This video discusses the incubation effect which is one important steps of the problem solving. And this video is published on Jan 4, 2019 by Micah Buzan. A great idea or the solution to the question may come to us when we are focusing on other things which are completely unrelated. Sometimes we believe that we get the final result after a long period thinking; however, the ideas are suddenly appearing instead of gradually creating. Thus, this curious phenomenon directly separates thinking into consciously thinking and unconsciously thinking. Wallas’ model (1926) describes the four stages of problem solving:
- Preparation, which involves defining a problem and consciously attempting to solve it;
- Incubation, wherein, when a solution has not been forthcoming, conscious work ceases, but continues nonconsciously;
- Illumination, which encompasses the moment of insight;
- Verification, whereby the solution is refined and confirmed.
Ellwood, S., Pallier, G., Snyder, A., & Gallate, J. (January 01, 2009). The Incubation Effect: Hatching a Solution?. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 1, 6-14.
This article (2009) is a scholar journal I found from OSU Library which focus on whether incubation is an empirically verifiable phenomenon and the possible role therein of nonconscious processing. This article set up experiment to find out (a) whether an incubation effect occurred and (b) the impact of different types of break on this effect. Before the experiment set, the article discusses a lot of information which support the exist of incubation effect and its connection with nonconscious processing. The result of experiment demonstrated that having a break during one work which is completely different from your origin work is more beneficial for idea production than working on a similar task.
Savic, M. (September 01, 2015). The incubation effect: How mathematicians recover from proving impasses. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 39, 67-78.
This article is a scholar journal which mainly discussed how mathematicians respond to, and often overcome “getting stuck.” And it made a long period experiment to investigate that what they will do when they are getting stuck and whether the action of mathematicians deliberate or accidental. According to the article, author find that six mathematicians used their own ways to try to overcome their impasse, for example, doing tasks unrelated to mathematics or sleeping on it. What’s more, it provides some future research which related to how to apply incubation effect to the school education. It provides some points for school to help students study more efficient.
IRVINE, W. B. (2017). AHA!: The moments of insight that shape our world. S.l.: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
This book uses five different domains to study how the Aha Moment happen in the different domains on the different ways. The author describes some great Aha Moment in history. The part 4 of this book is The Aha Moment in Mathematics. It provides a lot of story of mathematicians and claims that the Aha moment which is the production of unconsciously thinking plays a what wonderful role in their problem solving process. It implies that a mathematician’s unconscious mind is better at math than his conscious mind! This book lists a lot of stories about different mathematicians, but there is common that they are very glad to have an Aha Moment which can help them overcome the impasses. Their emotion expression shows that Aha Moment, or incubation effect, have played an important role in their work. In the process of solving problem, after they try their best to understand and solve the problem, incubation will help mathematicians at some degree. This book doesn’t base on the psychology’s complicated experiment, thus it more focus on analyzing.