Mind wandering during creative incubation predicts increases in creative performance in a writing task.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience of Creativity

Background:

• Incubation periods, or breaks from creative problem-solving, are thought to enhance performance.
• Mind wandering during these breaks may be a key mechanism driving these improvements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how different types of incubation periods, manipulating mind wandering, affect creative writing.
• To differentiate between story-specific incubation effects and general cognitive benefits.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed a creative writing task before and after a 10-minute incubation period (0-back, 2-back, mindfulness, or control).
• Incubation tasks were designed to either promote or suppress mind wandering.
• Story creativity was assessed using human raters and semantic distance; mind wandering was measured via questionnaire.
• Participants either received the same or a new prompt after the incubation period.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in creative improvement were found across the different incubation tasks.
• Greater mind wandering during incubation correlated with increased creative improvement (semantic distance) for participants who received the same prompt.
• This benefit of mind wandering was specific and did not extend to other types of thought or to participants receiving a new prompt.

Conclusions:

• Mind wandering during incubation periods may specifically benefit creative tasks, particularly when the original problem is revisited.
• The findings suggest a potentially advantageous role for spontaneous thought during the incubation phase of creative problem-solving.