Feeling the Insight: Uncovering Somatic Markers of the “aha” Experience

Shen, Wangbing; Tong, Yu; Yuan, Yuan; Zhan, Huijia; Liu, Chang; Luo, Jing; Cai, Hansheng

doi:10.1007/s10484-017-9381-1

Cited by 21 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Instead, we suggest the epistemic feeling of familiarity is substantiated by another epistemic emotion with more direct connections to truth: the "aha" experience (Laukkonen, Webb, et al, 2018). Like familiarity, "aha" is a positive valanced emotion that is associated with certainty and easiness (Shen et al, 2018). Self-reported "aha" experiences robustly predict correct answers (Salvi et al, 2016;Webb et al, 2018) with large effect sizes to problem accuracy (d = 1.64) and self-rated confidence (d = 1.87, Laukkonen, Ingledew, et al, 2018).…”

Section: Illusory Truth Familiarity and "Aha"mentioning

confidence: 76%

“…"Epistemic" feelings include such experiences as familiarity, déjà vu, uncertainty, confidence, forgetting, knowing, "aha", or wrongness. Recent research has shown that such epistemic experiences are directly related to 'action programmes' and visceral autonomic feedback which can be indexed via EDA (Fiacconi et al, 2017;Morris et al, 2008;Shen et al, 2018). Generally, this perspective suggests emotions (including epistemic emotions) are not a byproduct of cognitive functioning, but play an integral role influencing cognition and subsequent behavior (Bechara et al, 1997;Damasio, 1994;Schwarz, 2012).…”

Section: Epistemic Emotions and Autonomic Arousalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we propose that covert "aha" emotions signal the recovery of information considered true following a memory search 5 . Thus, increased EDA for familiar stimuli (Morris 5 Successful memory searches would not be viewed as traditional insight problems that resolve an impasse with an "aha" experience; however, positive emotions, feelings of easiness, and feelings of certainty are shared between feelings of "aha" (Shen et al, 2018) and familiarity (for a discussion regarding the mechanisms of "aha" and insight, see Weisberg, 2015). Moreover, self-reported "aha" is not exclusive to traditional insight problems (Webb et al, 2018).…”

Section: Illusory Truth Familiarity and "Aha"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, the correct solutions to anagrams (that most often elicit conscious "aha" relative other traditional insight problems, Webb et al, 2018) are dependent on successful memory searches of the mental lexicon. et al, 2008) represent covert "aha" emotions (Bechara & Damasio, 2005;Shen et al, 2018) resulting from a successful 6 memory search. If belief-default models are correct, and propositions considered true are mentally represented without true or false tags (Figure 1), then correct identification of previously seen items (considered true) should also result in an increased EDA signal (i.e., an "aha" emotion) relative to correct foil identification (i.e., new items not previously seen, and not eliciting an "aha" emotion).…”

Section: Illusory Truth Familiarity and "Aha"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, we predict correct identification of previously seen items labeled as false will produce 1) an increased EDA signal relative to correct foil identification and 2) a difference in EDA magnitude relative to correct identification of previously seen items labeled as true (i.e., a covert "aha" emotion). The FTT postulates that this EDA signal is reflective of a negative epistemic emotion (i.e., when expressed consciously, the phenomenological experience of dissonance or wrongness) that is distinct from the positive "aha" experience (Asp & Tranel, 2013;Elkin & Leippe, 1986;Gawronski & Strack, 2004;Harmon-Jones, 2000;Shen et al, 2018). These affective states are theorized have a direct role influencing truth judgments as the induction of positive emotional states promotes credulity and the induction negative emotional states promotes skepticism (Forgas, 2019;Koch & Forgas, 2012).…”

Section: Remembered False Information Wrongness and The Fttmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Second-guessing of Spinoza: Psychophysiological and behavioral evidence that believing is default during proposition comprehension

Erik¹,

Khan²,

Jonason³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The belief-default model contends that believing is inexorable during comprehension, and falsification is a subsequent, secondary process. By contrast, the Cartesian belief-fixation model argues that naïve propositions may be mentally represented without a truth or falsity stance. In the present research, data from four studies help adjudicate belief-fixation models, favoring the belief-default model: Studies 1-3 show that newly represented propositions are initially believed as the consequences of the truth from a naïve represented proposition will automatically activate contradictory mental information even when this processing impairs task performance (a “false” false alarm belief bias). Naïve propositions cannot be “merely” represented (without a truth stance) during comprehension. Studies 3 and 4 reveal unique electrodermal activity signals corresponding to propositions considered to be either true or false. We argue that the observed autonomic reactivity constitutes the source of two different epistemic emotions associated with the perceived outcomes of a memory search (i.e., “aha” and wrongness, respectively). To account for the psychophysiological results, we hypothesize that the epistemic emotion of familiarity is substantiated by an “aha” emotion which signals the recovery of represented propositions considered true during mnemonic processing. In addition, we show that anti-belief-default conclusions from recent investigations using multinomial processing tree modeling are tenuous as they depend on the type of false information paradigm employed. In sum, the data support the belief-default model and indicate a novel psychophysiological method to distinguish “believed” memory retrieval products from “guessed” responses derived via metacognitive strategies during veridical identification.

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