Exhausted, and ready for "Aha"
Image: iStock/mattjeacock
More In This Article
-
The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
Read More »
A bus company in China has launched a new “safe driving” campaign by suspending bowls of water over their drivers. To avoid getting wet, drivers must drive gently. In today’s technology-obsessed world, this solution is elegantly primitive. You might imagine that this simple yet ingenious idea was conjured by someone functioning at their very best, that such “aha insights” come when innovators are at their peak.
Not so. A recent study by Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks suggests that innovation and creativity are greatest when we are not at our best, at least with respect to our circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms determine whether you are a “morning-type” person or an “evening-type” person, and are often measured with a short paper-and-pencil test called the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire. Circadian rhythms drive daily fluctuations in many physiological processes like alertness, heart rate and body temperature. Recent research indicates that these rhythms affect our intellectual functioning too.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that our best performance on challenging, attention-demanding tasks - like studying in the midst of distraction - occurs at our peak time of day. When we operate at our optimal time of day, we filter out the distractions in our world and get down to business.
In a study I conducted, for example, participants were given three related cue words (e.g., SHIP OUTER CRAWL), and were required to find their common link (SPACE). When misleading distractors were presented with the cue words (e.g., SHIP-ocean OUTER-inner CRAWL-baby), those tested at non-optimal times were more likely to be misled by the distractors and showed lower solution rates. Those tested at peak times were not affected by the distraction. In this and related studies, peak-time benefits are most robust when distraction would disrupt our thought processes and cause errors.
But distraction is not all bad, and Wieth and Zacks have demonstrated that we can use our increased susceptibility to distraction at off-peak times to our advantage. In their study, they asked participants to solve analytic problems and insight problems at peak or off-peak times. Analytic problems generally require people to “grind out a solution” by systematically working through the problem utilizing a consistent strategy. Here is a classic analytic problem: “Bob’s father is 3 times as old as Bob. They were both born in October. 4 years ago, he was 4 times older. How old are Bob and his father?” No innovation or creativity necessary to solve this problem; one simply has to work it out mathematically.
Insight problems, on the other hand, often initially mislead the solver. Finding the right answer requires the solver to abandon the original interpretation and seek alternatives. Insight problems often involve an “Aha!” moment where the answer comes all at once, rather than via a systematic, incremental calculation. Here is a classic insight problem: “A dealer in antique coins got an offer to buy a beautiful bronze coin. The coin had an emperor’s head on one side and the date 544 BC stamped on the other. The dealer examined the coin, but instead of buying it, he called the police. Why?”
Insight problems involve thinking outside the box. This is where susceptibility to “distraction” can be of benefit. At off-peak times we are less focused, and may consider a broader range of information. This wider scope gives us access to more alternatives and diverse interpretations, thus fostering innovation and insight. Indeed, Wieth and Zacks found that participants were more successful in solving insight problems when tested at their non-optimal times.
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
14 Comments
Add CommentThe antiques dealer made the obvious connection. SciAm has missed a less obvious one: in 544 BC Rome was still ruled by a king (Servurius). Rome's first emperor (Augustus) wouldn't be crowned for another 517 years, and before that happened Rome would have to go through that pesky "Republic" stage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess that with so many flaws in his handiwork, that forger was screwed from the get go.
LMAO at Derick's 'solution'! Perhaps he missed the obvious "BC" - quite an extrapolation into the future for ancient Romans!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI predict sales of Saran wrap to go up among bus drivers.
Since I am never at my 'best', I must always be creative.
For the love of Mike, what the heck does "analytic" and "insight" have to do with creativity?
Never let a scientist get "creative" - all you'll get are symmetrical borders.
Actually, it was the word "stamped" that I missed when I first read it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMissing the BC wouldn't have done it - by 544 CE (or AD) the Roman Empire was already 69 years dead, having fallen in 475.
...and the Arabic numerals 544 and the letters BC instead of AC or AUC suggest a post-Medieval forgery (or just a sloppy statement of this lateral-thinking puzzle of negative difficulty). I was only annoyed about the words "simply work it out mathematically" because true mathematics involves a whole universe of ingenuity and imagination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery cleverly, however, SciAm is recommending relaxation instead of video games (which had been mentioned earlier in another article) or (what would be worse) any special brain-pills...
There are even more reasons (though I really like Infinoe's!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- Early Romans didn't use bronze coins. Bronze is hard to stamp.
- 544 BC supposedly is before Rome made coins.
- Other civilizations in the area did use coins at that point, but didn't have emperors.
- Romans called the emperor "Imperator", not emperor.
The coin collector recognized the coin as his own. He had robbed earlier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisROFL I figured my solution was wrong! I guessed the emperors decapitated head on the coin would definitely be worth calling the police over (or perhaps a forensics archeologist?)! I figured the dealer must be a true coin nut to still examine the coin with all that blood on it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgatewayplans answer seems a lot more feasible than the "BC" answer. Owning/selling a forgery is not illegal, ever watch pawnstars and see how many forgeries come through their shop? I'm pretty certain that the police are never involved after they send the poor person home with nothing...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people are totally ignorant of the fact that an ancient Mayan pyramid was discovered with an inscription on its top (in Mayan writing) which can be translated as follows: 2012 Years Before The End Of The World! And here is the question: When was this structure finished and why is such a great discovery being kept secret?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real point which was missed was the the police showed up in their new homeland security armored tank, tossed a few flash bangs into the store and killed everyone. Cased Closed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess that is why I get great ideas around 3 or 4am, I am a night person getting inspired in the morning! ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Roman Empire fell on 1453, the emperor in 544 AD was Justinian I.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Roman Empire fell on 1453, the emperor in 544 AD was Justinian I.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIncidentally, in 554 AD Rome was actually part of the Roman Empire, it was the last year of Justinian's reconquest campaign in Italy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this