From Psychology Wiki

Community portal · Tasks to do · News · Help

Clinical · Educational · Ind&Org · Other fields · Professional · Transpersonal · World

Assessment | Biopsychology | Comparative | Cognitive | Developmental | Language | Personality | Philosophy | Research Methods | Social | Statistics

Clinical: Approaches · Group therapy · Techniques · Types of problem · Areas of specialism · Taxonomies · Therapeutic issues · Modes of delivery · Model translation project · Personal experiences ·

---

[edit] Phenomenology

When people solve, or attempt to solve an insight puzzle, they experience a common Phenomenology, that is, a set of behavioural properties that accompany problem-solving activity (for a useful edited review of insight problems and their phenomenology, see Sternberg & Davidson, 1995). Other kinds of puzzle, such as the Tower of Hanoi, an example of a transformation problem, tend not to yield these phenomena. The phenomena may include:

• Impasse: An individual reaches a point where he or she simply appears to run out of ideas of new things to try that might solve a problem.

• Fixation: An individual repeats the same type of solution attempt again and again, even when they see that it does not seem to lead to solution.

• Incubation: A pause or gap between attempts to solve a problem can sometimes appear to aid the finding of a solution, as if one is clearing the mind of faulty ideas.

• The 'Aha' experience: The solutions to some insight problems can seem to appear from nowhere, like a Eureka moment.

[edit] References

Sternberg, R. J. and J. E. Davidson (1995). The nature of insight. Cambridge MA, MIT Press. {(enWP|Insight phenomenology}}