ABSTRACT
The brain is the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Our understanding of how it works – what happens where and why – is limited but advancing. Brain imaging techniques have improved and we no longer have to depend on brain-damaged individuals to develop our understanding of how the mind works.
Using both fMRI and EEG brain scanning technologies, the labs of US researchers Kounios and Beeman – authors of The Eureka Factor – have identified what happens where in the brain before, during, and after the moment of insight. It took a physicist, Leonard Mlodinow, to stitch the neuroscientific evidence on insight together. The existence of the subconscious – so critical to the role of timeout in solving insight problems – has been challenged by Nick Chater and his book The Mind Is Flat. Industry should do more to find meaningful roles for neurodiverse individuals.
