Continuity in intuition and insight: from real to naturalistic virtual environment

Abstract

Intuition and insight can be deployed on the same continuum. Intuition is the unconscious ability to create links between information; insight is a process by which a sudden comprehension and resolution of a situation arises (i.e. euréka). In the present study, real and virtual environments were used to trigger intuition and insight. The study hypothesised that immersion in real primed environments would facilitate the emergence of intuition and insight in a virtual environment. Forty nine healthy participants were randomly assigned to two groups: “primed” and “non primed.” “Primed” participants were immersed in a real environment with olfactory and visual cues; “non primed” participants did not receive any cues. All participants were exposed to a 3D naturalistic virtual environment which represented a district in Paris via a Head Mounted Display (HMD). Locations presented in the virtual scene (i.e. café places) were related to both olfactory and visual primes (i.e. café) and were based on the continuity between real and virtual environments. Once immersed in the virtual environment, all participants were instructed to use their intuition to envision the selected locations during which Skin Conductance Responses (SCRs) and verbal declarations were recorded. When initiation (a) and immersion (b) phases in the virtual environment were considered, “primed” participants had higher SCRs during the immersion phase than the initiation phase in the virtual environment. They showed higher SRCs during the first part of the virtual immersion than “non primed” participants. During the phenomenological interview, “primed” participants reported a higher number of correct intuitive answers than “non primed” participants. Moreover, “primed” participants “with” insight had higher SCRs during real environment immersion than “primed” participants “without” insight. The findings are consistent with the idea that intuitive decisions in various tasks are based on the activation of pre-existing knowledge, which is unconsciously retrieved, but nevertheless can elicit an intuitive impression of coherence and can generate insight.

Cognitive Impact of Social Virtual Reality: Audience and Mere Presence Effect of Virtual Companions

“…The findings are currently promising. For example, prior research has shown that embodied interaction with the immersive physical environment can positively influence cognitive performance and foster more creative problem-solving [3], facilitating intuitive cognition [4]. In agreement with an original proposal by Blascovich et al [5], researchers are now finding that testing in IVR can indeed offer a more ecologically valid solution to testing classic paradigms, which until recently were limited to artificial screen-based stimuli [6].…”

Predicting neural activity of whole body cast shadow through object cast shadow in dynamic environments

“…The present results extend this as it was demonstrated, for the first time, to the authors' knowledge, that shadow affordance can also occur in 3D virtual environments, and this is analyzed as a full 3D perception of the ball and body in the virtual scene. The findings also revealed that the motion of the shadow relative to the motion of the ball does not induce illusory motion of the objects, even though the participants were immersed in a virtual environment conducive to inducing illusory behavior (Eskinazi and Giannopulu, 2021). Interestingly, such consequences are valuable for both ball and body shadows.…”

“…Objects are incorporated into the body (Giannopulu, 2016;Giannopulu et al, 2022a), are internalized and likewise they extend the body (Maravita and Iriki, 2004;De Preester and Tsakiris, 2009). With regard to one's position, because internalized, object shadows are both objects and body extensions (Kuylen et al, 2014).…”

Synchronised neural signature of creative mental imagery in reality and augmented reality

“…intuition and insight, are mental representational phenomena involving both cortical and sub-cortical activities that can occur in continuity in real and hybrid environments, i.e. real and virtual environments [ 12 ]. Creative ideation naturally relies on mental and cognitive simulation [ 13 ], which requires the intervention of internal imagery [ 14 ] and allows the representations of visual, motor and/or verbal actions to arise [ 15 , 16 ].…”