The Role of Mind Wandering During Incubation in Divergent and Convergent Creative Thinking

TL;DR

This study explores how mind wandering during incubation affects creative thinking, finding that its impact is limited and depends on task type and awareness.

Contribution

The study compares effects of two types of mind wandering on divergent and convergent creative thinking, revealing context-dependent outcomes.

Findings

Mind wandering with awareness improved low-difficulty convergent thinking performance.

Mind wandering without awareness hindered moderate-difficulty novel convergent problems.

Divergent and convergent thinking showed no correlation in performance.

Abstract

Background/Objectives. While mind wandering has often been linked to negative outcomes, some research suggests it has potential benefits for creativity, particularly through incubation. However, two critical gaps remain: limited understanding of mind wandering’s effects on creative performance and lack of comparative research examining its impact on both divergent and convergent thinking. The study addressed these gaps by comparing the effects of two types of mind wandering (i.e., with and without awareness) on both types of creative thinking, using repeated and novel problems post-incubation to isolate effects. Methods. Eighty-five participants completed divergent (Unusual Uses Task, UUT) and convergent (Compound Remote Associate Task, CRA) thinking tasks, interspersed with a 0-back incubation task. Thought probes measured mind wandering frequency and awareness. Performance was assessed for fluency and originality (UUT) and accuracy (CRA), with problems categorised by difficulty. Results. Results revealed no significant effects of mind wandering on divergent thinking, though incubation improved fluency, particularly for repeated items. For convergent thinking, mind wandering with awareness enhanced performance on low-difficulty repeated items, while mind wandering without awareness hindered novel moderate-difficulty items. Divergent and convergent performance showed no correlation, suggesting distinct cognitive demands. Conclusions. The findings provide evidence that mind wandering’s impact on creativity is limited and context-dependent, with conscious reflection during incubation more beneficial than uncontrolled drifting. Differences in task demands and difficulty levels further modulate these effects. Future research should explore naturalistic settings and use of incubation tasks that do not compete for cognitive resources with the core task to better understand incubation and mind wandering’s roles in creativity.