Laukkonen Ruben E, Tangen Jason M
Department of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Conscious Cogn. 2017 Feb;48:198-211. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.11.011. Epub 2016 Dec 20.
It is a compelling idea that an image as simple as a Necker cube, or a duck-rabbit illusion, can reveal something about a person's creativity. Surprisingly, there are now multiple examples showing that people who are better at discovering 'hidden' images in a picture, are also better at solving some creative problems. Although this idea goes back at least a century, little is known about how these two tasks-that seem so different on the surface-are related to each other. At least some forms of creativity (and indeed scientific discoveries) may require that we change our perspectives in order to discover a novel solution to a problem. It's possible that such problems involve a similar cognitive process, and perhaps the same cognitive capacities, as switching perspectives in an ambiguous image. We begin by replicating previous work, and also show metacognitive similarities between the sudden appearance of hidden images in consciousness, and the sudden appearance of solutions to verbal insight problems. We then show that simply observing a Necker cube can improve subsequent creative problem-solving and lead to more self-reported insights. We speculate that these results may in part be explained by Conflict Monitoring Theory.
像内克尔立方体这样简单的图像，或者鸭兔错觉，能够揭示一个人的创造力，这是一个引人注目的观点。令人惊讶的是，现在有多个例子表明，那些更善于在图片中发现“隐藏”图像的人，在解决一些创造性问题方面也表现得更好。尽管这个观点至少可以追溯到一个世纪以前，但对于这两项表面上看起来如此不同的任务是如何相互关联的，我们却知之甚少。至少某些形式的创造力（实际上还有科学发现）可能要求我们改变视角，以便找到解决问题的新颖方法。有可能这类问题涉及与在模糊图像中切换视角类似的认知过程，甚至可能是相同的认知能力。我们首先重复之前的研究工作，并且还展示了隐藏图像在意识中突然出现与言语洞察问题的解决方案突然出现之间的元认知相似性。然后我们表明，仅仅观察一个内克尔立方体就能提高后续创造性问题的解决能力，并带来更多自我报告的洞察力。我们推测，这些结果可能部分可以用冲突监测理论来解释。
