思维僵局不仅是顿悟问题有别于常规问题的重要要素,而且是顿悟赖以实现的基础。先前研究虽对顿悟瞬间的脑认知活动进行了较充分的探讨,但却较少对思维僵局的有关过程进行研究。思维僵局究竟是源于早期的知觉阶段还是晚期的问题加工阶段至今仍是未解之谜,但它却是人们认识顿悟过程所必需的。只有充分认识和理解了该过程,才可能更全面地理解顿悟究竟建立在怎样的脑认知表征的基础之上。研究运用ERPs技术,采用猜谜任务范式对顿悟中思维僵局产生的阶段及其脑认知活动进行了探讨。研究发现,在120~210ms和620—800ms内,“有僵局”谜题较之“无僵局”谜题在额一中央区分别诱发了一个更正的P170和晚期LPC。其中,P170主要反映人脑对思维僵局的早期觉察,LPC则主要表征人脑经过一定解题尝试后对前期预评估僵局的修正和有意识反思。这些结果挑战了传统的思维僵局的晚期产生假说,支持思维僵局的“早期产生机制”假说,表明人脑在早期知觉阶段就能直觉地觉察思维僵局的存在。
Although previous studies on insight have fully investigated brain activities and neural correlates of "flash of insight", little knowledge was known on cognitive process of active solution-seeking in problem solving before insight. Studies revealed that we would not obtain a full and deep understanding on insight problem solving and its neural basis, unless given an equal and all-sided study for active solution-seeking before insight and "flash of insight" during hint presentation period. Mental impasse is an important elementary process not only for subsequent incubation and presentation restructuring but also for human problem solving behavior. However, yet to date there were few studies that have examined this issue. Existing studies on FOK in insight tasks solving revealed that people's metacognition can not accurately monitor sudden insight, but they did not elucidate whether people's intuition can perceive possible mental impasse subsequently encountered or not. Thus, the present study focused on this problem. The current study adopted normal three-word Chinese riddles and firstly employed high-density event related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neural markers of insight during active solutions-seeking period. 13 paid participants were recruited to fulfill a three-character guessing task, and brain electrical activity was recorded. The results showed that, the process of active solutions-seeking of riddles with impasses compared to those without impasses elicited a more positive potential in the time windows of 120-210 ms (P170) and 620-800 ms (terminal LPC). P170 may be associated with the processing that people perceive intuitively mental impasses at the perceptual stage, whereas the terminal LPC may be associated with a conscious reappraisal and reflection of mental impasses. These results imply that mental impasse not only appears at the terminal phase, but also be intuition-sensitive at the perceptual stage. Human brain can perceive whether they would meet subsequent me