In recent years, we have seen an exponential increase in interest in studying insight and creativity. Some creative ideas come to mind gradually, but others emerge as sudden flashes of inspiration. What causes these fascinating moments when – unexpectedly, and to our surprise and delight – a marvelous new solution emerges into consciousness? This is the wonder of insight that the chapters in The Emergence of Insight have described efforts to understand and explain. Although solutions reached via insight may be less common than more routine or step-by-step analytical solutions, the Aha! experience seems ubiquitous, familiar to all, and easily recognized. But what is an insight? Understanding insight itself presents an ill-defined problem that is yet to be solved.

Aha! experiences are often very well recalled. The idea of insight leaving an indelible mark on memory was put forward by the Gestalt psychologists, yet has remained under-studied. This chapter provides an overview the existing empirical evidence for an insight memory advantage and possible explanations for why insight enhances memory. Several studies have focused on the phenomenological aspect of insight by showing that solutions associated with Aha! experiences are remembered better than those without, even after delays of up to two weeks. Confidence (i.e., a metacognitive reaction) and pleasure (i.e., an affective reaction) were also shown to play a role. On the other hand, there could also be a potential association between solution processes involving restructuring (i.e., the cognitive aspect of insight) and better memory. At present a clearer role is seen for the phenomenological effects of insight experiences on memory, but more work is needed that explores both phenomenological and cognitive aspects of insight in the same studies.

Where do insights come from? What causes those moments when, unexpectedly, a marvelous new idea flashes into consciousness, possibly accompanied by feelings of surprise and delight? Sudden insights are rare, yet everyone appears to be familiar with the experience that may be alternatively described as an “Aha!” or “Eureka” moment: a sudden realization, an epiphany, illumination, revelation, or satori. The ideas resulting from insight experiences range from mundane to historic. Insight is defined not so much by the importance or significance of the content produced, but rather by the cognition and the phenomenology of the event. At its core, the insightful solution process begins with the solver holding an incorrect representation, and ends (if successful) with a nonobvious solution. But there is much more to know: What is insight, and how does a solution emerge unexpectedly into awareness? Is there a set of steps, a pathway that leads to insight?

Problems can be difficult to solve when individuals become fixated by misleading information. A popular method for studying fixation in problem solving externally induces it by priming misleading solutions. However, fixation can also arise internally from incorrect solutions that are strongly activated by prior knowledge. The work summarized in this chapter considers both sources of fixation. It also considers the effects of warnings, and the countervailing influences that individual differences in working-memory capacity (WMC) may have. Higher WMC or attentional control may sometimes help individuals to retrieve solutions, maintain task-relevant goals, and use hints or warnings, but at other times may make individuals more prone to fixation. This chapter describes studies that explored both sources of fixation, how warning participants about possible sources of fixation might affect problem solving success, and whether benefits from warnings of what to avoid relate to individual differences in WMC. Both internal fixation from prior knowledge and external fixation from exposure to misleading primes led to poorer performance on a word-fragment completion task. Providing participants with a warning about the misleading solutions sometimes led to poorer performance (rather than better). Within the conditions where individuals received warnings, the likelihood of reaching correct solutions depended on WMC. Several results highlight potential differences between internal fixation from prior knowledge and external fixation from recent exposure. An important direction for future research is to continue to explore the differences that might be seen in insightful solution processes and experiences depending on the source of the initial fixation, and the extent to which fixation from prior knowledge and from recent exposure may need to be overcome differently.

This chapter builds on the original findings of the Classroom Memory Study and outlines the ways in which children’s academic skills are also influenced by the types of language that (1) parents use during the course of conversations about the past, and (2) teachers use during classroom instruction. We present findings from a number of studies to illustrate that kindergarten students’ accuracy and strategy use in the context of mathematics is influenced by exposure to metacognitive language at home and at school. In addition, we explore the impact of kindergarten teachers’ metacognitive language on children’s mathematics accuracy and strategy use across the first two years of formal school for those children who enter school with relatively low mathematical knowledge. Finally, we emphasize that a commitment to examining instructional approaches and methods of assessment that focus on students’ metacognitive understanding will be critical to the evolution of the Classroom Memory Study and to studying the socialization of children’s cognition more broadly.