The Relationship Between Working Memory And Insight Problem Solving-Discussion On Type Matching

Working Memory(WM)referred to a memory system that temporally maintains and processes external information and capacity was limited when individuals were conducting cognitive activities.It was closely related to our daily learning activities.Insight that manifested of the ability of Convergent Thinking(CT),a part of creativity,was an obvious and sudden aura of experience.The insight problem belonged to the problem of poor structure and is a special cognitive process.However,there has been a debate about this special cognitive process.On the one hand,Researchers with a special-process view thought that insight problem failed to organize the structure well itself such as non-specific process of problem solving.Moreover,the generation of the answer was a sudden random,so it would not affect the solution of the insight problem,regardless of how high or low working memory was,as if the individuals with better working memory would have worse performance in solving insight problems.On the other hand,researchers held with a business-as-usual view that the insight problem in dealing with involves the processing of cognitive abilities while the individuals need maintaining attention,instead working memory had a close relationship with cognitive control and attention retention.Further,those with high working memory had better performance in solving insight problem.This research,based on the debate of the relationship between working memory and insight problem solving,starting from matching the type of working memory and insight problem solving,further explored the relationship between working memory and insight problem solving.The goal of Experiment 1 focused on the relationship between matching types of working memory and insight problem by measuring the spatial working memory capacity,verbal working memory capacity,and operational working memory capacity of the participants,and next requesting the subjects to complete the spatial task of insight problem solving,verbal insight problem solving,and matchstick arithmetic.The experimental results found that when the dependent variable was the score of the spatial insight problem solving,the working memory capacity had a significant impact on the solution of the spatial insight problem.Rather,verbal insight problem and matchstick arithmetic problem failed to the above results.In Experiment 2,we mainly improved the selection of verbal insight problems,and divided the verbal insight problems into general verbal insight problems and RAT insight problems,and next measured thevisual working memory capacity and the verbal working memory capacity of the subjects.And then,we controlled the verbal ability of the subject as a covariate.The experimental results indicated that when the dependent variable was the score of RAT insight problem solving,the participants with high verbal working memory capacity had better performance than them with low verbal working memory capacity.Further correlation and regression analysis confirmed the verbal working memory capacity prompted RAT insight problem solving.In Experiment 3,according to the updating ability of working memory,we measured the updating ability of the participants in spatial working memory,and verbal working memory,similarly,manipulating visual working memory capacity.Then we requested the participants to complete the spatial insight problem and verbal insight problem.The experimental results showed that when the updating ability of high working memory will have better in the dealing with the spatial insight problem.Otherwise,further correlation and regression analysis found that the relationship between the spatial task with 3-back and the spatial insight was the strongest.Based on the above research results,the storage and updating ability of working memory has a good relationship that had a type matching with the solution of the insight problem.Instead,the effect was only under certain conditions.Finally,the result supported the view that the process of the insight problem solving belonged to business-as-usual.