The optimal balance of controlled and spontaneous processing in insight problem solving: fMRI evidence from Chinese idiom guessing

• Published in: Psychophysiology Vol. 60; no. 7; pp. e14240 - n/a
• Main Authors: Liu, Di, Hao, Lei, Han, Lei, Zhou, Ying, Qin, Shaozheng, Niki, Kazuhisa, Shen, Wangbing, Shi, Baoguo, Luo, Jing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2023
• Subjects: Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Cognition; Cognitive ability; controlled processing; Cortex (cingulate); Cortex (insular); Cortex (parietal); fMRI; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Humans; insight problem‐solving; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Prefrontal cortex; Problem solving; Problem Solving - physiology; representational similarity analysis; spontaneous processing; Thalamus; fMRI; representational similarity analysis; controlled processing; insight problem-solving; spontaneous processing
• ISSN: 0048-5772; 1469-8986; 1540-5958
• DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14240

Cognitive control is a key factor in insight generation. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the generation of insight for different cognitive control remain poorly understood. This study developed a parametric fMRI design, wherein hints for solving Chinese idiom riddles were gradually provided in a stepwise manner (from the first hint, H1, to the final hint, H4). By classifying the step‐specific items solved in different hint‐uncovering steps/conditions, we could identify insightful responses for different levels of spontaneous or controlled processing. At the behavioral level, the number of insightful problem solving trials reached the maximum at a intermediate level of the cognitively controlled processing and the spontaneously idea generating in H3, while the bilateral insular cortex and thalamus showed the robust engagement, implying the function of these regions in making the optimal balance between external hint processing and internal generated ideas. In addition, we identified brain areas, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), angular gyrus (AG), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), and precuneus (PreC), whose activities were parametrically increased with the levels of controlled (from H1 to H4) insightful processing which were increasingly produced by the sequentially revealed hints. Further representational similarity analysis (RSA) found that spontaneous processing in insight featured greater within‐condition representational variabilities in widely distributed regions in the executive, salience, and default networks. Altogether, the present study provided new evidence for the relationship between the process of cognitive control and that of spontaneous idea generation in insight problem solving and demystified the function of the insula and thalamus as an interactive interface for the optimal balance of these two processes. Through the step‐by‐step releasing of hints for solving four‐character idiom puzzles, we found the externally induced insights and the spontaneously generated insights respectively evoked increased prefrontal and temporal activations, or the inter‐condition representation dissimilarities. The insula and thalamus were identified as the interface for the optimal balance of these two insight processes.