Insight problems are often comprised of a period of impasse during which no new attempts are generated followed by an abrupt realization of the solution arising from the restructuring of an initial flawed problem representation. However, the precise mechanisms precipitating these processes are still being investigated. One hypothesis is that analyzing the unchanging elements of previous attempts may facilitate restructuring. We investigated this hypothesis using three classic insight problems. Participants were provided either three common examples of unsuccessful problem attempts, their own problem attempts, or no previous attempts. The prior attempts conditions eliminate the need to rely on memory to access previous unsuccessful attempts so that this mechanism could be investigated. Individual differences in working memory capacity and cognitive reflection were also collected. While there was no overall effect of the prior attempts conditions, both working memory and cognitive reflection were identified as significant predictors of restructuring and solving across problems and conditions.

Thesis advisor: Ellen Winner / Cognitive control, the ability to limit attention to goal-relevant information, subserves higher-order cognitive functions such as reasoning, attention, planning and organization. Counterintuitively, deficits in these functions have proven advantageous in certain contexts: low cognitive control means less filtering of attention, and such unfiltered attention leads to novel solutions in insight problem solving contexts. Insight is the clear and often sudden discernment of a solution to a problem by means that are not obvious, and it plays an indispensable role in creative thinking. This study examined whether insight problem solving is a compensatory advantage for children of low socioeconomic status because of their known deficits in cognitive control. One hundred and forty-eight children ages 4 to 11 years old, each completed two insight problem solving tasks (the Box Problem and the Pencil Problem) and a cognitive control task (the Flanker/Reverse Flanker). In addition, their parents completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, which was used as a measure of their socioeconomic status and child rearing values of obedience versus independence. No association was found between children’s socioeconomic status and their ability to use insight to solve a problem. Results did show that older children exhibited less cognitive flexibility than did to younger children, and that diminished cognitive flexibility correlated with older children’s ability to solve the Box Problem; however, this effect did not hold when age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, and parental report of obedience versus independence, were accounted for. Ultimately, age was the only significant predictor of children’s insight problem solving ability, such that older children were significantly more likely to solve the Box Problem and to arrive at a solution more quickly for the Pencil Problem compared to younger children. Findings from this study are explained using evidence from research on children’s tool innovation showing that young children are poor at inventing tools, and that older children’s ability to use objects for atypical functions may be the result of their greater exposure to and experience with tools. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

本研究旨在探討獎賞、成就目標取向與情緒與大學生頓悟性問題表現之關係，以及這些變項對大學生頓悟性問題的影響。本研究以台北地區的154位大學生為研究對象，其中男性有35位，女性有119位。研究工具包含創造性頓悟問題測驗、目標導向量表、以及三維情緒量表。本研究採單因子共變數分析與二因子共變數分析方式進行資料分析，研究發現陳述如下： 一、大學生之頓悟性問題解決表現在不同獎賞類型下沒有差異。 二、大學生之頓悟性問題解決表現在不同獎賞類型與四種成就目標取向交互作用 下沒有差異。 三、大學生之頓悟性問題解決表現在不同獎賞類型與八種情緒交互作用下沒有差 異。 四、四種成就目標取向與八種情緒對大學生之頓悟性問題解決表現有複雜的交互 作用效果；在成就目標取向與正向情緒交互作用下，頓悟性問題並無差異，但 在成就目標取向與負向情緒交互作用下，當負向情緒程度較低時，有較佳的頓 悟性問題表現。 / The main purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among rewards, achievement goals, and emotions in insight problem solving performances of college students. The participants in this study were 154 college students from Taipei area. Among the participants, 35 were males and 119 were females. Moreover, the employed instruments included Creative Insight Problem Test, The multiple Goals Scale, and The Inventory of Three-dimention Emotions. The collected data was analyzed by one-way ANCOVA and two-way ANCOVA. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1. Reward types did not have effects on college students’ insight problems performances. 2. The interactions of reward types and achievement goals did not have effects on college students’ insight problems performances. 3. The interactions of reward types and emotions did not have effects on college students’s insight problem performances. 4. The interactions of achievement goals and emotionshad complex effects on college students’ insight problem performances. Specifically, the interactions of achievement goals and positive eomotoions did not have effects on college students’ insight problem solving performances. On the contray, the interactions of achievement goals and negative eomotoions had effects on college students’ insight problem solving performances; those who with a low-degree of negative emotions had better insight problem solving performances than their counterparts.