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Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Aha! experience

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Aha! experience:
What are the motivational and emotional characteristics of aha! experiences?

Overview

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Insight and learning are not new concepts for life on Earth. This process is constantly evolving from generation to generation as knowledge is passed down. Animals and humans alike go through the necessary instinctual learning from birth so they can survive. This continues as humans develop not because they need to survive, but to enhance their knowledge, to learn a new math formula helping with spreadsheeting at work, or increasing their own physical abilities to play sport with friends. When someone is learning a task for the first time, there is a point where they receive clarity on how that new skill or thought process is performed. This may only take a short amount of time, or it could take weeks depending on the complexity of the task. These moments have been labelled the aha! moment, eureka moment, lightbulb moment, revelation, when the penny drops, and there are many other names for this experience. This chapter will mainly use the term, aha! moment and focus on the definition, a moment of sudden insight or discovery.

Case study

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Case study
 
Figure 1 Skateboarder landing a difficult trick (hardflip)

1. You are sitting at home one evening trying to solve a cryptic crossword. The clue seems too abstract at first, but as you start to give up and get frustrated your brain unconsciously connects the dots and you have an instant realisation of what the answer might be. This is an aha! moment and the answer jumps out at you, these aha! moments can come in many different forms.

2. Imagine a skateboarder (see Figure 1) who is trying to land a new trick, falling over and over again until a movement or thought clicks and the skateboarder can now land this new trick more often than not. This is a combination of motivation and emotion to give a complex insight or aha! moment with a new feeling or movement.

This is two examples of the aha! moment, motivation is an important part of this process. Without sufficient drive to spend time learning it is unlikely anything new will be revealed. Behaviour, in relation to the aha moment is also important due to the feeling and excitement that can occur from learning something new.

There has been extensive research on cognitive development, and how this occurs; this book chapter will focus on the aha! experience and the motivational and emotional characteristics of these experiences. Popular theories of aha! moments are based on early studies by Wolfgang Köhler, he described it as a restructuring of a problem rather than an analytical approach. Further research using the advancements of technology goes on to explain that an impasse is usually a key of moving towards an aha! moment, when the aha! moment is finally realised the dopaminergic middle brain is activated causing the person to feel excitement.

The right hemisphere of the brain has been linked to these aha! moments and this hemisphere of the brain is more active when relaxed. For this reason, it is not surprising that aha! moments have been reported occurring during times in nature, when meditating, or while in the shower. Sleep has also been described as a time that a large amount of aha! moments occur.

The aha! moment has been found to be manipulatable just as fake memories can be planted. Researchers have been able to elicit aha! moments causing a higher rate of belief in false facts. An aha! moment causing the user to believe that particular solution is true is the cause for this discrepancy. For the previous reasons, it is important for research on the aha! moment to continue, it is a unique state that many people have experienced before and find themselves stuck at the impasse stage. Further research could be based on isolating the specific parts of the brain for each stage of the aha! moment.

Focus questions

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Focus questions
  • What are the theories behind the aha! moment?
  • Why does it feel good to aha!?
  • Where do aha! moments usually occur?
  • What are the disadvantages of an aha! moment?

 
Figure 2 A 16th century woodcut of Archimedes' eureka moment

What are the theories behind the aha! moment?

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The aha! moment has been reported as far back as 250 bc, when Archimedes was tasked with finding out if the King's crown was pure gold. During a trip to a local bath house Archimedes realised that water displacement could be used to measure the mass of an odd shaped object; it was at this moment he had an aha! moment, he leaped out of the bath shouting "Eureka" (see Figure 2) and was seen running down the street naked. This section, however, will aim to describe current and past theories of the aha! moment in more recent psychology. With the emergence of technology, this area of study has evolved dramatically since early studies in the 1920s by Gestalt psychologists.

Early studies

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Figure 3 Wolfgang Köhler, psychologist and phenomenologist

Gestalt psychologists were coined as the first to begin the study of the aha! moment. Wolfgang Köhler's (see Figure 3) early work with chimpanzees showed that insight occurred when looking at a problem from a different perspective rather than multiple repeated attempts, in essence restructuring the problem (Kohler, 1925). This research paved the way for current research who used Gestalt principles as a foundation for modern day study into aha! moments.

Current theories

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Many modern researchers agree that aha! moments are somewhat unconscious, are different from analytic learning patterns, and are all interested in how aha! moments can be elicited.

John Kounios and Mark Beeman

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Two of the current leading researchers on the aha! moment are John Kounios and Mark Beeman. Their book The Eureka Factor: aha! moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain (2015) is considered to be one of the most thorough up-to-date sources on the aha! moment. Using modern technology such as neuroimaging, they are able to explore the regions of the brain and the neural activity that occurs at the time of insight (Kounios & Jung-Beeman, 2015).

Kounios and Jung-Beeman (2015) explain how the aha! moment is similar to a lightning strike of clarity after some duration of unconscious thought. They suggest that the main process difference between sudden insight and an analytical framework of learning is the step-by-step process. They explain the ideal conditions for an aha! moment as when the brain is emitting alpha waves, positive emotions and minimal distractions can allow the person to reduce their functional fixedness and increase the chance of an aha! moment. The area of the brain that is most involved in the aha! moment is the anterior superior temporal gyrus in the right hemisphere; during the moment of insight the brain will also show gamma waves in a state of heightened awareness.

Amory H. Danek

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Research by Amory H. Danek follows similar theories that aha! moments are a large leap in understanding, happen somewhat subconsciously and consist of a restructuring rather than a step-by-step process. In the book chapter The phenomenology of insight: The Aha! experience, Danek (2023) expands on this by introducing her theory on the role emotion has in an aha! moment. She believes that the surprise, sense of accomplishment, and enjoyment that accompany the insight moment create an emotional high that acts a reinforcer and a signal that the solution was correct. She goes on to describe that another key component of the aha! moment is a cognitive impasse. The chapter indicates that at this point the person can not see a clear solution to the problem and they turn away from conventional thinking and the unconscious mind can take over. This is strengthening the aha! moment due to the conscious mind suddenly becoming aware of the insight causing a huge shift in perspective, making the whole experience much more memorable than an analytical process of learning.

It is important to remember that historically, the theories gave a good description of what the aha! moment was but it didn't describe why these were occuring. The advances in technology have allowed modern researchers to measure the biological origin of this phenomenon and to gain more knowledge in this area. By learning what sections of the brain activate when someone is having an aha! moment, it gives the ability to to give more practical applications that can be utilised.

Quiz

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Topic review 1: Quiz time!

1 What type of brain waves were associated with aha! moments? (select all that apply)

Alpha
Beta
Delta
Gamma

2 Which of these is a key precursor to an aha! moment?

An emotional high
A cognitive impasse
A warm bath

Why does it feel good to aha!?

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The moment someone reaches that aha! moment is a positive emotion, a feeling of success, and also importantly a feeling of relief. When that same person is at the impasse stage of the problem they are usually feeling frustrated, ready to give up, and that the problem is futile. This gives insight into why it feels so good to have an aha! moment the impasse stage and negative emotion act a catalyst to restructure the problem and find a way to the solution.

Hitting an impasse before an aha! moment

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Vladimirov and Makarov (2020) asked participants to solve a computer based puzzle where a numbers within shapes where shown on the screen, the participants needed to move the items around to screen to find the optimal location. After each attempt the puzzle would show which items were in the right place and after three attempts the puzzle would suspend and the user would have to tell the camera how they were feeling and why they made these steps. They found that negative emotions occur more often than positive emotions where the participant was at an impasse, this was sometimes signaled by stating the pointlessness of the task. The presence of an impasse and negative emotions caused random attempts at the puzzle instead of the previous premeditated movements. These random attempts were a form of restructuring the problem and led to a deeper understanding and eliciting a positive emotional response, this then led to a further positive emotion when the puzzle was solved.

Thus, the impasse and negative emotion were the cause of the random attempts, the user needed to approach the problem from a different angle. This impasse was a confronting stage in the puzzle when they realised the initial solving process wouldn't work. Frustration then turns into happiness, or relief, when progress towards the goal is being made, it also frees up processing power in the brain compared to when the problem was being worked on. This juxtaposition of emotions gives an example of why the aha! experience can feel so good.

 
Figure 4 dopaminergic pathways in the brain

Reward centres and aha! moments

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Dopamine is commonly referred to as the source of pleasure within the brain; Tik et al. (2018) have linked the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens (see Figure 4), and caudate nucleus with aha! moments. These three areas in the dopaminergic midbrain are also related to the release of dopamine, using fMRI this study was able to determine that during times of high insight these areas of the brain were activating. Subsequently, this shows that the feeling of an aha! moment can result in a natural excitement or happiness.

Puzzle

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Puzzle time!

Can you come up with the answers to these insight puzzles? Each of these require you to think outside the box. Don't get stuck with functional fixedness.

 
Figure 5 The nine dot puzzle starting image

Nine dot puzzle: Draw nine dots on a page (see Figure 5). You must connect the dots by drawing four or less straight lines without lifting your pen off the paper.

Riddles:
1. What has to be broken before you can use it?
2. What question can you never answer yes to?
3. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?

Remote associates test: You are given three words and must find a word that relates to all three.
1. cottage / swiss / cake (easy)
2. sense / courtesy / place (medium)
3. right / cat / carbon (hard)
(Answers below the conclusion)

Where do aha! moments usually occur?

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While there is vast literature on the aha! moment in a research setting there is still a lack of evidence based research in environmental situations. Ovington et al. (2018) sought to find more information where the general public have their aha! moments and what contributed to these situations. They asked 1114 people and eight main locations were found to be the common places someone would experience the phenomenon, in order of most reported;

  1. At night (in bed, sleeping, or waking up)
  2. At work (at desk, working on problem, or just at work)
  3. In the shower (or bath)
  4. At home (cleaning, or just at home)
  5. Quietness (meditating, relaxing, or away from distractions)
  6. Transport (driving or public transport)
  7. Exercise
  8. In nature
Figure 6 an example of ostriches going into REM sleep

The most common place reported for the aha! moments was at night, during sleep, or waking up, this is consistent with research by Stickgold and Walker (2004) showing that those who slept in between attempting to solve a "number reduction task" were more than twice as likely to see a short-cut in the number patterns. Further data by Walker et al. (2002) states that Rapid Eye Movement (REM) state sleep (see figure 6) can have a significant improvement on problem solving compared to those who are experiencing Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep. Therefore, the data suggests that the REM sleep is putting the brain into a state conducive to problem solving.

All of the reported places of having an aha! moment from two to eight are situations where the person is likely to be more relaxed and allowing their brain activity to be less dominated by conscious thought. While relaxed, the right hemisphere of the brain becomes more active and this could be the reason for the increase of aha! moments (Bowden & Jung-Beeman, 2003). Bowden & Jung-Beeman, (2003) presented semantic problem solving tasks to 44 students at the University of Wisconsin at Parkside, half of the students were presented these problems in the left hemisphere visual field and half were presented in the right hemisphere visual field. It was found that the right hemisphere groups had increased ability to solve the problems; this indicates the right hemisphere being heavily involved in aha! moments.

These research findings show that good quality sleep and being relaxed can help induce an aha! moment. Those parameters are allowing the brain to move into a state where it is subconsciously working on reframing the parameters of the problem before the conscious mind is aware of the restructure. This is an important realisation because it points towards not all aha! moments needing to be brought upon by the frustration caused by an impasse, rather by putting the mind in a relaxed state.

What are the disadvantages of an aha! moment?

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As Danek (2023) explained, the aha! moment usually acts a reinforcer towards a solution being correct or a revelation in the right path toward the answer. This is a useful trait of an aha! moment, and studies have show that an aha! moment will more likely to be preceded by the correct answer than an analytical moment (Salvi et al., 2016). Salvi et al., (2016) also found that solving puzzles via insight tended to take longer compared to analytical responses, implying insight based problem solving is on an all-or-nothing basis. This could be due to the subconscious activity that brings the sudden aha! moment to the conscious mind when it is complete. An issue with this style of problem solving is not the way it is solved but the overgeneralisation caused by the aha! moment that the solution must be true.

In the study by Salvi et al. (2016), they successfully caused a higher level of reported truths to several false facts presented to the participants. This was done by artificially inducing aha! moments causing the feeling of an aha! moment to incorrectly give the sense of a solved problem. This shows that the aha! moment can be used to come up with an answer when the problem solver is not certain, causing an incorrect answer.

The subconscious areas of the brain that work on memory storage and retrieval could have some responsibility for this phenomenon, the aha! moment will cause the unfamiliarity of the problem to disappear. In any case, it is worth being mindful that the aha! moment is not always a precursor to a correct answer.

Quiz

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Topic review 2: Quiz time!

1 Where is the number one reported location of an aha! moment?

At work
At night
In nature
In the shower
While meditating

2 What is a possible negative of the aha! moment?

An emotional high
A generalisation cause a false truth
Shorter retention of the answer

Conclusion

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In conclusion, the aha! moment is an invaluable part of everyday life, it is a common thing that could occur many times in one day. With the advancement of technology being able to show the right hemisphere and the middle brain dopaminergic areas activating during an aha! moment science is closer to cracking the code on this phenomenon. It is suggested that sleep, or a relaxed mindstate is needed to help the unconscious mind restructure the parameters of a problem that has been in the conscious mind. When this problem has been restructured and functional fixedness is removed, the unconscious mind can bring this back into conscious thought giving that aha! moment feeling. While this generally predicts a correct solution to the problem it is prudent to consider fact checking before moving forward as sometimes the aha! moments can be fallible. It is suggested that further research is conducted around the sleep phases and the relaxed mind state so that it would be possible to elicit more aha! moments. Further, research into which brain regions are active when a true memory versus a false memory could allow the aha! moment to be used with more certainty.

Puzzle answers

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Puzzle answers!
 
Figure 7 The Nine Dot Problem with solution.

Nine dot problem: Those that struggle with this puzzle usually do so because they do not realise you can draw outside the perimeter of the dots (see figure 7).

Riddles:
1. What question can you never answer yes to?
Answer: Are you asleep yet?
2. What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg
3. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
Answer: They are a grandfather, father and son.

Remote associates test:
1. cottage / swiss / cake = cheese
2. sense / courtesy / place = common
3. right / cat / carbon = copy

How many did you answer correctly? Did you have your own aha! moment?

See also

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References

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Bowden, E. M., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2003). Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 10(3), 730-737. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196539

Danek, A. H. (2023). The Phenomenology of Insight The Aha! Experience. In L. J. Ball, & Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Creative Cognition (1st Edition ed., pp. 308-331). Routledge. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003009351

Kohler, W. (1925). The mentality of apes. Kegan Paul Trench Trubner And Co Ltd. Kounios, J., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2015). The Eureka factor : aha moments, creative insight, and the brain. Random House.

Ovington, L. A., Saliba, A. J., Moran, C. C., Goldring, J., & MacDonald, J. B. (2018). Do People Really Have Insights in the Shower? The When, Where and Who of the Aha! Moment. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 52(1), 21-34. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.126

Salvi, C., Bricolo, E., Kounios, J., Bowden, E., & Beeman, M. (2016). Insight solutions are correct more often than analytic solutions. Thinking & Reasoning, 22(4), 443-460. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2016.1141798

Stickgold, R., & Walker, M. (2004). To sleep, perchance to gain creative insight? Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(5), 191-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.03.003

Tik, M., Sladky, R., Luft, C. D. B., Willinger, D., Hoffmann, A., Banissy, M. J., Bhattacharya, J., & Windischberger, C. (2018). Ultra-high-field fMRI insights on insight: Neural correlates of the Aha!-moment. Hum Brain Mapp, 39(8), 3241-3252. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24073

Vladimirov, I. Y., & Makarov, I. N. (2020). From "hmmm " to "aha!": Emotional monitoring of representational change. Psychology, Journal of the Higher School of Economics, 17(4), 658-681. https://doi.org/10.17323/1813-8918-2020-4-658-681

Walker, M. P., Liston, C., Hobson, J. A., & Stickgold, R. (2002). Cognitive flexibility across the sleep–wake cycle: REM-sleep enhancement of anagram problem solving. Cognitive Brain Research, 14(3), 317-324. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00134-9

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