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Aha! moments correspond to metacognitive prediction errors
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DOI：10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106537.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Psychologists have long been fascinated with understanding the nature of Aha! moments, moments when we transition from not knowing to suddenly realizing the solution to a problem. In this work, we present a theoretical framework that explains why we experience Aha! moments. Our theory posits that during problem-solving, in addition to solving the problem, people also maintain a metacognitive model of their ability to solve the problem as well as a prediction about the time it would take them to solve that problem. Aha! moments arise when we experience a positive error in this metacognitive prediction, i.e. when we solve a problem much faster than we expected, signaling to ourselves that we are more competent than we had realized. We posit that this metacognitive error is analogous to a positive reward prediction error thereby explaining why we feel so good after an Aha! moment. We provide support to our theory across two large-scale pre-registered experiments on problem solving, demonstrating a link between metacognitive prediction errors and Aha! moments. These results highlight the importance of metacognitive prediction errors and deepen our understanding of human metareasoning.
Keywords:
Aha! moments
metacognitive prediction errors
problem-solving
metareasoning
reward prediction error
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