Mastodawn

HB Lab Feb 22, 2023

On the "aha moment"

As a scientist, I've had the privilege to experience the big "aha" moment a handful of times. Each time, I was struggling to make sense of something and the "aha experience" happened the moment I figured it out. What's remarkable about those moments is how vividly I remember the details of the moment: the color of the paint on the walls; how the room was configured; if I was talking to someone else, exactly where they were sitting ...

I've had other equally compelling findings emerge from my research program that I did not experience in the same way, because the "aha" was figured out by someone else (like a PhD student) and later explained to me. I was as befuddled by those questions, as curious to know their answers and as excited to see those answers figured out! However, I did not experience them in the same way insofar as today I can tell you the answers but not much about the moment I first learned them.

I anticipate that this experience is something universal (and not unique to science). Eve Marder discusses it as something to be cherished (and I agree):
https://elifesciences.org/articles/80711

Does this description of the "aha moment" (also called "Eureka") resonate with you?

Living Science: Maintaining the joy of discovery

Changes in science over the past 50 years have reduced the chances of trainees experiencing the joy of discovery.

eLife

Dan Levenstein Feb 20, 2023

@NicoleCRust ^^^ this is the dopamine burst we’re all addicted to in this business 😜

Steve Gisselbrecht Feb 20, 2023

@dlevenstein @NicoleCRust
== the unreliable stochastic reward schedule that conditions us to keep trying.

Jaan Aru Feb 20, 2023

@dlevenstein @NicoleCRust For me, such insight experiences have been so essential that after opening my own lab, I digged in and started to research it (despite previously having no track record on it).

Our first paper on what happens in the brain during these moments was recently published in TINS: https://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/fulltext/S0166-2236(22)00232-6

Nicole Rust Feb 20, 2023

@jaanaru @dlevenstein
Aha!!! Great to see this.

Anthony Dardis Feb 20, 2023

@NicoleCRust Yes. I'm a philosopher, not a scientist. (I believe that the reasoning processes are the same though: basically, explain the data.) I recall a handful of moments when it all "clicked" and I can tell you where I was, what I was looking at.Some work isn't like that: it just seems right that it ought to go this way rather than that, and then the work is to make sure that's right.

LorenAmelang Feb 20, 2023

@NicoleCRust Yes, I can recall a few of those "aha moments", as vividly as you describe. But for me they last milliseconds, quickly replaced by analysis of "How did I not make that connection sooner?" Followed shortly by a flood of implications and next steps to obsess upon. And the mental beginnings of the writing the new insight will require. I just can't seem to allow my deprecated ego even a short celebration.

Anne Urai Feb 20, 2023

@NicoleCRust Interesting - I've never experienced the 'aha' in that way. Rather, my first reaction to finding something new is usually 'this is probably wrong, how can I check that it's not?' followed by a longer stretch of slowly convincing myself I'm really understanding what happens.

Perhaps it's a question of data-driven insights (which may always be due to a bug, a statistical confound, etc) vs. more theoretical ones, where you know it's true right away? Or perhaps I just haven't been lucky enough yet?

Nicole Rust Feb 20, 2023

@anneurai
Fascinating! Especially knowing the important insights you’ve arrived at. I’d love to compare notes about process over a cup of coffee some day.

Jon Awbrey Feb 20, 2023

Concept creation, hypothesis formation, #Discovery, #Invention, and #Diagnosis are all governed by the logic of #Aristotle's #Apagoge or #Peirce's #Abduction.

#McCulloch thought it had something to do with the #ReticularFormation.

Links to quotes from Peirce, McCulloch, and #Chomsky —

Abduction, Deduction, Induction, Analogy, Inquiry • 15
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2016/03/11/abduction-deduction-induction-analogy-inquiry-15/

Jon Awbrey Feb 20, 2023

Arthur #Koestler in “The Act of Creation” spoke of #Bisociation —

• https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=Koestler+Bisociation

Before you continue to Google Search

bk Feb 21, 2023

@NicoleCRust Absolutely.

Ken Miller Feb 21, 2023

@NicoleCRust I'm not a visual person, i think i have aphantasia (inability to form mental visual images), and i don't have such vivid visual memories. In one case when i was talking with people, i remember where i was, leaning on a desk, and the arrangement of other people in the room, vaguely - not entirely certain who was where or even who was there. In other cases my memory is more of an internal mental experience, kind of seeing, or more accurately feeling or sensing, the suddenly understood relationships as spatial relationships and a sense of the whole thing kind of spinning backwards.

Peter Moleman Feb 21, 2023

@kendmiller @NicoleCRust
Seeing with your mind’s eye: not for everyone (https://breininactie.com/minds-eye/)
https://aphantasia.com/what-is-aphantasia/

Seeing with your mind's eye: not for everyone - Brein in Action

I search for my misplaced iPhone inside my head, looking with my mind's eye. How does my brain do that? And what is aphantasia?

Brein in Action

LorenAmelang Feb 21, 2023

@MolemanPeter @kendmiller @NicoleCRust Beware of that Aphantasia Network site! It seems well done at first, but includes a link to a test - that turns out to be a variant of "16 Personalities". After you answer 50 questions they ask for your name and eMail, and reveal that receiving the results will cost $1.99. And in the fine print, that you are signing up for a recurring $29 "membership"! Hopefully if you close the page without agreeing that won't happen!

Also, it turns out their aphantasia "quiz" is not the real thing:

https://davidfmarks.net/vviq-use-the-questionnaire-not-the-quiz/

Aphantasia Network’s Variant ‘VVIQ’: Buyer Beware

The variant of the VVIQ used by the Aphantasia Network has not been psychometrically validated.

Curious About Behaviour

LorenAmelang Feb 22, 2023

@MolemanPeter @kendmiller @NicoleCRust
This has turned into a bit of an "Aha moment"!

Childhood "Plus Lens Theory" glasses destroyed my ability to see anything solidly - my visual world has been an arrangement of disjointed 2D historic "pictures" in an abstract map of the space around me.

When I discovered prosopagnosia I realized most people apparently see more from faces than I do. Maybe aphantasia is a generalization of prosopagnosia? Related to it? Maybe I do the same thing to faces that I do to everything else - it just matters more to the people behind the faces?

I'm now learning to allow a richer view of the world around me. If I move my head even slightly, a (dorsal?) sense of depth appears like an image from a random dot stereogram. Distant details I can't begin to resolve in ventral "picture" vision occlude others in a tight feedback loop with my body motion. And almost instantly the ventral "picture" gets divided into a range of different depths. I get hints that all the "pictured" objects could be locked into a rigid 3D world I could navigate through.

But if I close my eyes it all collapses - my "mind's eye" is still lost among the logically-mapped flat pictures from when I first encountered and examined each object.

My original "Aha" post here referred to a vivid memory of the particular "pictures" and logical map location that accompanied the new insight. Probably not vivid at all for most people...

Nicole Rust Feb 21, 2023

@kendmiller
Really fascinating!

Lili Feb 21, 2023

@NicoleCRust I feel like these happen to me once every few months? Maybe my therapist for an "aha" moment is particularly low.

They can happen when doing data analysis or model building or in writing up my results (as Marder points to as well!).

I agree with Eve Marder about us being further from the raw experiments than in decades past (really, I'm too young to say, but I trust her impression). Nevertheless, I think the moments of discovery can happen just as often, but just in the analysis and theory stages. The iterative exploratory analysis of today can feel a bit like the experiments of the past.

Lili Feb 21, 2023

This quote really struck out to me:
"It dawned on us that many in this cohort had not read or written as much as we had by their age."

I wonder if this is due to a generation gap (everyone reads/writes less now) or due to selection bias (people who became professors read/wrote more than their peers).

As a grad student I have felt a difference in writing experience relative to professors, but I always imagined that we would be roughly similar at similar career stages. It would be really interesting to see statistics on this.

Nicole Rust Feb 21, 2023

@lili
I think communication is just transforming. The bit rate of ideas on platforms like these is really high (even if it lacks depth).

Nicole Rust Feb 21, 2023

@lili
Exciting! In this case, I think a low threshold is a wonderful gift.

Theresa Desrochers Feb 21, 2023

@NicoleCRust
I would agree with your observation - I think it's an interesting one - and expand on it a bit, perhaps.

For example, I have a very vivid memory of coming up with the idea for the task I used in my graduate school work and drawing it down in my notebook while I was in a talk. It's very detailed, as you describe. I actually come back to this moment often when I debate with myself about going to talk I'm not sure is in my field of interest. (Go to the talk - you never know where inspiration will come from!)

I'm not sure I was aware at that moment of trying to solve something, but it was perhaps a leap forward in thinking. Perhaps those internal events are salient enough to be marked with vivid memory - much as salient external events would be. Maybe it happens more frequently than we realize (vivid memories to internal events), but those are the ones we notice the most, because we're lucky enough to have it be a part of what we do (or try to do) every day.

I would defer to you and other memory experts on whether that seems plausible. Maybe related to memory of something that invoked strong emotion?

Andrew Glennerster Feb 21, 2023

@NicoleCRust Yes. And I remember the feel of the wooden slats under the too-thin mattress as I leapt out of the bed that we had picked up in a garage sale and started pacing the room, to the bemusement of my wife - a January morning in San Francisco in 1996.

Nicole Rust Feb 21, 2023

@ag3dvr
Wonderful story!

SamuelJohnson Feb 22, 2023

@NicoleCRust Every software developer who has cracked a difficult bug (among others). Lots of hypothesis testing. Eventually... Aha!