Positive mood facilitates insight problem solving - Essay Example

Positive Mood Facilitates Solving Insight Problems Positive Mood Facilitates Solving Insight Problems Apart from differences in intelligence, most people tend to have varying levels of insight into solving problems (Subramaniam et al., 2009). This may be due to the conditions that people encounter when they solve insight problems. One of these conditions is mood, which may influence insight problem solving. Based on the previous studies about mood, people with positive moods generally perceive a lot more information than people with negative moods (Peralta & Cuesta, 1998). According to Kounios & Beeman (2009), people with positive moods widen their attention and, as a result, make themselves more open to distractions and weak connections. On the contrary, people with negative moods narrow their attention to filter out distractions when concentrating on difficult tasks (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009). This implies that people with positive moods engage the broad, diffuse attentional state that is both visual and perceptual (Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2007b). Therefore, people with positive moods are better at solving insight problems (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009). Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain how a positive mood may enhance solving insight problems through looking at cognitive functions. One line of research suggests that emotions are used to determine the value of accessible information and influence the “level of focus” (Clore, Gasper, & Garvin, 2001). According to this view, positive emotions promote greater reliance on accessible information such as heuristic processing strategies rather than systematic processing strategies (Schwarz, 2002), and global rather than the local features of visual information (Gasper & Clore, 2002). Another line of research suggests that positivity leads to greater flexibility in cognitive processing (Dreisbach & Goschke, 2004), as evidenced in the creative problem solving method of the Duncker Candle Problem (Isen, 1999b), a greater ability to switch perspectives and find viable solutions in negotiations (Isen, 2001), and an increased ability to enact intentions against strong habitual tendencies (Kuhl & Kaze ́n, 1999). According to the flexibility hypothesis, positivity does not necessarily promote accessible or global processing, but rather facilitates open, flexible, and efficient processing. The flexibility hypothesis can be derived from the Personality Systems Interaction (PSI) theory (Kuhl, 2000). According to this theory, moderate levels of positivity increase the activation of a central executive system called extension memory, whereas strong negativity reduces access to this system. Extension memory is thought of as an implicit representational system that is necessary in order to have an overview of relevant episodic experiences (Wheeler, Stuss, & Tulving, 1997) and integrated self-representations (Kuhl, 2000). It works according to connectionist principles and promotes intuitive-holistic processes (Baumann & Kuhl, 2002). According to the PSI theory, extension memory provides a greater number of internal states such as needs, preferences, feelings, and action alternatives that can be simultaneously taken into account for decision making. This extended scope enables a person to choose goals that satisfy multiple constraints and to focus on priorities and make decisions among a variety of options without having to examine each of them in a step-by-step, conscious manner. Moderate levels of positivity seem especially apt to stimulate cognitive flexibility (Isen, 1999a), which is presumably associated with extension memory. In conjunction with the PSI theory, the Neural Network theory shows that there is a link between multiple simultaneous constraints, restructuring, and procedural processing. Gestaltists proposed that people fail to solve insight problems when they fall into functional fixedness. When this occurs, these people cannot restructure the problem and release themselves from their fixation. Therefore, many people cannot solve problems, such as Dunker’s Candle Problem or the nine-dot problem. On the other hand, Weisberg and Alba, who support search inference framework, proposed otherwise. They concluded that there is no insight and functional fixation because all the participants still failed to solve insight problems (e.g., nine-dot problem) after being given hints. However, it is a plausible that insight is procedural rather than propositional in nature. This would explain why all the hints failed (Kounios & Beeman, 2009). There may also be multiple simultaneous constraints at work that prevent restructuring and insight from occurring. Mood may be one of the factors that help facilitate insight. Baumann & Kuhl (2005) suggested that a positive mood reflects flexibility as opposed to functional fixedness, which can sometime occur when solving insight problems. Thus, people with positive moods can easily restructure a problem, whereas people with negative moods are likely to restrict themselves through functional fixedness (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009). Baumann & Kuhl’s (2005) findings help clarify the role of mood on insight. In contrast to global processing hypothesis, latencies for correct responses to local targets were significantly reduced after positivity. This was compared to neutral and negative prime words when testing with a target detection paradigm that did not give participants a choice between global and local processing strategies. The shape-detection task used in their experiment requires a shift to the non-preferred dimension whenever the target shape is represented locally rather than globally. In contrast, negative prime words are expected to increase reaction times for local targets. Thus, positivity is able to foster cognitive flexibility as indicated by the ability to switch to a non-dominant (e.g., local) response alternative. In conjunction with the flexibility hypothesis, positivity is associated with increased flexibility in cognitive processing, as indicated by the ability to choose global processing in favor of local processing, especially when the task requires local processing. Somewhat unexpectedly, the precedence of global processing over local processing was not only absent after positive prime words—it significantly reversed. Participants responded significantly faster to local processing targets after positive prime words. This shows the flexibility-reducing effect of negativity. Negative prime words significantly increased latencies to local targets while not slowing latencies to global targets. This finding is backed up by the PSI theory. Negativity reduces access to extension memory and, as a result, decreases cognitive flexibility. Thus, shifting from the default global targets to the required local features becomes increasingly hard under conditions of negativity. This finding suggests that negativity does not slow down cognitive processing per se, but rather reduces cognitive flexibility, which is presumably associated with extension memory. Ultimately, moderate levels of positivity activate a system that provides response alternatives (i.e., extension memory), whereas negativity inhibits extension memory. In line with cognitive flexibility, Murry & Byrne (2005) elucidate how attention may be related to insight. They found that the ability to shift attention is predictive of insight. The ability to sustain attention, however, is not predictive of insight. Selective attention on its own is not predictive of insight, whereas if it is within the shifting attentional state, it can be predictive of insight. This finding explains why individuals who are positive are better at solving insight problems because they engage in a diffuse attentional state that shifts attention on the processing information back and forth. Neuroimaging studies show that there is a connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which may have to do with cognitive flexibility and solving insight problems. The right hemisphere of the brain is thought to be responsible for detecting emergency or novel situations. This part of the brain is concerned with the big picture at the Gestalt level. Compared with solving problems without insight, solving problems with insight involves stronger activity in right temporal regions. This is thought to be important for integrating distant semantic associations (Jung-Beeman et al., 2004). Also, this suggests that the right hemisphere of the brain is involved in multiple simultaneous constraints or solving insight problems. On the other hand, the left hemisphere of the brain is thought to detect competing responses, overcome pre-potent response tendencies, and switch attention to select the correct response (Hedden & Gabrieli, 2006). Furthermore, it is involved in processing fine-grained and detail-oriented information, which is important for sequential intervention. Moreover, there is an elicited increase in EEG in the right hemisphere, beginning shortly before insight problems were reported as opposed to when non-insight problems were reported. This suggests that there is a sudden shift from the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere before solving insight problems (Bowden et al., 2005). The shift between the hemispheres is further supported with evidence from the study of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) during. Kounios et al. (2006) found a sustained increase in neural activity during the preparatory interval before participants actually saw problems. Also, stronger ACC activity occured prior to trials solved with insight than those solved more analytically. It is plausible that Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) activates during the switch between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain. There is a shift in processing style in the brain because the left and right hemispheres constantly challenge one another to determine who is in charge. Although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected from the immediate preceding thought, these studies show that insight is the culmination of a series of brain states and processes that operate at different time scales. Furthermore, positivity is likely to facilitate insight by increasing a person’s ability to switch and select alternative cognitive perspectives (Baumann & Kuhl, 2005). This reduces perseveration on one particular solution, thus increasing the probability of engaging in various cognitive restructuring processes. Not only positive affect plays a role in heightening solvers’ sensitivity to solution-relevant processing, which may often occur within the RH semantic processing network (Jung-Beeman, 2005), but it also works in cooperation with cognitive control processes in the frontal cortex (e.g., ACC) to make the switch to converge to the correct solution. Therefore, a positive mood increases activity in the ACC before the actual problem occurs. This influences the person toward cognitive processing that is favorable to insight. Modulated ACC activity may facilitate one or a combination of mechanisms such as switching between the global and local processing modes of attention (Baumann & Kuhl, 2005). More evidence supports the idea that insight influenced by mood can be found in mood disorder patients. Peralta and Cuesta (1998) investigated solving insight problems in mania and depressive patients. They found that mania patients had more severe insight impairment than depressive patients. Depressive patients with psychosis had poorer insight than those without psychosis, while mania patients had poor insight regardless of the presence of psychotic symptoms. In conclusion, individuals with mood disorders have impaired ability in solving insight problems. This is particularly prevalent in psychotic depression and mania (Peralta & Cuesta, 1998). This finding confirms how significant a role emotions play in our lives. How mood influences solving insight problems can be generalized by the idea of creativity, in which being positive will create more innovation (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009). There are two views of creativity. The first prominent view of creativity is that it is based on the processing of remote or loose associations between ideas (Mednick, 1962). Recent research implicates the brain’s right hemisphere in the processing of remote associates and the left hemisphere in the processing of close or tight associations (Jung-Beeman, 2005). Another view states that individuals high in creativity habitually deploy their attention in a diffusive rather than a focused manner (Ansburg & Hill, 2003). Kounio et al. (2009) found that individuals who are positive exhibit greater activity in their right hemisphere regions, which are associated with lexical and semantic processing as well as greater diffusion activation of the visual system in high-insight participants. After careful speculation, creativity has exactly the same mechanism as insight, which can be enhanced by positivity. In conclusion, the ability to solve insight problems is based on an individual’s mood. An individual with a positive mood can solve a given insight problem more effectively than when he or she is in a negative mood (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009). A positive mood facilitates open, flexible, and efficient processing between left and right hemispheres and helps to restructure the problem, whereas a negative mood constructs the fixation in a particular aspect of the problem. Creativity can also be enhanced a positive mood. Individuals with mood disorders are impaired in solving insight problems (Peralta & Cuesta, 1998). This evidence confirms how important a role emotions play in our daily lives. Without emotion, it is difficult for people to produce insightful ideas that lead to new innovations. References Ansburg, P.I., & Hill, K. (2003). 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