes or looking away to facilitate the emergence into consciousness of the solution. The new study extends these findings by suggesting that mental preparation involving inward focus of attention promotes insight even prior to the presentation of a problem. Therefore, it may be that how a person is thinking before problem solving begins is just as important as the kind of thinking involved in reaching the solution, and perhaps even determines whether the solution will be derived with a sudden insight.
I would think the DU Army has beaucoup troops capable of an “Aha!”
This reminds me of “Biorhythms” back in the day that measured the up and down cycle of different aspects in your life, and creativity was one of them.
I had an “aha” moment yesterday.
Last Saturday I took my four-year-old to Dinner. He dropped his fork and then started crying. He told me that “everything is wrong”. I answered back quickly that “nothing is wrong, everything is right”. Later, I realized what had happened. The night before he and I got to his mother’s home to find a broken dish and plate scattered on the kitchen floor. He asked me what happened. I said I didn’t know and proceeded to sweep up the mess. His mother was angry at me but at least she didn’t do it in front of him. The next morning when he went around the table to sit down for breakfast he stepped on a shard and cut his bare foot. He cried. I lost my temper and scolded his mother, “you are tyring to hurt me but you are going to hurt the wrong person”. So getting back to my aha moment, I realized the problem with society. The problem is language. My kid does not understand the nuances of language yet. He heard “you (his mother) are going to hurt the WRONG person”. In his head he understands this to be a true statement because his dad, the authority, said a person would get hurt (he got hurt–he knows this) and that person (him– he knows that) would be a WRONG person (hmmm, he didn’t know he was wrong, and daddy said it with a mean tone. Why is he WRONG?). The word is an incredible tool. Every single person in every culture and part of the world has this trouble. You believe a word in your mind. A word doesn’t exist in reality–only in the mind. But the mind manifest reality so if someone thinks, he is. I tried to explain to my son that words are just words. That sometimes things are said that he might not understand. And then I repeated to him that I loved him. That mommy loved him. I gave him a hug and a kiss.
The problem is language. We are separated from reality by words and language. I really am starting to see that the right way to live is without words. Being silent as much as possible except for direct answers from questions is the way to live.
Indeed, God is silent. He doesn’t use words.
just prior to an “Aha!” solution, after a person has been working on solving a problem, the brain momentarily reduces visual inputs, with an effect similar to a person shutting his or her eyes or looking away to facilitate the emergence into consciousness of the solution.
This would also explain why we can wake up in the morning with an “Aha” or the solution to a problem – we’ve let the unconscious mind take over the problem solving during the night.
I usually get a similar thing right before I fall asleep. It usually involves calculus homework…
This report is a very good example of how researchers can make the obvious sound profound and new.
If you’ve read “Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell, I’d like to read your thoughts relating this new research to the theories advanced in the book. This has important application to the approaches reflected in broader discussions and educational curriculae regarding critical thinking and decision-making in business, government, or organizations. Gladwell describes a process of “thin-slicing” which our brains unconsciously perform to allow us to make snap decisions that are generally as “correct” as situations in which people engage in protracted research and review prior to making a decision.
jay, “blink” is another name for intuition. I read that book some time ago and I agree with Gladwell. It’s like knowing before you know. Socrates said that we know everything and that it is just a matter of remembering prodded by someone who has already remembered (or learned–though not exactly “learn” as we know it). Blinking, or intuition, is the highest ability of Awareness. The lowest ability is instinct (sort of like blinking but without whole knowledge), followed by emotional and, higher still, intellectual. Intuition is the whole which includes instinct, emotional, and intellectual but surpasses all of them because Intuition integrates all of them and become greater than the sum of its parts.
I believe there are higher abilities beyond intuition. I think the next higher one would be pychic which would be not only the ability to see the whole consciousness of oneself but also of others. In essence, being able to read someone else’s mind. I have this ability at times when I am open to reception and am physically near someone.