The New Yorker has a good article (see page 41) summarizing the latest research on insight: the sudden and complete flash of understanding that may arise when contemplating a problem.
An excerpt:
Many stimulants, like caffeine, Adderall, and Ritalin, are taken to
increase focus -- one recent poll found that nearly twenty percent of
scientists and researchers regularly took prescription drugs to
"enhance concentration" -- but, accordingly to Jung-Beeman and Kounios,
drugs may actually make insights less likely, by sharpening the
spotlight of attention and discouraging mental rambles. Concentration,
it seems, comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity.
"There's a good reason Google puts Ping-Pong tables in their
headquarters," Kounios said. "If you want to encourage insights, then
you've got to also encourage people to relax." Jung-Beeman's latest
paper investigates why people who are in a good mood are so much better
at solving insight puzzles. (On average, they solve nearly twenty percent more C.R.A. problems.)
increase focus -- one recent poll found that nearly twenty percent of
scientists and researchers regularly took prescription drugs to
"enhance concentration" -- but, accordingly to Jung-Beeman and Kounios,
drugs may actually make insights less likely, by sharpening the
spotlight of attention and discouraging mental rambles. Concentration,
it seems, comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity.
"There's a good reason Google puts Ping-Pong tables in their
headquarters," Kounios said. "If you want to encourage insights, then
you've got to also encourage people to relax." Jung-Beeman's latest
paper investigates why people who are in a good mood are so much better
at solving insight puzzles. (On average, they solve nearly twenty percent more C.R.A. problems.)
The article also notes that insight is driven by right-brain activity and occurs when the left-brain is quiet.
As a left-brainer, I'm disappointed by that last bit. But I'll relax.
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