SAFETYLIT WEEKLY UPDATE

We compile citations and summaries of about 400 new articles every week.
RSS Feed

HELP: Tutorials | FAQ
CONTACT US: Contact info

Search Results

Journal Article

Citation

Baird B, Smallwood J, Mrazek MD, Kam JW, Franklin MS, Schooler JW. Psychol. Sci. 2012; 23(10): 1117-1122.

Affiliation

1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797612446024

PMID

22941876

Abstract

Although anecdotes that creative thoughts often arise when one is engaged in an unrelated train of thought date back thousands of years, empirical research has not yet investigated this potentially critical source of inspiration. We used an incubation paradigm to assess whether performance on validated creativity problems (the Unusual Uses Task, or UUT) can be facilitated by engaging in either a demanding task or an undemanding task that maximizes mind wandering. Compared with engaging in a demanding task, rest, or no break, engaging in an undemanding task during an incubation period led to substantial improvements in performance on previously encountered problems. Critically, the context that improved performance after the incubation period was associated with higher levels of mind wandering but not with a greater number of explicitly directed thoughts about the UUT. These data suggest that engaging in simple external tasks that allow the mind to wander may facilitate creative problem solving.


Language: en

NEW SEARCH


All SafetyLit records are available for automatic download to Zotero & Mendeley
Print