How are Working Memory and Representational Change Related: Specific and Non-Specific Approach to Insight

Modern psychology of thinking is characterized by a debate about whether the nature of insightful solution is something different from standard thought processes or is something non-specific. The main resource of the implementation of standard thought processes is working memory, then this debate can be presented as a dispute about whether working memory is needed for an insightful solution. A larger role of working memory is used as support of a non-specific approach, and a smaller role of working memory— in support of a specific approach. This article aims to demonstrate that insightful solution is based on a specific representational change process that requires working memory resources. The experiment was conducted. Participants were given three groups of creative problems: the production of hypotheses task, insight problems with a simple representational change, and insight problems with a complex representational change. The participants simultaneously performed a secondary probe-task, with the help of which the working memory load was measured. The results showed that insight problems with representational change are more demanding on the working memory resource compared to the production of hypotheses. Moreover, the working memory load increases closer to finding the final answer of the problem. The obtained results show the inconsistency of using the argument of lesser importance of working memory in favor of a specific approach to insight, and also reveal the need to reconceptualize the relationship between working memory and insightful solution.

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