The Memory Superiority Effect of Induced Insight in Semantic Versus Perceptual Levels

Previous studies have established that insight enhances memory across a variety of tasks. However, it remains unclear whether memory performance differs between perceptual and semantic insights. To address this issue, this study employed a learning–testing paradigm with Chinese riddles. In the learning phase, individuals judged whether they had grasped the relationship between each riddle and its solution (a Chinese character) under four conditions created by crossing match status (matched vs. unmatched) with riddle type (visual-rule vs. semantic-rule). During the testing phase, they performed immediate and delayed recognition tasks, judging whether each presented character was old or new. The results showed that, relative to trials on which riddles were not solved (primarily unmatched riddles), participants exhibited higher hit rates, recognition rates, and retrospective confidence judgment (RCJ) in both immediate and delayed recognition tasks when they experienced sudden insight into matched riddles. This reflects a memory advantage for insight induced by solution-appropriate processing. Moreover, hit rates, recognition rates, and memory confidence judgment accuracy were consistently higher for semantic insight than for perceptual insight, regardless of match condition (significant main effects with no interaction). In contrast, memory confidence judgment was higher for semantic (vs. perceptual) insight under matched conditions but not under unmatched conditions (significant interaction). Collectively, these findings suggest that insight yields better memory performance when it operates at the semantic level than at the perceptual level.