From Wikipedia on 2-Jun-2013
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context. The term insight can have several related meanings:
– a piece of information
– the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively. In Greek called noesis.
– an introspection
-the power of acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception called intellection or noesis
– an understanding of cause and effect based on identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario (see artificial intelligence)
– An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is sometimes called by the German word Aha-Erlebnis. The term was coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler. It is also known as an epiphany.
Psychology
In psychology, insight occurs when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning. The phenomenon had its beginnings with Gestalt Psychology, in the early part of the 20th century, during the search for an alternative to associationism and the associationistic view of learning. Some proposed potential mechanisms for insight include: suddenly seeing the problem in a new way, connecting the problem to another relevant problem/solution pair, releasing past experiences that are blocking the solution, or seeing problem in a larger, coherent context.
Problem solving: In search of solution, problem solving refers to active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable. Problems can be categorized into tree classes; one of which is a kind of sting problem that solves problems with a burst of insight. In psychology, insight is referred to the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based on trial and error.
Methods
Breaking Functional Fixedness
The first type of problem forces participants to use objects in a way they are not accustomed to (thus, breaking their functional fixedness), like the “Duncker candle problem”. In the “Duncker candle problem”, individuals are given matches and a box of tacks and asked to find a way to attach a candle to the wall to light the room. The solution requires the participants to empty the box of tacks, set the candle inside the box, tack the box to the wall, and light the candle with the matches.
Insight Versus Non-insight Problems
Two clusters of problems, those solvable by insight and those not requiring insight to solve, have been observed. An individual’s cognitive flexibility, fluency, and vocabulary ability are predictive of performance on insight problems, but not on non-insight problems. In contrast, fluid intelligence is mildly predictive of performance on non-insight problems, but not on insight problems.
Emotion
People in a better mood are more likely to solve problems by insight. Research demonstrated that self-reported positive affect of participants uniquely increased insight before and during the solving of a problem, as indicated by differing brain activity patterns. Interestingly, people experiencing anxiety showed the opposite effect, and solved less problems by insight.
Incubation
Using a geometric and spatial insight problem, it was found that providing participants with breaks improved their performance as compared to participants who did not receive a break. However, the length of incubation between problems did not matter. Thus, participants’ performance on insight problems improved just as much with a short break (4 minutes) as it did with a long break (12 minutes).
Sleep
Research has shown sleep to help produce insight. Individuals were initially trained on insight problems. Following training, one group was tested on the insight problems after sleeping for eight hours at night, one group was tested after staying awake all night, and one group was tested after staying awake all day. Those that slept performed twice as well on the insight problems than those who stayed awake.
Group Insight
It was found that groups typically perform better on insight problems (in the form of rebus puzzles with either helpful or unhelpful clues) than individuals.
Additionally, while incubation improves insight performance for individuals, it improves insight performance for groups even more. Thus, after a 15-minute break, individual performance improved for the rebus puzzles with unhelpful clues, and group performance improved for rebus puzzles with both unhelpful and helpful clues.
Individual Differences
Personality and gender, as they relate to performance on insight problems, was studied using a variety of insight problems. It was found that participants who ranked lower on emotionality and higher on openness to experience performed better on insight problems. Interestingly, men outperformed women on insight problems, and women outperformed men on non-insight problems.
Higher intelligence (higher IQ) has also been found to be associated with better performance on insight problems. However, those of lower intelligence benefit more than those of higher intelligence from being provided with cues and hints for insight problems.
Theories
There are a number of theories representing insight; at present, no one theory dominates interpretation.
Dual process Theory
According to the dual process theory, there are two systems used to solve problems. The first involves logical and analytical thought processes based on reason, while the second involves intuitive and automatic processes based on experience. Research has demonstrated that insight probably involves both processes; however, the second process is more influential.
Three-process Theory
According to the three-process theory, intelligence plays a large role in insight. Specifically, insight involves three different processes (selective encoding, combination, and comparison), which require intelligence to apply to problems. Selective encoding is the process of focusing attention on ideas relevant to a solution, while ignoring features that are irrelevant. Selective combination is the process of combining the information previously deemed relevant. Finally, selective comparison is the use of past experience with problems and solutions that are applicable to the current problem and solution.
Four-stage Model
According to the four-stage model of insight, there are four stages to problem solving. First, the individual prepares to solve a problem. Second, the individual incubates on the problem, which encompasses trial-and-error, etc. Third, the insight occurs, and the solution is illuminated. Finally, the verification of the solution to the problem is experienced. Since this model was proposed, other similar models have been explored that contain two or three similar stages.
Psychiatry
“Insight” can also refer to other matters in psychology; problem solving behavior requiring insight is the subject of insight phenomenology.
An insight is the derivation of a rule which links cause with effect. The mind is a model of the universe built up from insights.
Thoughts of the mind fall into two categories:
1. Analysis of past experience with the purpose of gaining insight for use within this model at a later date
2. Simulations of future scenarios using existing insights in the mind model in order to predict outcomes
A mature mind has assimilated many insights and represents a sophisticated model of the universe. The mind-model might be inaccurate. When insight is not subordinate to a validation discipline like the ‘scientific method’, ‘fallacious’ thinking can result in a confused mind.
Intuition, which is often described in the popular literature as an alternative thought process, is merely another manifestation of insight. In this process, multiple bits of seemingly unrelated data are linked together and a hypothesis or plan of action is generated. Usually this process is generated in a novel situation. Such a circumstance links data which had previously seemed unrelated. The categories and analytical process, however, are not distinct from any other form of insight. The only difference is the degree of novelty of the stimulus.