Aha Moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain
by John Kounios, Ph.D and Mark Beeman, Ph.D
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Published Apr 2015
288 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Eureka or aha moments are sudden realizations that expand our understanding of the world and ourselves, conferring both personal growth and practical advantage. Such creative insights, as psychological scientists call them, were what conveyed an important discovery in the science of genetics to Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, the melody of a Beatles ballad to Paul McCartney, and an understanding of the cause of human suffering to the Buddha. But these moments of clarity are not given only to the famous. Anyone can have them.
In The Eureka Factor, John Kounios and Mark Beeman explain how insights arise and what the scientific research says about stimulating more of them. They discuss how various conditions affect the likelihood of your having an insight, when insight is helpful and when deliberate methodical thought is better suited to a task, what the relationship is between insight and intuition, and how the brain's right hemisphere contributes to creative thought.
Written in a lively, engaging style, this book goes beyond scientific principles to offer productive techniques for realizing your creative potential - at home and at work. The authors provide compelling anecdotes to illustrate how eureka experiences can be a key factor in your life. Attend a dinner party with Christopher Columbus to learn why we need insights. Go to a baseball game with the director of a classic Disney Pixar movie to learn about one important type of aha moment. Observe the behind-the-scenes arrangements for an Elvis Presley concert to learn why the timing of insights is crucial.
Accessible and compelling, The Eureka Factor is a fascinating look at the human brain and its seemingly infinite capacity to surprise us.
"Starred Review. An excellent title for those interested in neuroscience or creativity, or those who enjoy reading about brain research." - Library Journal
"Being good scientists, the authors' secrets of success lack the dramatic specificity of more commercial authors, but readers will appreciate their ingenious, thoughtful update on how the mind works." - Kirkus
"The Eureka Factor presents a fascinating and illuminating account of the creative process and how to foster it." - James J. Heckman, Nobel laureate in economics, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
"A vigorous voyage inside the mind to understand those electrifying but elusive moments of discovery - and how we can have them more often." - Adam Grant, professor, Wharton School, and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take
"The Eureka Factor is a highly engaging and informative look into sudden creative insights. John Kounios and Mark Beeman convincingly show that what once seemed to be a mysterious feature of the human mind is yielding to dramatic advances in the fields of psychology and neuroscience." - Daniel L. Schacter, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Seven Sins of Memory
"Kounios and Beeman bring insight down to earth in the best of all possible ways. They offer a whirlwind tour through fascinating examples and cutting-edge science to reveal the essence of the aha moment." - Deborah Prentice, dean of the faculty, professor of psychology and public affairs, Princeton University
This information about The Eureka Factor was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Kounios, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Drexel University and director of its doctoral program in Applied Cognitive and Brain Sciences. He has published cognitive neuroscience research on insight, creativity, problem solving, memory, and Alzheimer's disease. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Psychonomic Society and serves on a National Science Foundation advisory panel.
Mark Beeman, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, where he studies the brain bases of creative cognition and problem solving, how mood affects attention and cognition, and how the right and left sides of the brain differ in function. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research. He is a Kavli fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and serves on a National Science Foundation advisory panel.
Kounios and Beeman's research on insight has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times (U.K.), as well as on National Public Radio and in a BBC Television documentary. Their work was profiled in The New Yorker and is part of an exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
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