NY Times: "Tracing the Spark of Creative Problem-Solving")

Thaliamuse of comedy, gazing upon a comic mask (detail from Muses’ Sarcophagus)
 

‎”Those with positive moods, turn out to be more likely to solve the puzzles with sudden insight than with trial and error.”

“…students solved word-association puzzles after watching a short video of a stand-up routine by Robin Williams. The students solved more of the puzzles over all, and significantly more by sudden insight, compared with when they’d seen a scary or boring video beforehand.”



“found that the visual areas in people in positive moods picked up more background detail, even when they were instructed to block out distracting information during a computer task.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/science/07brain.html