Intuition is one of the most unique human qualities. It is always considered as a third eye or an internal perception that is able to see what people may not see with their two eyes. If Animals perceive things accurately through instinct without the need for a complex thought process or internal dialogue, humans do it through intuition. In this regard, intuition is superior instinct. Zander, Öllinger, & Volz's (2016) article explore intuition and compare it to insight, discussing how the two are related and interact with each other.
Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) consider intuition and insight to be “intriguing phenomena of non-analytical mental functioning.” the perception of intuition and insight point to the fact that the two processes do not require a complex reasoning to use the available data or stimuli to draw accurate conclusions. According to Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) intuition denotes ideas arrived by a sensing process that arrives at solutions or conclusions without using explicit representations to the process. On the other hand insight entails an unexpected sudden apprehension of a conclusion or solution through recombining the different components of a situation or problem.
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According to Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016), their research established that there are different perceptions regarding the two processes. Many regard intuition to be a precursor to insight. The scientific literature, on the other hand, considers the processes to be distinct and separate the differentiation is based on their (dis-)continuous unfolding. Intuition relies on experiences and unfolds as a gradual process, while, on the other hand insight is a genuine discontinuous phenomenon. Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) point to the lack of studies investigating the two processes concurrently. The processes have consistently been studied or investigate separately, and they have thus never been linked together. Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) study is thus unique since it is the first of its kind to explore the connection between intuition and insight.
The article presents the findings of a study that Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) conducted to examine the conceptualizations underpinning the cognitive activities that the two phenomena used. They explored the research traditions that had been set in the study of the two phenomena. They considered different semantic coherence studies that comprise of divergent and convergent word triads. The use of convergent and divergent word triads provided a functional paradigm that could similarly be used to perform future studies to demystify the word intuition and insight. In semantic coherence analysis, if words have similar meaning with three clue words, then they also denote the same thing, and this is convergent word triads. However, if the solution words involve clue words that have different meanings, then the words are divergent word triads.
Through scrutinizing the two words underpinning mechanism, the author made their theoretical contribution to demystifying the two words and their meanings. They also hoped to encourage scientific studies that would draw cooperation between the study of intuition and the study on insight. It would be possible to bring together the scattered scientific literature to help understand the place of the two processes in problem-solving and decision making.
Zander, Öllinger, & Volz (2016) work stirred my imagination. Initially, I was interested in intuition and had not considered insight. Encountering the two together alerted me to how I have consistently used the words and conception interchangeably with the belief that they all mean the same thing. The study raises the notion that the word may refer to related processes that are different, and thus the words’ meanings are different. The words cannot, therefore, be used interchangeably. The article has left me with the desire to explore both worlds further.
Reference
Zander, T., Öllinger, M., & Volz, K. G. (2016). Intuition and Insight: Two Processes That Build on Each Other or Fundamentally Differ? Front Psychol.; 7 (1395). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01395
