There is something so satisfying to surprise “Aha!” Moments: Those strange instances of information that they hit when you are struggling with a problem and reach a response suddenly, apparently without prior notice. But is all those moments satisfactory?
Apparently not, it turns out that the flashes of inspiration that you feel when a solution finally explodes in your brain are much more than pleasant. They are also an important part of their memory manufacturing process.
Attached to the waves of activity in your brain, these moments can shape your ideas in stronger memories, suggests a new neuroimaging study. Posted in Nature communicationsThe results can adjust the way in which we address education, since environments that encourage students to explore problems and experience “Eureka” moments can lead to more lasting learning.
Read more: What is happening inside your brain when your mind stays blank?
New vision of Eureka’s moments
Example of the hidden puzzles in the black/white images on the left; Image of the real world corresponding to the right. (Image credit: Maxi Becker)
It is a bit difficult to say that the relationship between “Ajá!” Moments and memory are a sudden vision in itself, since Eureka’s moments and epiphanes have been associated with memory increases before. But little is known about how, exactly, these moments work and how they are linked to memory at the neuroscientist level.
Thinking to study the neuronal mechanisms that connect the sudden vision and memory, the authors of the new study recorded the neuronal activity of people with functional magnetic resonance images (FMRI) while solving a series of visual puzzles. After the participants resolved the puzzles, the researchers promoted them to describe their thinking process, particularly, whether they resolved their solutions suddenly or slowly, with a single moment of inspiration or outside.
Analyzing the recordings of the participants together with their responses, the authors revealed that the puzzles that participants resolved with moments of sudden vision were associated with waves of activity in the hippocampus, a small structure in the brain responsible for learning and memory.
In fact, the researchers even linked stronger moments of inspiration with stronger activity over the hippocampus. And these waves were not trivial either, since they meant that the participants were “in reality more likely to remember the solution” to private puzzles later, said the main study author Maxi Becker, a neuroscience researcher at the University of Humboldt, according to a Press release.
When the authors tried the participants to see if they remembered their solutions to the puzzles several days after they were resolved, the results revealed that they recalled the solutions in which they suddenly established themselves, with a sensation of epiphany, better than those that were slowly established, without that same sense.
“If you have an ‘AHA!” There are few memory effects that are as powerful as this. “
Read more: What happens in your brain when you make memories?
Measuring ‘Aha!’ Moments
Example of the hidden puzzles in the black/white images on the left; The corresponding image of the real world to the right. (Image credit: Maxi Becker.)
The puzzles themselves were simple, although they could still encourage small -scale epiphanies. Testing their ability to analyze irregular visual information, the puzzles led participants to identify ambiguous black and white images of objects and animals, such as snakes, snails and spiders.
“It’s just a small discovery you are making, but produces the same type of characteristics that exist in more important information events,” said head in the statement.
According to researchers, brain recordings also revealed blows to the activity in the brain regions responsible for visual recognition, with a stronger sudden vision sensation that is observed with a stronger increase in the activity in the temporary occipito ventral cortex (Votc). Not only that, the researchers also revealed an association between “Ajá” more intense! “Momm moments and most intense brain connectivity between the hippocampus and the votc.
“The different regions essentially communicate with each other more efficiently,” said head in the statement.
Ultimately, the study provides important information about the neuroscience of some of our most sudden, more creative and most satisfying solutions. It also supports the idea that exploratory learning, based on active research and research, can be better for our minds by encouraging these surprising moments.
“The information is key to creativity,” said head in the statement, a lesson to learn that we should all try to remember.
Read more: How the brain decides what memories to maintain and which to discard
Sources of articles
Our writers in Discovermagazine.com Use studies reviewed by pairs and high quality sources for our articles, and our editors review to obtain scientific precision and editorial standards. Check the sources used below for this article:
Sam Walters is a journalist who covers archeology, paleontology, ecology and evolution for Discover, along with a variety of other issues. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
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