MetaFilter posts tagged with insight

Aha! The anatomy of insight, like a rolling stone.

nickyskye — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:56:56 -0800

How do we have insights, and where does inspiration come from? Jonah Lehrer goes inside Bob Dylan's brain to find out...the "neural correlate of insight": the anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG). This small fold of tissue, located on the surface of the right hemisphere just above the ear, became unusually active in the seconds before the epiphany. [pdf] We propose that people have an Aha! experience when they suddenly recognize that some information, which they have already semantically activated, either is the solution or points to the solution path. The suddenness suggests that the solution-related activation was previously below the threshold of awareness, perhaps overshadowed by other activation not related to the solution. This account jibes with the consensus view that insight problems misdirect solvers to consider unhelpful information or solution paths: Some misdirected activation may be stronger than activation of solution-related concepts. Only when strong misdirected activation subsides can solutionrelated activation surpass the threshold of consciousness and be recognized.

Cart-pimpers and cat counselors

divabat — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:28:22 -0800

What is a library? What do librarians do? Librarians from the 2011 ALIA conference in Sydney respond - and their answers can be surprising.

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow.

Antidisestablishmentarianist — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:36:52 -0800

Honda insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid: "So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more."

Eureka Hunt

jckll — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:40:22 -0800

"That's why so many insights happen during warm showers."[pdf/html]
A ~~print-only~~ print-mostly article in last week's New Yorker magazine fascinatingly describes the neurological processes behind human insight, with nods to Henri Poincaré's omnibus eureka ("Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go some place or other. At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it") and Archimedes' bathtub eureka* ("Eureka!")

Autism & Animal Behavior

effwerd — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:45:13 -0800

In her new book written with Catherine Johnson, Animals in Translation (NYTimes), Dr Temple Grandin, an animal behavior expert and inventor of the squeeze machine, uses her experiences with autism to explore the intricacies of animal behavior. She argues that animals do have consciousness, that language is not a prerequisite and other theories that bring insight into both animal and human behavior. (More)

1) Your favorite band sucks. 2) Pancakes.

majcher — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 08:14:17 -0800

The Two Things. "For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

A nice little cool-site compendium

silusGROK — Tue, 27 Nov 2001 11:24:27 -0800

A nice little cool-site compendium featured in this week's CA | Design Interact Insight series. It's described as an idea generator for new media designers, and it's got quite the collection... my favorite so far is German design firm Milla's site (Flash)