We all have AHA moments when the problem suddenly becomes obvious. In cartoons, Eureka’s feeling is often described as a light bulb that surfaces above the character’s head, not far from being at these moments.
Researchers revealed that epiphany can reshape brain activities in the body. More importantly, they found that people remember epiphany better than through a more methodical approach. These results may be of great significance to how teachers teach in the classroom.
“If you have a 'aha! moment' when you learn something, that can almost double your memory,” Roberto Cabeza, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, said in a statement from the university. “There is almost no memory effect like this.”
Cabeza is senior author of the study published earlier this month in the journal Nature Communications. As the study participants resolved the brain trailer, he and his colleagues recorded their brain activity through functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that measures changes in blood flow associated with brain activity. The brain trailer is a visually filled puzzle that once participants have finished the image, they will find previously hidden images.
While this activity may seem naive, this small discovery “produces more important insights into the same type of features that exist in events of events.” Once participants thought they had solved a puzzle, the team asked them how to determine their own solution and whether they had arrived suddenly (at the AHA moment) or more intentionally resolved the problem.
Overall, the researchers noted that participants who reported epiphany remembered that their solution was much better than those that weren't, and that the more they were sure they had, the more likely they were to still recall it five days later.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging shows that epiphany triggers an active explosion of hippocampal activity, part of the brain associated with learning and memory. More insight leads to a stronger outbreak of activities. When participants solved the puzzle and eventually recognized the secret object, the researchers also pointed out changes in the participants' neuronal firing dynamics, especially in areas of the ventral occipital cortex, involving the recognition of visual patterns. Likewise, the stronger the moment of insight, the greater the change in the researchers’ records.
“In these moments of insight, the brain reorganizes its perceptions,” said Maxi Becker, a cognitive neuroscientist at Humboldt University, the first author of the study. In addition, the researchers linked more powerful epiphany to connect connectivity between those parts of the brain. “Different regions communicate more effectively,” Cabeza said.
Therefore, “a learning environment that encourages insight can improve long-term memory and understanding,” the researchers wrote in a statement. In this study, the team imaged brain activity at the participants’ “ahha” moment and afterwards, hoping to investigate what happened in between — when the real magic happens.
