Routledge Insight: On the Origins of New Ideas (Current Issues in Thinking and Reasoning)

Research on insight problem solving examines how new ideas are generated to solve problems that initially resist the application of prior knowledge or analogue solutions. In the laboratory, insight problems are designed to create an impasse; overcoming the impasse is sometimes accompanied by a distinctive phenomenological experience, the so-called Aha! moment. Insight: On the Origins of New Ideas presents research that captures these episodes of insight under laboratory conditions and informs models that account for their emergence. Descriptions and analyses of episodes of discovery both in and out of the laboratory are included to provide a general overview of insight. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, the volume debates the relative importance of intelligence and working memory, the development of an alternative interpretation of the problem based on deliberate analyses and heuristics, and unconscious inferences in the emergence of insight. These discussions generate new testable hypotheses to shed light on the cognitive processes underpinning insight, along with concrete methodological recommendations that, together, map a productive programme of future research. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of thinking and reasoning - specifically those interested in insight and creative problem solving. Review "The papers in this book reflect renewed attention to an old problem; how can we understand the nature of insight? What drives the occurrence of those "Aha!" moments of breakthroughs in problem solving? Since the Gestalt psychologists first addressed the issue, there have been numerous attempts to answer it. Here, we see thoughtful new approaches -- in theory development, in methodological approach, and in the scope of problems and situations examined. The book is replete with suggestions for future research and points the way toward new cognitive understandings of insight. --Ryan D. Tweney, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Bowling Green State University" About the Author Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau is Professor of Psychology at Kingston University, UK.