The interpretative function of thinking in insight problem solving

Language and thought share an interactional cognitive activity, addressed by an interpretative function. This interpretative effort reveals the assonance between the attribution of meaning to an utterance and the discovery of a solution via restructuring in insight problem solving. We suggest a view of integrated analytical thinking, which assumes that thinking processes information in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the tasks the subject has to solve, so that reasoning results in a stepwise, rule-based process or in a widespread activity of search where implicit parallel processes are also involved. We investigated the interrelationship between language and thought in insight problem solving, in both its positive and its negative effects (Macchi and Bagassi, 2012). It follows a more complex idea of rationality, less focussed on boundaries of conscious thinking, conditioned by the working memory capacity, and more centered on the ability to contextualize and afford creatively the complexity of reality, moving to a bounded-grounded form of rationality.