Research On Reconstructing Process Mechanism In Epistemological Problem Solving

As one of the key domains in the investigation of psychology especially the cognitive psychology, insight problem solving has long been concerned by many researchers. The central issue of this field is about how and why insight happens or the underlying mechanism of insight process. For now most investigators in this field believe that insight happens as a result of restructuring processes, which change the initial problem representations and form new problem representations. However, the mechanism of restructuring processes remains a secret. From the angles of executive processes and inhibition processes, this paper attempted to explore the underlying mechanism of restructuring processes by terms of a series of experiments. There are several major discoveries in this research, which include:(1) the executive processes influence mainly the initial search processes instead of the restructuring processes during insight problem solving and under some circumstances the executive processes may prevent the restructuring processes; (2) the restructuring processes during insight problem solving are influenced mainly by inhibition processes which include:1) spontaneous lateral inhibition which prevents the restructuring processes; 2) spontaneous self inhibition which has contradictory effects on the restructuring processes; 3) voluntary inhibition which has contradictory effects on the restructuring processes; (3) similar mechanisms are underlying the restructuring processes during the verbal or spatial insight problem solving which implies that the restructuring processes during insight problem solving are probably domain-general. As a conclusion, the restructuring processes during insight problem solving are automatic and not involved with the executive processes, the underlying mechanism of which can be attributed to the combined effects of a series of inhibition processes.