where we might have been staring out the window or talking to other people and making those new connections," Dr Webb said. " we're taking away the time that we would normally use to let those loose associations build. "This lets you make more loose associations… and you can start to branch out and search for all those other answers." Aha Challenge: Calling all citizen scientists!Īnd for that reason your smartphone may be your aha moment enemy, simply because we often turn to them in those moments we'd otherwise be daydreaming or bored. "When you're a little more relaxed, you have more alpha waves in your brain. "Your brain does so much stuff when you're not aware of it," Dr Webb said. "Some people will have insight far more than others, and some people will feel insight to something that others don't."Īha moments tend to happen when we're in a relaxed or sleepy state, such as when we're daydreaming, having a shower, walking in nature, or even when we're fully asleep. What's going on in the brain?īrain scans show there is a distinct neural pattern in the brain when you suddenly 'get it'.īut the process of getting to the aha moment is very individual, Dr Cropper said. See how many aha moments you get in the Aha! Challenge here. Once you've solved the problem, you then need to provide some information about how you felt about it: did you get an aha moment? Were you surprised? They're all brain teasers, and puzzles and tricks that are designed to elicit an aha event," Dr Webb said. "We're using techniques that are used in the insight literature. The Aha! Challenge tries to prompt an aha moment by getting people to tackle some tricky brain teasers and problems, and they can be pretty tough. "But I would like to think it does maintain in everyone." How do you research aha moments? "My feeling is that kids have it a bit more often - the world is a bit more wondrous to them, and they're a bit less battered down by reality. "We want to get a sense of how does it change as people develop, from young to old, across the lifespan," Dr Cropper said. The researchers are particularly interested in what happens to the intensity and frequency of aha moments as we get older. "We're really interested in a sample that is outside the university," Dr Webb said.
and when these students started to have aha moments their attitude towards mathematics changed."ĭespite it being more than 2000 years since Archimedes had his 'eureka!' moment, we still don't know much about aha moments and the process of insight.Īnd much of what we do know is based on studies of undergraduate students.įor this reason, Dr Webb and her colleague Simon Cropper have teamed up with ABC Science to run the 'Aha! Challenge' as part of National Science Week, and they want people of all ages to take part. "For example, one study was looking at a class of students who hated mathematics.
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