The Eureka Factor ─ AHA Moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain

In a book perfect for readers of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, David Eagleman’s Incognito, and Leonard Mlodinow’s Subliminal, the cognitive neuroscientists who discovered how the brain has aha moments—sudden creative insights—explain how they happen, when we need them, and how we can have more of them to enrich our lives and empower personal and professional success.

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.

Praise for The Eureka Factor

“Delicious . . . In The Eureka Factor, neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman give many other examples of [a] kind of lightning bolt of insight, but back this up with the latest brain-imaging research.”—Newsweek

“An excellent title for those interested in neuroscience or creativity . . . The writing is engaging and readable, mixing stories of famous perceptions with explanations of how such revelations happen, and including suggestions throughout to help people become more insightful.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Kounios and Beeman, distinguished neuroscientists with more than twenty years of cognitive research to their credit, examine such incidents of insight, juxtaposing the mere wonder of it all with the quantifiable science behind how the brain functions. . . . Knowing how and when the brain can spark at maximum responsiveness can open up a world of inventiveness and inspiration. A lively and accessible ‘brain’ book with wide appeal.”—Booklist

“Readers curious to know what happens when we solve a problem in a flash will find the latest research here [and] will appreciate [this] ingenious, thoughtful update on how the mind works.”—Kirkus Reviews

“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

John Kounios, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and director of Drexel University’s 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, The Timesof London, and National Public Radio, as well as a BBC Television documentary. Their work was profiled inThe New Yorker and is part of an exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.