Does Unconscious Thought Result in Creative Problem-Solving?

It's pretty common to experience a situation where, after long hours of trying to solve a migrane inducing problem, we give up, take a break, only to come back and solve the problem within moments. This appears to be a somewhat commonplace situation. However, the science behind it is much more complex.

"Conscious thought is better at making linear, analytic decisions, but unconscious thought is especially effective at solving complex problems," said Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management. "Unconscious activation may provide inspirational sparks underlying the 'Aha!' moment that eventually leads to important discoveries."

Unconscious thought results in creative problem-solving in a two step process, according to a study Galinsky and Chen-Bo Zhong from the University of Toronto and Ap Dijkstererhuis of Radboud University Nijmegen.

But this is not as simple as having an “Aha!” moment and moving on. The trio note that while the distraction might be helpful in coming up with the solution, a period of steady thought must follow so as to understand the solution and how those solutions can be applied. Similarly, while such moments might be useful in dealing with particularly tricky problems, easier problems should be confronted the old fashion way.

The researchers conducted two experiments to test their idea. In the first experiment, 94 subjects participated in a Remote-Association Test (RAT), which tests for creativity. In this test, participants were presented with three words (a triad) and were asked to come up with a fourth word that is linked with all three words. For example, if presented with the words cheese, sky and ocean, the correct answer would be blue (blue cheese, blue sky, blue ocean).

Subjects were shown nine very difficult triads (but were instructed not to solve them yet) and were then divided into groups. For five minutes following the RAT, participants were either concentrating on the triads they had just seen (the conscious thought group) or engaging in a test completely unrelated to the RAT (the unconscious thought group).

Following the five-minute interval, all of the subjects participated in a lexical decision test. During this test, subjects were shown sequences of letters and had to indicate as quickly as possible if the sequences were English words or not. The sequences presented included answers to the RAT triads, random words and non-words. Finally, subjects were again shown the RAT items and had to write down their answers.

The second experiment involved 36 subjects and had a similar set up to the previous experiment, although the RAT triads presented were much easier to solve compared to those in the first experiment.

The results pointed to members of the unconscious thought group in the lexical decision test as having much faster responses to the letter sequences. The RAT problems however saw both groups poll equally well.

Posted by Josh Hill.

Adapted from Association for Psychological Science Press Release

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/afps-ehd093008.php

Comments

[dmarx]

so let me see if I understand this. The experiment showed that there was no difference between using unconcious and concious thought to solve the RAT? but the people who had to think about the RAT had a hard time with the word test? sp the people who were not having their minds strained were able to react faster to the word test? what does this actually prove? that Eureka moments are a farce?

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

wonderful article
we need more like this
lateral visonary thinking is often ignored
as the idiom
'cannot see the wood for the trees' tells us

computer programming often results in massively complex 'buggy' solutions while a simple solution is overlooked. As a programmer, often a few swings of the old golf club have saved me days, if not weeks of struggling with code.

people often have one-tracked minds, generally people who are mono-linguistic suffer from this

and often people choose a complex solution because it looks impressive, however dysfunctional it may be

in such cases the person who prefers the complex solution tries to hide their lack of understanding behind the complexity

[Ivar Nielsen]

I aggree, it´s a wonderful article!

For the moment I can just add this statement: Via our ancestors transitional rituals, they traveled out of their bodies and got intuitive/spiritual immediate knowledge of Cosmos.

Thereby they got the very important knowledge of an circular Creation in the Universe, which is quite the opposite of the modern hypothical and scientifical cosmical linear knowledge.

An comparing the 2 ways of getting knowledge, I´m sure our ancestors circular way excedes the modern way regarding understanding the assembled Universe and it´s many form of creative forces.

- All ancient Mythology and Religion have it´s origin in spiritual experiences. I know this from some experiences of my own. Link: http://www.native-science.net/Visions.Dreams.htm

Natural Philosopher Ivar Nielsen
nielsen.ivar(at)gmail.com
www.native-science.net
www.cosmology-unified.net