Suddenly the answer comes to you when you’re not thinking about it. How does that work? It turns out, according to an article by Stephen Battersby in New Scientist, that this process is in fact indicative of how the mind solves all problems:
“Most of our mental machinations take place pre-consciously, with the results dropping into our conscious minds only after they have been decided elsewhere in the brain. Intuition plays a big role in solving a crossword, [psychologist Raymond] Nickerson observes. Indeed, sometimes your pre-conscious mind may be so quick that it produces the goods instantly. At other times, you might need to take a more methodical approach and consider possible solutions one by one, perhaps listing synonyms of a word in the clue. Even if your list doesn’t seem to make much sense, it might reflect the way your pre-conscious mind is homing in on the solution.”
Interestingly enough, this all also strongly relates to how the mind recognizes faces. Read How crossword puzzles mess with your mind.
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