Moments of insight – occasionally referred to as aha-experiences or eureka moments – may help shed light on human and non-human problem-solving. An insight is defined as a sudden new understanding, typically involving a shift in mental representations. Insightful problem-solving has been widely studied in cognitive psychology with adult human participants (for reviews, see for instance Kounios & Beeman, 2014; Wiley & Danek, 2024). Moreover, there is a rich history of comparative research studying insightful problem-solving in animals, dating back to Köhler’s work with chimpanzees (Köhler, 1925). Yet, a recent paper asked whether these two lines of research study the same phenomenon (Shupe, 2024). Research with humans typically relies on participants’ verbal report of their insight experiences, and such reports are not available for non-human animals. Studies with children who are not yet able to verbally report on their own insight experiences may shed light on this discussion. We compared behavioural indices of insight with the metacognitive understanding of such insights in human children aged 4-8 years (N = 160). Children solved a problem-solving task designed to elicit aha-experiences, and a set of tasks to assess their understanding of such experiences. In the problem-solving task, children were presented with three clues and asked to find a solution word associated with the three clues (e.g., SNOW; SCARF; CARROT, solution: SNOWMAN). The number of observed as indexed by the child (a) suddenly producing the answer after seeming stuck, (b) gasping or suddenly drawing in their breath immediately before saying the answer, or (c) shouting the answer or saying the answer in a notably energetic way) and self-reported aha-experiences was recorded. We found that while the number of observed aha-experiences was stable across age, there was a clear age change in children’s understanding of such experiences. That is, children’s ability to recognize their own aha-experiences as well as their general understanding of the aha-concept increased with age. Thus, our findings indicate a lag between children’s observed aha-experiences and their understanding of those experiences. Young children have aha (perhaps from infancy, see Haugen et al., 2024) and later develop an understanding of these experiences. This finding is in line with the development of metacognition (e.g., Flavell et al., 1993; Lyons & Ghetti, 2010) and emotional understanding (e.g., Harris, 1989; Pons & Harris, 2019). When it comes to the insights of human and non-human animals, our findings suggest that human children experience insights before they can verbally report on these experiences. Studying insight problem-solving in young children may help bridge the gap between the human and non-human insight. 

References:
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Harris, P. L. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Basil Blackwell.

Haugen, J., Prenevost, M. H., Nilsen, I. B. R., & Reber, R. (2024). First insights into infants’ and children’s aha-experiences: A parent report study. Cognitive Development, 69, 101397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101397

Köhler, W. (1925). The mentality of apes. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

Kounios, J., & Beeman, M. (2014). The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 71–93. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115154

Lyons, K. E., & Ghetti, S. (2010). Metacognitive development in early childhood: New questions about old assumptions. In A. Efklides & P. Misailidi (Eds.), Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research (pp. 259–278). Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6546-2_12

Pons, F., & Harris, P. L. (2019). Children’s understanding of emotions or Pascal’s “Error”: Review and prospects. In V. LoBue, K. Pérez-Edgar, & K. A. Buss (Eds.), Handbook of Emotional Development (pp. 431–449). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17332-6_17

Shupe, E. (2024). The irreconcilability of insight. Animal Cognition, 27(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01844-y

Wiley, J., & Danek, A. H. (2024). Restructuring processes and Aha! Experiences in insight problem solving. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3, 42–55. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00257-x