Eureka effect
The Eureka effect, also known as the aha! effect, refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. The Eureka effect is named after the myth that the Greek polymath Archimedes, having discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular object, leaped out of a public bath, and ran home naked shouting “eureka” (I found it). Archimedes was asked by the local king to detect whether a crown was pure gold, or if the goldsmith had added silver. During his trip to the public bath, he noticed that water is displaced when his body sinks into the bath, and that the volume of water displaced equals the volume of the body immersed in the water. This means that he can measure the density of the crown, and compare it to a bar of pure gold. This story is thought to be a myth, because it was first mentioned by the Roman writer Vitruvius nearly 200 years after the event, and because the method described by Vitruvius would have been inaccurate.
Some research describes the Aha! effect (also known as insight 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 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. 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”. 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.
Initial research
The Eureka effect was first 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 which 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.
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 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 only occurs 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.
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 said that the ring structure of benzene 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 stated that he valued sleep as a time for “unconscious thought” that helped him break through problems.
See also: