Flashes of insight

"Yu is finding that insight’s role in creativity might depend on the kind of problem a person is solving. 

"In a recent study, she asked participants to come up with metaphors for scientific concepts and asked whether they used insight as they did so. The insight-driven metaphors weren’t more or less creative than those created through analytic thinking, she found —and the participants were more likely to remember the science concepts behind the latter.

"This may be because, unlike the task of seeing a hidden object in a Mooney image, creating a metaphor tends to rely on slower cognitive problem-solving rather than sudden moments of insight, Becker suggested. The effects of insight therefore likely depend on the context.

"Next, Yu wants to investigate insight in more contexts. 'Most of the insight research is looking at insight in the problem-solving context and in the lab setting,' Yu said. She hopes that researchers will begin investigating 'insight within many other domains, like in psychotherapy, in meditation, even in psychedelic experiences'."