Generative insight: Aha! Moments in category generation and divergent thinking

Do the aha! moments of insight observed in creative problem solving also occur during divergent thinking and other generative tasks? We hypothesized that when participants think of novel and creative ideas, those moments may be accompanied by the same subjective feelings that describe insight experiences. Participants generated lists of responses for each of 12 cues that included taxonomic categories (e.g., metals), ad hoc categories (e.g., things that are green), and divergent thinking prompts (e.g., alternative uses of bricks), clicking a red button labeled "aha!" whenever they had ideas that were surprising, sudden, and unexpected. Results showed that insight moments were commonly reported during divergent thinking and that aha! ideas were more creative and novel than non-aha! ideas and that aha! moments were observed in all generative tasks, both creative and noncreative. Furthermore, aha! ideas, as compared with non-aha! responses, were preceded by much longer pauses, with the duration of these nascent pauses increasing during the course of idea generation. These findings indicate that the cognitive processes involved in nascent pauses and insight moments should be incorporated into neurocognitive models of ideation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).