内容来源：https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-your-brain-creates-aha-moments-and-why-they-stick-20251105/

内容总结：

【新闻总结】科学家揭秘“顿悟时刻”大脑工作机制：为何灵光一闪令人难忘？

你是否曾为“松树、螃蟹、酱汁”这三个词苦思冥想，突然灵光一闪找到共通的“苹果”一词？这种“顿悟”体验不仅令人振奋，其背后的神经机制更引发科学界关注。最新研究表明，大脑在顿悟瞬间会激活特定区域网络，这或许解释了为何灵感迸发的时刻总能深植记忆。

顿悟的神经密码
德国柏林洪堡大学的研究团队通过功能性磁共振成像技术，观测受试者辨识高对比度黑白图像时的脑部活动。当隐藏的物体被突然识别时，大脑的腹侧枕颞皮层（负责视觉模式识别）、杏仁核（情绪处理）和海马体（记忆中枢）会同步活跃。这种激活强度与受试者报告的“顿悟感”正相关——越是确信且伴随积极情绪的认知突破，大脑活动越显著。

记忆的强化机制
研究进一步发现，顿悟体验能显著提升长期记忆效果。实验五天后，那些伴随强烈“顿悟感”识别的图像被受试者记忆得更牢固。杜克大学认知神经科学家马克西·贝克尔指出：“海马体作为大脑的‘错配探测器’，当无意义的图像突然被赋予含义时，其与视觉皮层协同产生的强烈活动，如同为记忆打上重要标记。”

从实验室到现实世界
尽管顿悟能强化记忆，但研究提醒这并不等同于答案正确——实验中超过半数的错误识别同样伴随“顿悟感”。亚利桑那大学博士后研究员于宇华强调，未来需探索更多现实场景中的顿悟机制，如心理治疗、冥想甚至致幻体验等领域。德雷塞尔大学专家约翰·库尼奥斯则指出，教育领域可借鉴该研究，通过引导学生自主发现规律，实现“点燃记忆火焰”的教学效果。

这项发表于《量子杂志》的研究首次将心理学理论与神经机制直接关联，不仅揭示了人类创造性思维的生物学基础，更为优化学习记忆策略提供了科学依据。

中文翻译：

大脑如何创造“顿悟”时刻及其持久奥秘

引言
请思考三个词语：松树、螃蟹、酱汁。是否存在第四个词语能与这三者分别组合成常见词汇？当答案最终浮现时，你可能会感到灵光乍现，甚至脱口而出“啊哈！”。这种顿悟体验被称为“洞察力”，最新研究不仅揭示了大脑产生洞察的神经机制，还解释了为何灵光一现的想法往往令人印象深刻。

杜克大学认知神经科学家玛克辛·贝克尔在阅读科学哲学家托马斯·库恩1962年的经典著作《科学革命的结构》后，对洞察现象产生了浓厚兴趣。“书中描述了某些思想具有颠覆整个领域认知框架的力量，”她解释道，“这让我开始思考：大脑如何产生这类突破性想法？单个念头何以改变我们看待世界的方式？”

人类历史上不乏著名的顿悟时刻。据古罗马建筑师维特鲁威记载，公元前三世纪希腊数学家阿基米德浸入浴缸时，通过水位变化悟出浮力原理，激动地喊出“我找到了！”（不过这个故事可能属于传说）。十七世纪的牛顿被苹果砸中后触发对重力的突破性思考。二十世纪初，爱因斯坦在突然意识到“自由落体者感受不到自身重量”后，逐步构建出相对论体系。

洞察体验并非天才专属。我们在解谜题或处理社交难题时，经常经历这种认知飞跃。它与按部就班的公式推导不同——后者如同逐渐升温的过程，而洞察往往经历困惑后的豁然开朗。正如以神经生物学学习模型闻名的心理学家唐纳德·赫布在1940年代所指出的：学习有时呈现为“非渐进式的认知跃迁”。

认知转换的神经密码
当大脑对信息的理解发生突变时，这种现象被称为“表征重构”。虽然研究人员通过受试者行为推断出这种认知跃迁的存在，但其神经基础始终成谜。

“表征重构通常伴随洞察时刻出现，”德雷塞尔大学认知神经科学家约翰·库尼奥斯指出，“关键问题在于：大脑如何实现这种重构？”

在柏林洪堡大学期间，贝克尔团队通过名为“穆尼图像”的黑白抽象图片来捕捉洞察的神经特征。这些经过极限对比度处理的图像（如狗或咖啡杯）初看难以辨识，但经过数秒观察，大脑能突然重组轮廓线识别物体，触发“啊哈”体验。

在持续两天的实验中，研究者通过功能磁共振成像监测受试者观看120张穆尼图像时的大脑活动。当受试者成功识别图像后，需评估其体验的突然性、愉悦度和确定性——这三个维度被证实与洞察体验相关。通过神经网络解析数据，团队发现当受试者正确识别图像时，其腹侧枕颞皮层（负责视觉模式识别）、杏仁核（情绪处理）和海马体（记忆中枢）活动显著增强。这种激活在体验更确定、更愉悦时尤为明显。

未参与该研究的库尼奥斯评价道：“海马体、杏仁核和腹侧枕颞皮层构成了支撑表征重构的完整网络。”亚利桑那大学神经科学博士后于华华补充说：“这些发现首次将心理学理论与神经机制直接关联。”贝克尔指出，由于实验采用视觉刺激，表征重构主要体现在视觉处理区，若改用语言类任务，可能会激活不同脑区。

增强记忆的神经机制
自洞察研究兴起之初，学者就推测这种认知体验能增强记忆。赫布在其1949年著作《行为组织》中写道：“无论洞察本质为何，我们知道它持续影响成年哺乳动物的学习。”洞察不仅带来显著的即时体验，更有助信息转化为长期记忆。

这种“洞察-记忆增强效应”在魔术解析、谜题破解等任务中得到反复验证。贝克尔表示：“相比渐进式解决问题，顿悟能让解决方案记忆更深刻。”在初试几天后，团队通过在线测试发现，受试者对那些引发强烈洞察体验的图像记忆更牢固。进一步分析显示，初始洞察时刻腹侧枕颞皮层与海马体的激活程度，能预测五天后的记忆效果。贝克尔解释：“大脑活动的剧烈变化使体验更突出，而突出体验更易编码为长期记忆。”

需注意的是，洞察强化的是记忆强度而非准确性。在贝克尔实验中，受试者对超过半数图像判断错误，但在这些错误中有40%仍伴随洞察体验（正确判断中这一比例为65%）。历史经验表明，快速、确定、愉悦的解决方案通常更可靠，但错误的顿悟确实存在。

从实验室到广阔天地
于华华对洞察在创造过程中的作用尤为着迷。“创造力如同魔法，”她说，“重大创意常伴随洞察体验，因为创造性思维本质是认知世界的飞跃。”但她最新研究发现，洞察对创造力的作用因任务类型而异：在为科学概念设计隐喻时，通过洞察产生的比喻并不比分析性思维更具创意，且参与者对后者的科学概念记忆更牢固。

贝克尔认为，这与任务特性有关：穆尼图像识别依赖瞬时洞察，而隐喻创造更需要渐进式认知加工。接下来，于华华计划探索更多元的洞察场景：“当前研究多聚焦实验室环境中的问题解决，未来应拓展到心理治疗、冥想甚至致幻体验等领域。”

这些发现对教育实践具有启示意义。库尼奥斯认为，在教学中运用洞察促进策略能提升学习效果。“虽然对教师要求更高，但优秀教师会引导学生自主领悟知识原理，这不仅能深化记忆，还能极大增强学习动力。”

当大脑突然呈现答案时，那种美妙感受令人沉醉。或许在读罢本文开篇的三个词语后，您已体验过这种认知飞跃——就像砸中牛顿的苹果那样，某个瞬间突然点亮了您的思维。

英文来源：

How Your Brain Creates ‘Aha’ Moments and Why They Stick
Introduction
Here are three words: pine, crab, sauce. There’s a fourth word that combines with each of the others to create another common word. What is it?
When the answer finally comes to you, it’ll likely feel instantaneous. You might even say “Aha!” This kind of sudden realization is known as insight, and a research team recently uncovered how the brain produces it, which suggests why insightful ideas tend to stick in our memory.
Maxi Becker, a cognitive neuroscientist at Duke University, first got interested in insight after reading the landmark 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. “He describes how some ideas are so powerful that they can completely shift the way an entire field thinks,” she said. “That got me wondering: How does the brain come up with those kinds of ideas? How can a single thought change how we see the world?”
Such moments of insight are written across history. According to the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius, in the third century BCE the Greek mathematician Archimedes suddenly exclaimed “Eureka!” after he slid into a bathtub and saw the water level rise by an amount equal to his submerged volume (although this tale may be apocryphal). In the 17th century, according to lore, Sir Isaac Newton had a breakthrough in understanding gravity after an apple fell on his head. In the early 1900s, Einstein came to a sudden realization that “if a man falls freely, he would not feel his weight,” which led him to his theory of relativity, as he later described in a lecture.
Insights are not limited to geniuses: We have these cognitive experiences all the time when solving riddles or dealing with social or intellectual problems. They are distinct from analytical problem-solving, such as the process of doing formulaic algebra, in which you arrive at a solution slowly and gradually as if you’re getting warmer. Instead, insights often follow periods of confusion. You never feel as if you’re getting warmer; rather, you go from cold to hot, seemingly in an instant. Or, as the neuropsychologist Donald Hebb, known for his work building neurobiological models of learning, wrote in the 1940s, sometimes “learning occurs as a single jump, an all-or-none affair.”
Ann Rosan Picture Library
An abrupt cognitive shift in how the mind understands information is known as a representational change. Although researchers have inferred sudden shifts in understanding from the behavior of subjects, they have not pinned down how the brain supports representational change.
During moments of insight, representational change typically occurs, said John Kounios, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University and co-author of the book The Eureka Factor: Aha Moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain. “The question is: How is it occurring?”
Insightful Activity
While at Humboldt University of Berlin, Becker set out to uncover this neural signature of insight. Given that it’s nearly impossible to fabricate life-changing, field-altering insights in the lab, her team needed to identify a simple task that could produce a sudden feeling of understanding rather than a slowly unfolding solution.
They turned to abstracted black-and-white pictures called Mooney images, which are made by cranking up the contrast on a photograph all the way so that the subjects — a dog or a coffee mug, for example — are unrecognizable at first. The pictures pose a challenge for human brains, which typically identify objects by piecing together their different parts. But if given enough time with a Mooney image, even a few seconds, the brain can rearrange the contours to recognize the pictured object — and trigger the insightful “aha” feeling, a representational change.
Over the course of two days, Becker had study participants lie in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, which detects blood flow in the brain as a proxy for neural activity, and view a series of 120 Mooney images. After 10 seconds of viewing a single image, the participant would indicate whether they recognized the pictured object. If they did, they would then answer a series of questions about the suddenness, positive emotion and certainty associated with their experience — three measures that have been linked to moments of insight.
Becker and her team then used neural networks to parse the fMRI data, looking to identify consistent changes in brain activity shared by participants when they correctly recognized Mooney images. They observed that when a participant noticed a hidden object, brain activity increased in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC), a region responsible for recognizing visual patterns in the environment; the amygdala, which processes both positive and negative emotions; and the hippocampus, a deep-brain structure involved in handling memories. This activity was greater for experiences rated more certain and emotionally positive — in other words, more insightful ones.
The hippocampus is sometimes known as the brain’s “mismatch detector,” Becker said, because it reacts when an input doesn’t align with expectations. In this case, insight leads a once-meaningless image to gain meaning, going against the brain’s predictions.
Courtesy of Maxi Becker
These regions — the hippocampus, amygdala and VOTC — create “a plausible network of brain areas” behind representational change, said Kounios, who was not involved in the study. These findings finally “connect the psychological theory with the neural mechanism,” said Yuhua Yu, a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at the University of Arizona, who was also not involved with the study.
Becker and her team likely found representational change in the VOTC because of the visual nature of their stimuli. If they had chosen another type of stimulus, like words, the change would probably have appeared in language-processing areas of the brain.
Once the team had figured out which brain areas support insight, they wanted to probe whether these regions might be working together to create a lasting memory.
A Memory Boost
Since they began investigating insight, researchers have suspected that such experiences might boost memory. In his 1949 book The Organization of Behavior, Hebb wrote that “whatever insight is, we now know that it continually affects the learning of the adult mammal.” Insight not only feels notable or salient in the moment but also helps us retain new information as memory.
This memory boost, which became known as the insight-memory advantage, has since been studied in many types of problem-solving, including the unraveling of magic tricks and puzzles. “When you have an insight, you tend to be better able to remember the solution,” Becker said, compared to when you resolve a problem more gradually. She wanted to understand why.
A few days after the initial experiment, the team tested participants’ memory by having them look at more Mooney images online, including some they had seen before. Participants were better able to remember prior images that they had rated highly on the three aspects of insight. This suggested that the insight-memory advantage was real, but the team wanted to see what was going on under the hood. Did brain activity during insight predict better memory five days later?
The researchers found that the larger the activity boost in both the VOTC and the hippocampus during the initial insight, the better participants remembered the Mooney images. The big change in brain activity likely makes the experience more salient, Becker said, and salient experiences are known to better encode long-term memories.
While insight creates stronger memories of an idea, it doesn’t mean the idea is correct. Previous work has shown that the quicker, more certain and more pleasurable a solution feels, the more likely it is to be correct — but false insights can and do exist. In Becker’s study, participants wrongly identified the subjects of more than half the Mooney images they saw. Of those incorrect trials (which the researchers excluded from the analysis), the participants reported experiencing insight 40% of the time. In comparison, correct trials were accompanied by feelings of insight 65% of the time.
These kinds of studies of insight in the lab will set researchers up to look at how it functions in the real world. Once we decompose insight into “very simple tasks that we already understand well,” Becker said, we can “move on to more complex, truly creative tasks.”
Insight Into the Future
As a self-described uncreative person, Yu has been particularly fascinated by insight’s role in the creative process. Creativity is “like a magic power,” she said. “A really big creative idea is [often] associated with insight because a creative idea is in some way a leap in your cognitive world, and a leap will often elicit an insight or ‘aha’ feeling.”
However, Yu is finding that insight’s role in creativity might depend on the kind of problem a person is solving. In a recent study, she asked participants to come up with metaphors for scientific concepts and asked whether they used insight as they did so. The insight-driven metaphors weren’t more or less creative than those created through analytic thinking, she found — and the participants were more likely to remember the science concepts behind the latter.
This may be because, unlike the task of seeing a hidden object in a Mooney image, creating a metaphor tends to rely on slower cognitive problem-solving rather than sudden moments of insight, Becker suggested. The effects of insight therefore likely depend on the context.
Next, Yu wants to investigate insight in more contexts. “Most of the insight research is looking at insight in the problem-solving context and in the lab setting,” Yu said. She hopes that researchers will begin investigating “insight within many other domains, like in psychotherapy, in meditation, even in psychedelic experiences.”
Beyond offering a better understanding of how the human brain learns, these findings could have applications in classrooms. Kounios believes that applying insight-boosting strategies to teaching could lead to better learning outcomes for students. Insight seems to be a powerful and positive experience that generates accurate solutions, confidence in our answers and strong memories.
“It’s very intensive for a teacher to do this, but a lot of really good teachers try to get the students to have the insights themselves about how something works, and that will burn it into their memories,” Kounios said. “Another aspect of that [is], it’s very motivating, too.”
It’s a nice feeling when your brain suddenly comes up with an answer. Perhaps you’ve even experienced that feeling since reading this piece’s first sentence. Maybe it even hit you like an apple on the head.