Electroencephalographic correlates of insight

Abstract

Insight is an abrupt understanding by solver the gist of the solving task, which is accompanied by the feeling of illumination or "Ahal-experience". A study of insight in laboratory conditions is connected with challenging difficulties. This is why the available data are rather contradictory. In the current paper, we aimed at clarification of brain activity dynamics before and during the insightful solution of a creative task. We used the Remote Association Test (RAT) and electroencephalography (EEG) analysis on the level of relevant frequencies, their sources and connectivity. The comparison of solutions variants, which were classified by subjects as insightful or as analytical showed a number of differences in behavior and in brain activity. Insightful solutions have been discovered on average faster and were in the most of trials correct. Brain activity in analytical task solutions only minimally differentiated from those in tasks which were not solved. This allows us to suppose that analytical strategy also prevailed in unsuccessful trials. Brain activity in insightful solutions was substantially different from activity in unsuccessful trials and in successful trials where analytical strategy was used. On the early stages of solution, these differences were found mostly in the delta diapason of EEG and in region of the cortical regions belonging to Default Mode System and networks of executive attention. According to connectivity analysis, the sources of these early activities were located in the right hemisphere. Brain activity presumably connected to insight as a consciousness phenomenon was elucidated in EEG beta and gamma diapasons with source localizations in the structures of left hemisphere known for their involvement in semantic processing and emotional reaction. As a whole, experimental effects described in our works clearly showed a number of differences in brain activity dynamics in the cases of insightful and analytical strategies of task solutions. This gives us an optimistic feeling on further perspectives of brain imaging methodology in domain of creative problem solving.