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Escaping mental fixation: incubation and inhibition in creative problem solving.
Rebecca H Koppel1, Benjamin C Storm
1a Department of Psychology , University of Illinois at Chicago , IL , USA.
Memory (Hove, England)
|April 24, 2013
Summary
Retrieval-induced forgetting aids problem-solving by inhibiting interference. Incubation periods reduce this need, lessening the link between forgetting and performance.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience of Memory
Background:
- Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is linked to inhibiting interference in memory.
- Greater RIF correlates with better performance on the Remote Associates Test (RAT), suggesting inhibition aids problem-solving.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if reducing fixation through incubation alters the relationship between RIF and problem-solving.
- To test the hypothesis that incubation lessens the reliance on inhibition for overcoming fixation.
Main Methods:
- Participants completed two 30-second RAT problem-solving trials.
- An incubation period was introduced between trials for a 'distributed' group, while a 'continuous' group had no break.
Main Results:
- In the continuous condition, RIF positively correlated with RAT performance throughout.
- In the distributed condition, RIF only correlated with initial performance, indicating incubation reduced fixation's impact.
Conclusions:
- Incubation periods decrease the necessity of inhibition by mitigating problem-solving fixation.
- The findings support the role of inhibition in overcoming interference and highlight incubation's effect on cognitive processes.
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