Abstract
Introduction. Remote associate test is a convenient and widely used tool for studying insight and creative thinking. However, numerous versions of this test exhibit considerable linguistic heterogeneity—both within Russian‑language sets and across versions in different languages—which hinders the comparison of research results and further progress in understanding the mechanisms of insightful problem solving.
Methods. In the present study, a new set of 60 tasks in Russian of two types (semantically convergent and divergent) was developed and tested. The criteria for constructing the task set are described in detail, based on current theoretical conceptions of the cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in insight. Task selection was based on metrics extracted from the Russian National Corpus. The study was validated on a sample of 71 participants (mean age = 23 years).
Results. Convergent and divergent triads were shown to be balanced in objective difficulty, while an Aha‑experience (the affective marker of insight) occurred significantly more often upon finding the correct solution for divergent triads than for convergent ones. The probability of successfully solving a task increased with higher target word frequency and higher strength of target collocations (formed by the triad words with the target word). At the same time, the probability of a correct answer was lower when the frequency of the first triad word was higher. Solution time decreased for triads with higher target word frequency. The probability of an Aha‑experience was related to the metric of semantic distance among triad words—the greater this distance, the more often an Aha‑experience occurred upon finding the correct answer. Low target word frequency also increased the probability of an Aha‑experience.
Discussion. Discussion. Thus, a task set of two types has been created that are equivalent in difficulty but differ in the probability of inducing an Aha‑experience. Linguistic predictors of both objective task difficulty and the occurrence of an Aha‑experience have also been identified.
References
Афанасьева, В. М., & Спиридонов, В. Ф. (2024). Источники сложности в задаче на отдаленные ассоциации. Психологические исследования, 17(93), 5. https://doi.org/10.54359/ps.v17i93.1518
Валуева, Е. А., & Белова, С. С. (2011). Диагностика творческих способностей: методы, проблемы, перспективы. В Д. В. Ушаков (ред.), Творчество: от биологических оснований к социальным и культурным феноменам (с. 625–648). Москва: Институт психологии РАН.
Воронин, А. Н., & Галкина, Т. В. (1994). Диагностика вербальной креативности (адаптация теста Медника). В А. Н. Воронин (ред.), Методы психологической диагностики (с. 40–81).
Гершкович, В. А., Морошкина, Н. В., & Федосова, В. И. (2021). Припоминание источника решения в задачах поиска отдаленных ассоциаций: роль эффекта генерации и ага!-переживаний. Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Психология, 11(1), 72–88. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu16.2021.105
Кузнецов, С. А. (ред.). (1998). Большой толковый словарь русского языка. Санкт-Петербург: Норинт.
Лукьянова, В. К. (2024). Структура ассоциаций в задаче Медника: измерение беглости и гибкости мышления. Экспериментальная психология, 17(4), 90–102. https://doi.org/10.17759/exppsy.2024170406
Морошкина, Н. В. (2020). Инсайт в контексте метакогнитивной регуляции: источники и функции ага-переживания. Вопросы психологии, 70(4), 28–34.
Морошкина, Н. В., Гершкович, В. А., Аммалайнен, А. В., Львова, О. В., Савина, А. И., & Зверев, И. В. (2020, сентябрь). Предикторы «Ага!» и «Ох, да!» переживаний при решении задач на поиск отдаленных ассоциаций. В Д. В. Ушаков, И. Ю. Владимирова, & А. А. Медынцева (ред.), Творчество в современном мире: человек, общество, технологии: Материалы Всероссийской научной конференции, посвященной 100-летию со дня рождения Я. А. Пономарева (с. 183–184). Москва: Институт психологии РАН. Получено из https://lib.ipran.ru/public/upload/papers/paper_44312497.pdf#page=183
Савина, А. И., Морошкина, Н. В., & Ошканова, А. П. (2021). Интуиция и инсайт: связь интуитивного чувства когерентности и Ага!-переживания при решении задач на поиск отдаленных ассоциаций. В Е. В. Печенкова, М. В. Фаликман, & А. Я. Койфман (ред.), Когнитивная наука в Москве: новые исследования (с. 375–380). Москва: БукиВеди; Институт практической психологии и психоанализа.
Becker, M., Davis, S., & Cabeza, R. (2022). Between automatic and control processes: How relationships between problem elements interact to facilitate or impede insight. Memory & Cognition, 50(8), 1719–1734. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-022-01277-3
Becker, M., Wang, X., & Cabeza, R. (2024). Surprise!—Clarifying the link between insight and prediction error. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02517-0
Behrens, J. P., & Olteţeanu, A. M. (2020). Are all remote associates tests equal? An overview of the remote associates test in different languages. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1125. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01125
Bolte, A., & Goschke, T. (2005). On the speed of intuition: Intuitive judgments of semantic coherence under different response deadlines. Memory & Cognition, 33, 1248–1255. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193226
Bowden, E. M., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2003). Normative data for 144 compound remote associate problems. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35, 634–639. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195543
Bowden, E. M., Jung-Beeman, M., Fleck, J., & Kounios, J. (2005). New approaches to demystifying insight. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(7), 322–328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.05.012
Bowers, K. S., Regehr, G., Balthazard, C., & Parker, K. (1990). Intuition in the context of discovery. Cognitive Psychology, 22(1), 72–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(90)90004-N
Casella, G., Fienberg, S., & Olkin, I. (2006). Time series analysis and its applications: With R examples. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9634-3
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82(6), 407–428. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407
Cranford, E. A., & Moss, J. (2012). Is insight always the same? A protocol analysis of insight in compound remote associate problems. The Journal of Problem Solving, 4(2), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.7771/1932-6246.1129
Danek, A. H., Fraps, T., von Müller, A., Grothe, B., & Öllinger, M. (2014). It’s a kind of magic—What self-reports can reveal about the phenomenology of insight problem solving. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1408. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01408
Davelaar, E. J. (2015). Semantic search in the remote associates test. Topics in Cognitive Science, 7(3), 494–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12146
Dubey, R., Ho, M. K., Mehta, H., & Griffiths, T. (2021). Aha! moments correspond to metacognitive prediction errors. PsyArXiv. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/c5v42
Henninger, F., Shevchenko, Y., Mertens, U. K., Kieslich, P. J., & Hilbig, B. E. (2021). lab.js: A free, open, online study builder. Behavior Research Methods, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01283-5
Ishikawa, T., Toshima, M., & Mogi, K. (2019). How and when? Metacognition and solution timing characterize an “aha” experience of object recognition in hidden figures. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01023
Kizilirmak, J. M., Wiegmann, B., & Richardson-Klavehn, A. (2016). Problem solving as an encoding task: A special case of the generation effect. The Journal of Problem Solving, 9(1), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.7771/1932-6246.1182
Kutuzov, A., & Kuzmenko, E. (2017, April). Building web-interfaces for vector semantic models with the WebVectors toolkit. In T. Erjavec, J. Piskorski, L. Pivovarova, J. Šnajder, J. Steinberger, & R. Yangarber (Eds.), Proceedings of the Software Demonstrations of the 15th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 99–103). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W17-1402
Marko, M., Michalko, D., & Riečanský, I. (2019). Remote Associates Test—Slovak version. Behavior Research Methods. [Database record]. APA PsycTests. https://doi.org/10.1037/t74591-000
Mednick, S. A. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69(3), 220–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/h004885
Moroshkina, N. V., Savina, A. I., Ammalainen, A. V., Gershkovich, V. A., Zverev, I. V., & Lvova, O. V. (2022). How difficult was it? Metacognitive judgments about problems and their solutions after the Aha moment. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 911904. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.911904
Öllinger, M., & von Müller, A. (2017). Search and coherence-building in intuition and insight problem solving. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 827. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00827
Sio, U. N., Kotovsky, K., & Cagan, J. (2022). Determinants of creative thinking: The effect of task characteristics in solving remote associate test problems. Thinking & Reasoning, 28(2), 163–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2021.1959400
Smith, K. A., Huber, D. E., & Vul, E. (2013). Multiply-constrained semantic search in the Remote Associates Test. Cognition, 128(1), 64–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.03.001
Spiridonov, V., Loginov, N., & Ardislamov, V. (2021). Dissociation between the subjective experience of insight and performance in the CRA paradigm. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 33(6–7), 685–699. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2021.1900198
Stuyck, H., Aben, B., Cleeremans, A., & Van den Bussche, E. (2021). The Aha! moment: Is insight a different form of problem solving? Consciousness and Cognition, 90, 103055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.103055
Toivainen, T., Olteteanu, A. M., Repeykova, V., Likhanov, M., & Kovas, Y. (2019). Visual and linguistic stimuli in the remote associates test: A cross-cultural investigation. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 926. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00926
Topolinski, S., & Strack, F. (2008). Where there’s a will—There’s no intuition: The unintentional basis of semantic coherence judgments. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(4), 1032–1048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2008.01.002
Topolinski, S., & Strack, F. (2010). False fame prevented: Avoiding fluency effects without judgmental correction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(5), 721–733. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019260
Vlasov, M. S. (2021). The development and validation of the Russian language compound Remote Associates Test (Master’s thesis). National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk.
Wagenmakers, E. J., Marsman, M., Jamil, T., Ly, A., Verhagen, J., Love, J., ... Morey, R. D. (2018). Bayesian inference for psychology. Part I: Theoretical advantages and practical ramifications. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 35–57. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1343-3
Whelan, R. (2008). Effective analysis of reaction time data. The Psychological Record, 58, 475–482. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395630
Wu, C.-L., Huang, S.-Y., Chen, P.-Z., & Chen, H.-C. (2020). A systematic review of creativity-related studies applying the remote associates test from 2000 to 2019. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 573432. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.573432
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Russian Psychological Journal