The Aha! experience is associated with a drop in the perceived difficulty of the problem.

The study investigated the correlation between the intensity of the Aha! experience and participants' subjective difficulty ratings of problems before and after finding their solutions. We assumed that the Aha! experience arises from a shift in processing fluency triggered by changing from an initially incoherent problem representation to a coherent one, which ultimately leads to the retrieval of a solution with unexpected ease and speed. First, we hypothesized that higher Aha! experience ratings would indicate more sudden solutions, manifesting in a reduced correlation between the initial difficulty ratings and solution times. Second, we hypothesized that higher Aha! experience ratings would correspond to a greater shift in the subjective difficulty ratings between the initial and retrospective assessments. To test our hypotheses, we developed a novel set of rebus puzzles. A total of 160 participants solved rebuses and provided initial (within 5 s of problem presentation) and retrospective difficulty ratings (following the generation or presentation of a correct solution). They also rated their Aha! experience (after solution generation or presentation), confidence in solutions, and the likability of each rebus. Our findings revealed that the initial ratings of the problem's subjective difficulty were positively correlated with the solution time and that this correlation decreased in the case of a stronger Aha! experience. Aha! experience ratings were positively correlated with the differences between initial and retrospective difficulty ratings, confidence, solution accuracy, and rebus likability. We interpreted our results to be in line with the processing fluency and metacognitive prediction error accounts.

Where Does Eureka Come From? The Effect of Unreportable Hints on the Phenomenology of Insight.

Insight interests researchers given its special cognitive mechanisms and phenomenology (an Aha! experience or Eureka moment). There is a considerable amount of research on the effect of hints on performance in insight problem solving. However, only a few studies address the effect of hints on the subjective experiences of solvers, and the picture their results provide is unclear. We analyze the effect of unreportable true and false hints on different dimensions of the Aha! experience (subjective suddenness, Aha! experience as an effect, and certainty). Using the processing fluency framework, we predict that true hints lead to more insights and stronger Aha! experience and certainty, while false hints lead to the opposite results due to the controlled inhibition of the inappropriate representation. The results showed that false hints decreased the chance of finding a correct solution. The true-hint condition did not lead to more correct solutions but made solutions feel sudden more often than the control condition. The ratings of the Aha! experience and certainty were higher for solutions obtained after true hints than after false hints. We obtained partial support for the effect of unreportable hints on "Eureka!" moments.

How Difficult Was It? Metacognitive Judgments About Problems and Their Solutions After the Aha Moment.

The insight phenomenon is thought to comprise two components: cognitive and affective (the Aha! experience). The exact nature of the Aha! experience remains unclear; however, several explanations have been put forward. Based on the processing fluency account, the source of the Aha! experience is a sudden increase in processing fluency, associated with emerging of a solution. We hypothesized that in a situation which the Aha! experience accompanies the solution in, the problem would be judged as less difficult, regardless of the objective difficulty. We also planned to confirm previously discovered associations between the Aha! experience and accuracy, confidence, and pleasure. To test the proposed hypothesis, during the preliminary stage of the study, we developed a set of 100 remote associate problems in Russian (RAT-RUS) and asked 125 participants to solve problems and indicate the Aha! moment (after solution generation or solution presentation), confidence, difficulty, and likability of each problem. As expected, the Aha! experience often accompanied correct solutions and correlated with confidence judgments. We also found a positive correlation between the Aha! experience and problem likability. As for the main hypothesis, we confirmed that the Aha! experience after the presentation of the solution was associated with a decrease in subjective difficulty. When participants could not solve a problem but experienced the Aha! moment after the solution was presented to them, the problem was perceived as easier than one without the Aha! experience. We didn't find the same effect for the Aha! after solution generation. Thus, our study partially supports the processing fluency account and demonstrates the association between the Aha! experience and metacognitive judgments about the accuracy and difficulty of problems.

Suppression of non-selected solutions as a possible brain mechanism for ambiguity resolution in the word fragment task completion task.

Brain systems dealing with multiple meanings of ambiguous stimuli are relatively well studied, while the processing of non-selected meanings is less investigated in the neurophysiological literature and provokes controversy between existing theories. It is debated whether these meanings are actively suppressed and, if yes, whether suppression characterizes any task that involves alternative solutions or only those tasks that emphasize semantic processing or the existence of alternatives. The current functional MRI event-related study used a modified version of the word fragment completion task to reveal brain mechanisms involved in implicit processing of the non-selected solutions of ambiguous fragments. The stimuli were pairs of fragmented adjectives and nouns. Noun fragments could have one or two solutions (resulting in two words with unrelated meanings). Adjective fragments had one solution and created contexts strongly suggesting one solution for ambiguous noun fragments. All fragmented nouns were presented twice during the experiment (with two different adjectives). We revealed that ambiguity resolution was associated with a reduced BOLD signal within several regions related to language processing, including the anterior hippocampi and amygdala and posterior lateral temporal cortex. Obtained findings were interpreted as resulting from brain activity inhibition, which underlies a hypothesized mechanism of suppression of non-selected solutions.

Implicit learning in attractiveness evaluation: The role of conformity and analytical processing.

We address the question how people's opinion and features of information interact in the process of indirect social influence. Implicit learning was considered as a mechanism for conformity in social perception. We carried out 2 experiments using a hidden covariation detection paradigm. In a learning phase, participants memorized a set of female photographs presented together with their attractiveness ratings. The ratings correlated with the hairstyle of the photographed women. The participants who did not consciously detect this correlation demonstrated a systematic bias toward the correlation when evaluating the new stimulus persons. Information about the source of the ratings in the learning phase (other people's opinions or nonsocial sources) did not modulate learning. Learning was not observed when participants critically evaluated the ratings during the memorization phase. The study shows that (a) conformity may be based not only on reinforcement learning mechanism (as was previously suggested) but also on unsupervised implicit learning; (b) implicit learning occurs automatically irrespective of the context (social or not); and (c) a critical attitude toward learned material may prevent implicit learning from being manifested in a test phase. We conclude that indirect social influence may be affected by people's opinion toward the provided information. The study contributes to both implicit learning and social perception research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of subjective awareness measures on performance in artificial grammar learning task.

Systematic research into implicit learning requires well-developed awareness-measurement techniques. Recently, trial-by-trial measures have been widely used. However, they can increase complexity of a study because they are an additional experimental variable. We tested the effects of these measures on performance in artificial grammar learning study. Four groups of participants were assigned to different awareness measures conditions: confidence ratings, post-decision wagering, decision strategy attribution or none. Decision-strategy-attribution participants demonstrated better grammar learning and longer response times compared to controls. They also exhibited a conservative bias. Grammaticality by itself was a stronger predictor of strings endorsement in decision-strategy-attribution group compared to other groups. Confidence ratings and post-decision wagering only affected the response times. These results were supported by an additional experiment that used a balanced chunk strength design. We conclude that a decision-strategy-attribution procedure may force participants to adopt an analytical decision-making strategy and rely mostly on conscious knowledge of artificial grammar.