Aha! experiences are often very well recalled. The idea of insight leaving an indelible mark on memory was put forward by the Gestalt psychologists, yet has remained under-studied. This chapter provides an overview the existing empirical evidence for an insight memory advantage and possible explanations for why insight enhances memory. Several studies have focused on the phenomenological aspect of insight by showing that solutions associated with Aha! experiences are remembered better than those without, even after delays of up to two weeks. Confidence (i.e., a metacognitive reaction) and pleasure (i.e., an affective reaction) were also shown to play a role. On the other hand, there could also be a potential association between solution processes involving restructuring (i.e., the cognitive aspect of insight) and better memory. At present a clearer role is seen for the phenomenological effects of insight experiences on memory, but more work is needed that explores both phenomenological and cognitive aspects of insight in the same studies.

This chapter posits a prepared mind as key to later insight experiences. Following Wallas's (1926) four-stage model, preparation through failures experienced during initial solution attempts anticipates opportunities. At the time of impasse, solvers can predict necessary solution qualities by thinking through failed attempts at a more abstract level. These predictive features (Johnson & Seifert, 1994) describe needed resources, missing information, and solution characteristics, and are “seeded” into memory with the unsolved problem. Later, during incubation, attended features in the current context spontaneously retrieve the unsolved problem from memory, called opportunistic assimilation. This conscious reminding of the unsolved problem is the experience of sudden insight (Aha!). The surprised solver must then puzzle through why the current contextual features brought the problem back to mind and, in the process, restructure the old and new representational pieces into a novel solution. In this account, the insight process depends on effortful thinking during both preparation and illumination, but the incubation stage involves the simple process of associative memory as the source of insight experiences.