The Emergence Of Insight

We are all familiar with the feeling of being stuck when a problem we are faced with seems intractable and we are unable to find a solution. But sometimes, a new way of seeing the problem pops into the mind from out of the blue. The missing piece of the puzzle is found, the gap is filled, and the solution is now obvious. This is the insight experience - the Aha! Moment - which has been a source of fascination to those who study problem solving for centuries. Written by leading researchers from around the world, this volume explores cutting-edge perspectives on insight, the processes that underlie it, and the conditions that promote it. Chapters draw on key themes: from attention, to memory and learning, to evolutionary perspectives. Students and researchers in applied, cognitive, and educational psychology, as well as those studying creativity, insight, and cognitive neuroscience, will benefit from these perspectives.

Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha’s most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant—and relatively recent—role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledi’s popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible—in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885. Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the “modern” in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism’s most important figures, The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.

Research on insight problem solving examines how new ideas are generated to solve problems that initially resist the application of prior knowledge or analogue solutions. In the laboratory, insight problems are designed to create an impasse; overcoming the impasse is sometimes accompanied by a distinctive phenomenological experience, the so-called Aha! moment. Insight: On the Origins of New Ideas presents research that captures these episodes of insight under laboratory conditions and informs models that account for their emergence. Descriptions and analyses of episodes of discovery both in and out of the laboratory are included to provide a general overview of insight. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, the volume debates the relative importance of intelligence and working memory, the development of an alternative interpretation of the problem based on deliberate analyses and heuristics, and unconscious inferences in the emergence of insight. These discussions generate new testable hypotheses to shed light on the cognitive processes underpinning insight, along with concrete methodological recommendations that, together, map a productive programme of future research. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of thinking and reasoning - specifically those interested in insight and creative problem solving.

We are all familiar with the feeling of being stuck when a problem we are faced with seems intractable and we are unable to find a solution. But sometimes, a new way of seeing the problem pops into the mind from out of the blue. The missing piece of the puzzle is found, the gap is filled, and the solution is now obvious. This is the insight experience - the Aha! Moment - which has been a source of fascination to those who study problem solving for centuries. Written by leading researchers from around the world, this volume explores cutting-edge perspectives on insight, the processes that underlie it, and the conditions that promote it. Chapters draw on key themes: from attention, to memory and learning, to evolutionary perspectives. Students and researchers in applied, cognitive, and educational psychology, as well as those studying creativity, insight, and cognitive neuroscience, will benefit from these perspectives.

What do winners of major sales do differently than the sellers who almost won, but ultimately came in second place? Mike Schultz and John Doerr, bestselling authors and world-renowned sales experts, set out to find the answer. They studied more than 700 business-to-business purchases made by buyers who represented a total of $3.1 billion in annual purchasing power. When they compared the winners to the second-place finishers, they found surprising results. Not only do sales winners sell differently, they sell radically differently, than the second-place finishers. In recent years, buyers have increasingly seen products and services as replaceable. You might think this would mean that the sale goes to the lowest bidder. Not true! A new breed of seller—the insight seller—is winning the sale with strong prices and margins even in the face of increasing competition and commoditization. In Insight Selling, Schultz and Doerr share the surprising results of their research on what sales winners do differently, and outline exactly what you need to do to transform yourself and your team into insight sellers. They introduce a simple three-level model based on what buyers say tip the scales in favor of the winners: Level 1 "Connect." Winners connect the dots between customer needs and company solutions, while also connecting with buyers as people. Level 2 "Convince." Winners convince buyers that they can achieve maximum return, that the risks are acceptable, and that the seller is the best choice among all options. Level 3 "Collaborate." Winners collaborate with buyers by bringing new ideas to the table, delivering new ideas and insights, and working with buyers as a team. They also found that much of the popular and current advice given to sellers can damage sales results. Insight Selling is both a strategic and tactical guide that will separate the good advice from the bad, and teach you how to put the three levels of selling to work to inspire buyers, influence their agendas, and maximize value. If you want to find yourself and your team in the winner's circle more often, this book is a must-read.

The Handbook consists of four major sections. Each section is introduced by a main article: Theories of Emotion – General Aspects Perspectives in Communication Theory, Semiotics, and Linguistics Perspectives on Language and Emotion in Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary and Applied Perspectives The first section presents interdisciplinary emotion theories relevant for the field of language and communication research, including the history of emotion research. The second section focuses on the full range of emotion-related aspects in linguistics, semiotics, and communication theories. The next section focuses on cultural studies and language and emotion; emotions in arts and literature, as well as research on emotion in literary studies; and media and emotion. The final section covers different domains, social practices, and applications, such as society, policy, diplomacy, economics and business communication, religion and emotional language, the domain of affective computing in human-machine interaction, and language and emotion research for language education. Overall, this Handbook represents a comprehensive overview in a rich, diverse compendium never before published in this particular domain.

This book addresses the philosophical reception of early German Romanticism and offers the first in-depth study in English of the movement's most important philosopher, Friedrich Schlegel, presenting his philosophy against the background of the controversies that shaped its emergence. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert begins by distinguishing early German Romanticism from classical German Idealism, under which it has all too often been subsumed, and then explores Schlegel's romantic philosophy (and his rejection of first principles) by showing how he responded to three central figures of the post-Kantian period in Germany—Jacobi, Reinhold, and Fichte—as well as to Kant himself. She concludes with a comprehensive critique of the aesthetic and epistemological consequences of Schlegel's thought, with special attention paid to his use of irony.