ABSTRACT
What are the cognitive and brain processes that lead to an insight? In this chapter, we will describe the insight-solution process from a neurocognitive perspective. Inspired by cognitive theories, we translate some of insight’s main cognitive subprocesses (problem representation, search, representational change and solution) into related neurocognitive ones and summarize them in a descriptive framework. Those described processes focus primarily on verbal insight and are explained using the remote associates task. In this task, the solver is provided with several problem elements (e.g., drop, coat and summer) and needs to find the (remotely related) target that matches those cues (e.g., rain). In a nutshell, insight is the consequence of a problem-solving process where the target is encoded in long-term memory but cannot be retrieved at first because the relationship between the problem elements and the target is unknown, precluding a simple memory search. Upon problem display, the problem elements and a whole network of associated concepts are automatically activated in long-term memory in distinct areas of the brain that represent those concepts (=problem representation). Insight is assumed to occur when automatic processes suddenly activate the target after control processes associated with inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation manage to overcome prior knowledge and/or perceptual constraints by revising the current activation pattern (=representational change).
