It is a compelling idea that an image as simple as a Necker cube, or a duck-rabbit illusion, can reveal something about a person's creativity. Surprisingly, there are now multiple examples showing that people who are better at discovering 'hidden' images in a picture, are also better at solving some creative problems. Although this idea goes back at least a century, little is known about how these two tasks-that seem so different on the surface-are related to each other. At least some forms of creativity (and indeed scientific discoveries) may require that we change our perspectives in order to discover a novel solution to a problem. It's possible that such problems involve a similar cognitive process, and perhaps the same cognitive capacities, as switching perspectives in an ambiguous image. We begin by replicating previous work, and also show metacognitive similarities between the sudden appearance of hidden images in consciousness, and the sudden appearance of solutions to verbal insight problems. We then show that simply observing a Necker cube can improve subsequent creative problem-solving and lead to more self-reported insights. We speculate that these results may in part be explained by Conflict Monitoring Theory.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 April 2026.
All research outputs
#2,324,316
of 33,924,920 outputs
Outputs from Consciousness & Cognition
#298
of 1,872 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#35,314
of 459,229 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Consciousness & Cognition
#8
of 33 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,924,920 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,872 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 21.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 459,229 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
