We’ve all experienced spending ages stuck on a problem, only to suddenly see the answer as if it were obvious all along. These moments of insight are incredibly satisfying — and research shows that they can nearly double our ability to retain information.
For some, the word brings to mind the legendary Norwegian pop hit “Take On Me”, which topped the charts in the mid-80s. For others, it’s more likely to evoke that moment of sudden clarity — when the solution to a stubborn problem or question becomes instantly, almost magically, clear.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as Archimedes running naked through the streets shouting “Eureka!” after cracking the mystery of buoyancy. No, we’re perfectly happy with a simple, but still satisfying, Aha! moment.
Now, we should point out that we’re not memory or brain scientists — we’re educators in business finance. But to us, it’s clear why our teaching methods are so effective. For over 30 years, we’ve built our training concepts around creating those Aha! moments — not because the research told us to, but because we know from experience that’s how real learning happens.
One example is starting with something simple — something everyone already knows — and using that as a launchpad to spark interest in the next step. Once that step becomes clear and connects to something familiar, it naturally raises new questions that lead to the next step, and so on.
Learning through solving problems or working through questions is a natural breeding ground for Aha! moments. But if there’s no compelling question or challenge, there’s no “coin-drop moment” when it all clicks.
We often meet people who reference a training they attended 20 years ago — and still vividly remember large parts of it. Now they want to bring that same Aha! experience to their own employees or teams. Of course, even our content isn’t immune to the passage of time — some of the finer details may have faded over the years. But the Aha! moments? Those stick.
An interesting detail from the research* we’ve drawn on for this article is how scientists used images and puzzles to study what happens in the brain when people experience an Aha! moment. The idea behind the puzzles was simple: participants looked at black-and-white, high-contrast photos and tried to figure out what they were looking at.
These images allowed researchers to observe how brain activity shifted as people moved from confusion to clarity — from searching for meaning to that moment when everything suddenly made sense: Aha!
Now you might reasonably ask: What does this have to do with learning business finance? To answer that, we turn to another cognitive scientist, Peter Gärdenfors, who explained why our visual method — The Visual Language of Finance — is so powerful.
He points out that the brain isn’t a passive receiver of sensory input. Instead, it actively seeks patterns and makes sense of the world through constant interpretation. This ongoing process is the foundation of all understanding.
As educators, we especially love that phrase — “the foundation of all understanding”. Once again, it gives us an academic explanation for why what we do has such a positive and lasting effect.
* Study published in the journal Nature Communications by Maxi Becker, Tobias Sommer & Roberto Cabeza
** Peter Gärdenfors, Professor of Cognitive Science at Lund University
If you’d like to learn more about how we integrate these scientific findings into our teaching methods, we recommend following the link below:
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