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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

The Development of Understanding of Insight and Aha-Experiences in Young Children

Alternative title: Utvikling av forståelse av innsikt og aha-opplevelser hos barn

Awarded: NOK 10.0 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

289516

Application Type:

Project Period:

2019 - 2024

Development of Understanding of Insight and Aha Experiences in Young Children Our project aims to investigate the development of understanding of insight and aha experiences in young children between the ages of 4 and 8 years. Previous research has shown that the youngest children have limited understanding of mixed emotions and that this understanding develops gradually. We want to explore when children begin to experience aha-moments and how their understanding of insight and aha-experiences develops during this age range. We have conducted two studies where parents reported on aha experiences in their children aged 4 to 8 years. These studies involved a total of over 600 parents who were recruited through social media and research platforms. The parents reported both motor and cognitive aha-experiences in their children. We found a decrease in the occurrence of motor aha-experiences with increasing age, while the occurrence of cognitive aha-experiences increased. The results from these studies have been published in the journal "Cognitive Development." We have also conducted three other studies where we tested children aged 4 to 8 years for their understanding of aha experiences. These studies involved presenting children with scenarios that either included an aha-experience or not. The results of the first study show that even the youngest children understand that an aha-experience is a positive experience, but we have reason to believe that the youngest children also believed that the idea is already the solution. This assumption was tested in the second study. Initial analyses show that there is an age-related development of understanding that an aha experience is about an idea and not about having solved the task. In a third study in the same series, we asked 160 children aged 4 to 8 years about aha-experiences and tested them with a task that can trigger such experiences. We found the same patterns as in emotion development research, namely that children in all age groups have approximately the same number of aha-experiences when solving a task, but the youngest children only understand that aha experiences elicit positive emotions. However, they do not understand that an aha experience comes suddenly, is about a new idea, and that they believe in the correctness of the solution to a problem; only the oldest children understand this. In collaboration with a Finnut project, we have investigated aha-experiences in middle school students and their relationship with interest in mathematics. We tested the students at different time points over a four-week period. The results of this study are preliminary, and we are currently analyzing the data and writing a research article. Through this project, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the early development of insight and aha experiences in young children. We believe that this knowledge can be valuable for the development of educational approaches and teaching methods that promote children's curiosity, interest, and understanding in various subject areas. In addition to investigating aha-experiences in children, we also want to explore their intuition. We plan to use the same tasks originally developed to investigate aha-experiences, but with a slight twist. When participants are unable to solve the task, we will ask questions to see if they still have an intuitive sense of the structure behind the task, even if they do not find the correct solution. Initial pilot studies have tested the material for this purpose.

Metacognitive feelings is an emerging research topic in psychology. Among the recent phenomena that attracted attention were sudden insight and concomitant Aha-experiences. Nothing is known about the understanding children bring to these phenomena. The planned project uses methods from research on emotion understanding to examine the understanding of insights and Aha-experiences in childhood. It is the first project to explore the development of the understanding of sudden insights and Aha-experiences in children. We examine four main predictions on the understanding of insights as epistemic states that differ from incremental progress of understanding, the affective consequences of insights, the need to verify insights, and the dissociation between experiencing and understanding Aha-moments. In two subprojects, we ask children of three different ages (4, 6, and 8 years) about their understanding of Aha-experiences. The first subproject presents scenarios of insight and non-insight problems and asks children for the reactions of the problem solver; the second subproject presents reactions and asks children to create possible scenarios that could have led to the reaction of the problem solver. Each subproject consists of three studies, with the only difference that in Subproject 1, the scenario is presented and in Subproject 2 the reaction. The first study in each subproject examines whether children understand Aha-experiences in stories about other children. We provide a scenario (or reaction) where a child achieved understanding by insight and examine their understanding of the experience. The second study asks about the children's own Aha-experiences. They have to describe their Aha-experience and then to answer the same questions as in the first study. The final study elicits Aha-experiences in children and tests their understanding immediately after they had an Aha-experience themselves. The project has implications for both theory and educational practice.

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam