Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Creative breakthroughs are typically described as sudden mental events, the "Aha!" moment.. Yet this formulation may fundamentally mischaracterize the process. Rather than solutions being discovered in the mind then implemented in the world, they may emerge through engagement with manipulable objects. We report an experiment comparing interactive and non-interactive conditions across two insight problems (Triangle of Coins, 10 Circles). Survival analyses confirmed that interactivity enhanced solution rates and reduced latencies for both problems. More critically, frame-by-frame multimodal coding of the video data (via ELAN) revealed the temporal coordination between speech, action, and evolving solution prototypes. Detailed analyses of two solution episodes demonstrate how restructuring can occur in the physical configuration of the problem rather than in the mind. These cases illustrate "outsight": solutions recognized after being enacted. By making the solution process visible, multimodal behavioural coding produces qualitative data that challenge cognitivist assumptions about how creative breakthroughs happen.