Influence of priming condition and task difficulty on insight problem solving: An ERP study

The present study adopted event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the influence of priming condition and task difficulty on insight problem solving. The study used an adapted Prime-Target paradigm in 2 (positive priming, P/negative priming, N) × 2 (easy task, E/hard task, H) design, and the researcher obtained the following findings: (1) Tasks with negative priming elicited stronger N400 and LPC responses than those with positive one; (2) Hard tasks generated stronger N400 and LPC effect than easy tasks; (3) The impact of priming condition was greater than that of task difficulty on insight problem solving; (4) The N400 effect reflected cognitive conflict, and the LPC component was related to break the impasse and form novel association during the insight problem solving.