Neurecognitive Mechanisms And Influencing Factors Of Semantic Insight Problem Solving

Insight is the most representative form of creative thinking, and it is a problem solving process which has to break the mental impasse, reconstructs problem representation and finally finds the solution in a fairly sudden and unpredictable way, accompanied by a relatively strong "aha" feeling. The researchers has realized that key cognitive process of insight problem is the cognitive conflict between novel and simple way and its resolution. Although there are many researches focusing on the cognitive neural mechanism research, their results are not always the same which affected by the different problems and methods adopted in these studies (Dietrich&Kanso,2010; Zhao et al.,2013). In present study, we selected Chinese two-part allegorical saying as our experimental materials to verify the characteristics of cognitive processing in insight, which is similar to the language class puzzles. Meanwhile, the event related potential (ERP) technique was used to record the dynamic process in order to analyze the characteristics of cognitive conflict and its solving process during insight. Apart from that, we also explores the promoting effect of key clues and humor during cognitive conflict resolution process, so as to deepen the understanding of the conflict resolution precess.In study1, the participants were asked to solve the insight problems by themselves and their subjective experience was also recorded. We provided the key clue after they reported that they had encountered the mental impasse during the initial solving period. The results show that mental impasse, high suddenness and reconstruction are all the classical characteristics of insight problem solving. In study2, we adopted the semantic and homophonic two-part allegorical sayings as the experimental materials to explore the Neurecognitive Mechanisms of the insight problem solving process. In this study, the event related potential (ERP) was used to record the dynamic process when the participants were asked to classify the materials whose process are similar to the initiative insight. At the same time, we applied the stimulus-locked and response-locked analysis methods on finding the characteristics of cognitive conflict and its solving process during insight. The result shows that all the three conditions elicited a negative ERP at central-parietal area during350ms to500ms after the stimulus presentation. Different from this common ERP,400ms before participant response, the semantic two-part allegorical saying elicited a positive one at temporal lobe, while homophonic two-part allegorical saying elicited a more positive ERP at right temporal lobe and a more negative one at left frontal lobe. These results indicate that different insight problem solving should have the same cognitive process of detecting cognitive conflicts, but have different ways to solve the conflicts.Study3explored the promoting effect of the clue on the insight problem solving by comparing the different promoting effects of key clue and invalid clue on generating task of homophonic two-part allegorical saying. The results shows that all the key clues which were related to problem-solving information, the feedback after solving a insight problem and the practice can help the problem solver to break the mental impasse, resolve the cognitive conflict, thus contributing to solving insight problems. While study4investigated the promoting effect of humor starting on different insight problem solving based on the hypothesis of migration of cognitive processing. The results show that the semantic humor which is more similar to semantic insight problem in cognitive process can better promote insight problem solving.In conclusion, Chinese two-part allegorical sayings have the feature of insight problem, but because of their different nature and constructive rules, the neuromechanism of solving these puzzles are also different. Through presenting the key clues or humor starting, we also could further explore the process of insight problem solving and provide certain guidance to the cultivation of innovative thinking.