Why do creative ideas and solutions to unresolved problems benefit from taking a break? The idea of unconscious work as an explanation is so appealing that even after reading this paper, which states clearly that unconscious work is a fantasy based on no clear theory and no clear empirical evidence, some readers will claim that we are saying the…

Despite an established body of research characterizing how creative individuals explore their "external" world, relatively little is known about how such individuals navigate their "inner mental life", especially in unstructured contexts such as periods of awake rest. Across two studies, the present manuscript tested the…

Much modern laboratory research on creative thinking, or "in vitro" research, is based on the "remote-associates" perspective, which assumes that creative advances arise through bringing together ideas which were previously "remotely associated," that is, not directly linked. That view has provided the foundation for…

The starting reasoning and promoting switch from intuitive system 1 to deliberate system 2 for provoking creative thinking is lacking feasible model, especially during the global pandemic. We established a visible, trainable and learnable (VTL) model with digital technique to promote this dual switch for creative thinking. This study was…

Chance favors the prepared mind, said Louis Pasteur. Sometimes, significant breakthroughs occur when we creatively integrate new information, leading to a creative insight or an Aha! moment, while at other times when we fail to use a clue, we remain stuck in our habitual thinking patterns. In this study, we hypothesized that the brain's transient…

Even after many decades of productive research, problem solving instruction is still considered ineffective. In this study we address some limitations of extant problem solving models related to the phenomenon of insight during problem solving. Currently, there are two main views on the source of insight during problem solving. Proponents of the…

Metaphor generation is both a creative act and a means of learning. When learning a new concept, people often create a metaphor to connect the new concept to existing knowledge. Does the manner in which people generate a metaphor, via sudden insight (Aha! moment) or deliberate analysis, influence the quality of generation and subsequent learning…

The intuitions of teachers have been found to take a variety of forms in general education (John, 2003). However, in the field of additional language (L+) teaching, the lion's share of past work has focused on the improvisational form of intuition (e.g., Borg, 2015; Richards, 1998; Smith, 1996). Moreover, the ways in which intuition plays a role…