Abstract: In the present study, the event-related potential (ERP) was used to investigate the neural correlates of insight in problem solving. According to the responses of the subjects in the riddle guessing task, the answer was classified as “Insight” or “Non-insight”. The ERP waves under two conditions were obtained after the ERP elicited by the two types of answers were overlapped and averaged respectively. The difference wave was obtained through subtracting the averaged ERP of the Non-insight answer from the Averaged ERP of the Insight answer. Insight answers elicited a more negative ERP deflection than Non-insight answers in the time window from 250 to 500 ms after onset of the answer. The ERP difference wave (Insight minus Non-Insight) showed the peak latency of the component at about 380 ms (N380). Voltage and current density maps of the difference wave showed strong activity and current density in the fronto-central region. Dipole analysis localized the generator of the N380 in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Therefore, N380 might reflect the breaking of mental set in insight problem solving.

Key words: event-related potential, N380, guessing riddle task, dipole source localization, anterior cingulate cortex