Experiencing insight when solving problems can improve memory formation for
both the problem and its solution. The underlying neural processes involved in
this kind of learning are, however, thus far insufficiently understood. Here,
we conceptualized insight as the sudden understanding of a novel relationship
between known stimuli that fits into existing knowledge and is accompanied by
a positive emotional response. Hence, insight is thought to comprise
associative novelty, schema congruency, and intrinsic reward, all of which are
separately known to enhance memory performance. We examined the neural
correlates of learning from induced insight with functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) using our own version of the compound-remote-associates-task
(CRAT) in which each item consists of three clue words and a solution word.
(Pseudo-)Solution words were presented after a brief period of problem-solving
attempts to induce either sudden comprehension (CRA items) or continued
incomprehension (control items) at a specific time point. By comparing
processing of the solution words of CRA with control items, we found induced
insight to elicit activation of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex/medial
prefrontal cortex (rACC/mPFC) and left hippocampus. This pattern of results
lends support to the role of schema congruency (rACC/mPFC) and associative
novelty (hippocampus) in the processing of induced insight. We propose that
(1) the mPFC not only responds to schema-congruent information, but also to
the detection of novel schemata, and (2) that the hippocampus responds to a
form of associative novelty that is not just a novel constellation of familiar
items, but rather comprises a novel meaningful relationship between the
items—which was the only difference between our insight and no insight
conditions. To investigate episodic long-term memory encoding, we compared CRA
items whose solution word was recognized 24 h after encoding to those with
forgotten solutions. We found activation in the left striatum and parts of the
left amygdala, pointing to a potential role of brain reward circuitry in the
encoding of the solution words. We propose that learning from induced insight
mainly relies on the amygdala evaluating the internal value (as an affective
evaluation) of the suddenly comprehended information, and striatum-dependent
reward-based learning