Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Moss, Jarrod

Committee Member

Bradshaw, Gary

Committee Member

Giesen, Martin J.

Date of Degree

8-7-2010

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

This thesis investigates the utility of using the Compound Remote Associate (CRA) problem, developed by Bowden and Jung-Beeman (2003), in investigating the neural correlates insight. It is uncertain to what extent CRA problems are insight problems. In Experiment 1, I performed a protocol analysis of people solving CRA problems and found that CRA problems can and should be used to investigate insight. However, certain considerations should be taken. Particularly, researchers should separate problems solved with insight when the solution is the first thing considered (immediate-insight) from problems solved with insight when the solution is obtained after at least some deliberation (delayed-insight). Parsing insight solutions into separate categories, I performed a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment. The results suggest a distinct difference in processing between delayed and immediate insight solutions. The results shed light into possible irregularities in prior studies and provide important considerations for future research on insight problem solving.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/15322

Comments

Insight||Problem Solving||fMRI

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