Divergent Thinking Tasks Research Articles

Creative or not? Hierarchical diffusion modeling of the creative evaluation process.

When producing creative ideas (i.e., ideas that are original and useful) two main processes occur: ideation, where people brainstorm ideas, and evaluation, where they decide if the ideas are creative or not. While much is known about the ideation phase, the cognitive processes involved in creativity evaluation are less clear. In this article, we present a novel modeling approach for the evaluation phase of creativity. We apply the drift diffusion model (DDM) to the Creative-or-Not task (CON-task) to study the cognitive basis of evaluation and to examine individual differences in the extent to which people take originality and utility into account when evaluating creative ideas. The CON-task is a timed decision-making task where participants indicate whether they find uses for certain objects creative or not (e.g., using a book as a buoy). The different uses vary on the two creativity dimensions "originality" and "utility." In two studies (n = 293, 17,806 trials; n = 152, 9,291 trials), we found that stimulus originality was strongly related to participants' drift rates but found only weak evidence for an association between stimulus utility and the drift rate. However, participants differed substantially in the effects of originality and utility. Furthermore, the implicit weights assigned to originality and utility on the CON-task were associated with self-reported importance ratings of originality and utility and with divergent thinking performance in the Alternative Uses task (AUT). This research provides a cognitive modeling approach to creativity evaluation and underlines the importance of communicating rating criteria in divergent thinking tasks to ensure a fair assessment of creative ability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Age-related changes in creative thinking during late childhood: The contribution of cooperative learning

Creative thinking has been considered a human skill that is necessary for facing challenging situations that require adaptive solutions. From an educational perspective, creative thinking plays an important role in learning processes and is an issue of central importance within classroom methodology. In this regard, Cooperative learning (CL) has been studied as a methodology that enhances creative processes. CL methodology refers to teaching procedures based on organizing the class into small mixed-abilities groups where students work cooperatively to complete academic tasks and consolidate their learning. However, the impact of CL on creative thinking seems to have been insufficiently explored in late childhood, which is known as a transitory stage between childhood and adolescence. Using two tests (at 5th and 6th grades of Primary School), we examined the trajectory of creative thinking in fifty-three students from two different schools. Students were assessed by a divergent thinking task (CREA Test; Corbalán et al., 2015) at two time points: Test-1 (T1), with a mean age of 9.81 years (Sd= 0.48), and Test-2 (T2), with a mean age of 11.35 years (Sd= 0.52). Given the differences in methodology delivered in each school (Cooperative and individualistic learning), we also analyzed the effects of this variable on student creative thinking performance. We found significant improvements between testing in the two schools, although CL appeared to have a more positive effect than IL on creative thinking performance. Our finding highlights the importance of studying classroom methodology as a mediating factor in creative thinking development, which could be important in the learning processes as well as the integral development of the child.

Sensorimotor cortex activity during basketball dribbling and its relation to creativity.

Previous studies suggest that it is possible to influence creative performance, by increasing the level of activity in one of the brains hemispheres through unilateral hand movements. Stronger right-hemispheric brain activation due to left-hand movement is assumed to promote creative performance. In this study the aim was to replicate these effects and to expand previous findings, by incorporating a more advanced motor task. 43 right-handed participants were asked to dribble a basketball with the right (n = 22) or left hand (n = 21), respectively. During dribbling the brain activity was monitored over the sensorimotor cortex bilaterally using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). By investigating two groups (left-hand dribbling vs. right-hand dribbling) and by conducting a pre-/posttest design for measuring creative performance (verbal as well as figural divergent thinking tasks), effects of both left- and right-hemispheric activation on creative performance were examined. The results show that creative performance could not be modulated through basketball dribbling. Yet the analysis of the brain activation patterns in the sensorimotor cortex during dribbling revealed findings that largely correspond to the results on hemispherical activation differences during complex motor tasks. Higher cortical activation in the left hemisphere, relative to the right hemisphere, during right-hand dribbling, as well as higher bilateral cortical activation during left-hand dribbling, compared to right-hand dribbling was observed. The results of a linear discriminant analysis further revealed that high group classification accuracy could be achieved using sensorimotor activity data. While we were not able to replicate effects of unilateral hand movements on creative performance, our results reveal new insights into the functioning of sensorimotor brain regions during advanced movement.

Don't throw the “bad” ideas away! Multidimensional top scoring increases reliability of divergent thinking tasks.

Don't throw the “bad” ideas away! Multidimensional top scoring increases reliability of divergent thinking tasks.

Mapping the neural mechanisms of creativity by convergent and divergent thinking in school-aged children: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Creativity is essential to children's learning, career development and well-being. Divergent and convergent thinking are the central components of creativity, which is a compound high-order cognitive ability. However, most existing behavioral and neuroimaging studies have only tested the characteristics of a single component of creativity. The neurological mechanism of creativity from the construct of divergent and convergent thinking needs to be explored by a more comprehensive approach.In this functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study, we investigated neural activity in 69 school-aged children while they worked on creative tasks involving divergent and convergent thinking. Their divergent and convergent thinking abilities were evaluated using the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and Remote Association Task (RAT), respectively.When working with a divergent thinking task, we found that neural activation was higher in the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) than when working with a convergent thinking task. In addition, a significant positive correlation was found between HbO activation in the MFG and performance on the divergent thinking task, while a significant positive correlation was found between HbO activation in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and performance on the convergent thinking task.These results suggest different neural mechanisms of the two main components of creativity. Divergent thinking may be modulated more by top-down executive control networks during the idea generation stage. In contrast, convergent thinking may be modulated more by integrating semantic information into coherent representations during the idea selection stage. Our study contributes toward the theoretical integration of the complex structure of creativity. We also provide neural evidence showing that divergent and convergent thinking may be modulated by idea generation and the selection process of creative thinking.

Is running a state of mind? Sports training as a potential method for developing cognitive flexibility

The study aimed to test the significance of sports participation as a potential means of improving cognitive function, particularly cognitive flexibility. Based on the characteristics of orienteering, such as frequent changes of behavioural strategies in response to changes in the situation or the simultaneous performance of several mental activities, we assumed that practising this sport could foster the development of cognitive flexibility. Two groups of volunteers were compared: 50 middle and long-distance runners and 50 orienteering runners in terms of their performance on the following measures of cognitive flexibility: a divergent thinking task, a computer flexibility task, Cognitive Flexibility Scale, and Verbal Fluency Test as a measure of executive function. Orienteering runners outperformed others on all measures except the Cognitive Flexibility Scale. Furthermore, we found that training characteristics (regularity, frequency, participation in competitions) were associated with levels of cognitive flexibility, particularly among orienteering runners, where they explained between 38% and 39% of the overall flexibility variance. Our results suggest that cognitive flexibility can be developed through sports training requiring effective dealing in a changing, complex environment. We also discuss the implications of our results for cognitive training research.

Influence of Analytic Processing on Divergent and Convergent Thinking Tasks: The Role of Rational and Experiential Thinking Styles

Scientific interest in the relationship between analytic processing and creativity has increased in recent years. However, there is conflicting evidence on whether analytic processing reduces or enhances creativity. We hypothesize that differences in creativity measurement paradigms (divergent or convergent thinking tasks) and the research orientation of analytic processing (dispositional or situational) may explain the conflicting findings. The present study aims to investigate how priming analytic processing affects individuals' performance on divergent and convergent thinking tasks and the moderating role of thinking styles. In Study 1 (N = 155), participants were assigned to either an analytic processing group or a control group and performed convergent thinking (Remote Associates Task) and divergent thinking (Alternative Uses Test) tasks after priming. In Study 2 (N = 119), we conducted a priming paradigm of analytic processing that differed from Study 1, and a personal experiential-rational thinking style was introduced as a moderator. Results showed that priming analytic processing promoted convergent thinking performance but decreased fluency and flexibility scores on the divergent thinking task (Study 1). Notably, the effect of priming analytic processing on divergent thinking performance was significant only for participants with higher levels of rational thinking style (Study 2). These results suggest that thinking styles and dimensions of creativity should be considered in the relationship between analytic processing and creativity.

The impact of language-induced cultural mindset on originality in idea generation.

Creativity is vital in the contemporary business world. Drawing on the culture-as-situated-cognition theory, we investigate how language affects divergent thinking. We study multicultural bilinguals (Arabs in Israel) whose two languages reflect contrasting cultural mindsets: individualism (Hebrew) versus collectivism (Arabic). Theoretically, individualism is associated with novel thinking as it encourages autonomy of thought and action, whereas collectivism encourages compliance to social norms. We investigate the impact of language as a factor that may affect performance in divergent thinking tasks through its associated cultural mindset, distinguishing this from the effects of the speaker's proficiency in the language. We expected that individualism induced by language (in this case, Hebrew) would promote greater originality in tasks demanding high, but not moderate, levels of ingenuity. Study 1 (N = 163) induced competing cultural mindsets using two cultural primes-language and task instructions-in a divergent thinking task. As hypothesized, Hebrew was associated with greater originality (uniqueness of ideas) but not fluency (number of ideas); and this pattern is specific to language, not the cultural prime induced by task instructions. Study 2 (N = 137) confirmed that the effect is stronger in tasks calling for greater ingenuity. Implications for language management in organizations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluative Self-efficacy and its Potential Role in the Evaluation and Selection of Ideas: A Metacognitive Perspective

Abstract In two studies, we examined the creativity of ideas generated, as rated by judges, and metacognitive feelings as antecedents of evaluative self-efficacy and relevance of strengths and weaknesses of the idea generated and accurate idea selection as consequences within the creative process. Participants in both studies completed a measure of metacognitive feelings, evaluative self-efficacy, and a divergent thinking task. In addition, participants rated their ideas and either identified strengths and weaknesses or selected their most creative idea. Two independent judges evaluated all ideas and either assessed the relevance of the strengths and weaknesses identified by participants or selected the most creative idea. Results showed a positive relationship between judges-evaluations and evaluative self-efficacy in one study and a positive relationship between metacognitive feelings and evaluative self-efficacy in both studies. Regarding consequences, results showed a positive relationship between evaluative self-efficacy and the relevance of strengths and weaknesses and a non-significant relationship between evaluative self-efficacy and accurate idea selection. The implications of our results for metacognition and creative beliefs were explained.

The Influence of Parental Autonomy Support on Creative Self-concept in the Context of Business Education

Abstract The amount of attention given to creative beliefs has increased in recent years. We wanted to answer a call for more research on the antecedents of creative self-concept, assessing the influence of parental autonomy support in the context of business education. Participants were 272 college students from Mexico who completed a battery of questionnaires assessing parental autonomy support, creative self-concept, self-reported ideation, and a divergent thinking task. Results showed a positive relationship between business-specific parental autonomy support and creative self-concept. In addition, creative self-concept had positive relationships with self-reported creative ideation and creative potential in the form of an originality index. Our results suggested that parental support was important to help students have confidence and the motivation to value the process of generating novel and useful business ideas. The implications of the results were discussed.

The Contribution of Openness and Intellect to the Examination of the Idea Generation and Selection Processes: An Exploration with Business Students

ABSTRACT The purpose of this investigation was to examine the contribution of two aspects, Openness and Intellect, of the broad personality factor of Openness to Experience to the explanation of idea generation and selection processes among business students. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires measuring Openness, Intellect, and creative self-efficacy. In addition, participants completed a divergent thinking task designed to help a company generate ideas to solve a business problem. Two indicators of creative potential, idea generation, and two indicators of intrapersonal idea evaluation and selection were used as our dependent variables. Results showed a positive influence of creative self-efficacy and Intellect on originality scores. Intellect had a positive relationship with the ratings of the best idea selected and evaluated by two independent judges. Regarding proxies of idea selection, whereas creative self-efficacy had positive relationship with an indicator reflecting the degree of overestimation or underestimation of the quality of participants’ ideas, Openness had a negative relationship. Hence, whereas creative self-efficacy was related to overestimating, Openness was related to underestimating the quality of participants’ ideas. Results showed the importance of separating Openness and Intellect given that they have differential relationships with the idea generation and selection processes.

Does cognitive load affect creativity? An experiment using a divergent thinking task

A major challenge for organizations in the modern economy is understanding how to stimulate creativity among their work force, and emerging research continues to emphasize that creativity is subject to myriad factors related to work structure and work environment. The results from a laboratory experiment using a divergent thinking task show that cognitive load induced by a number memorization task significantly reduces the quantity and variety of creative ideas. Results highlight the importance of work-related stressors and the division of labor when it comes to cultivating creativity.

The Short Inventory of Creative Activities (S-ICA): Compiling a Short Scale Using Ant Colony Optimization

ABSTRACT Creativity can be measured with a variety of methods including self-reports, others reports, and ability tests. While typical self-reports are best understood as weak proxies of creativity, biographical reports that assess previous creative activities seem more promising. Drawbacks of such measures – including skewed item distributions, a lack of measurement invariance across sex, and low convergent validity with established measures of creativity (such as divergent thinking tasks) – might be attributable to issues of item sampling. Therefore, we use a meta-heuristic algorithm (Ant Colony Optimization) to develop a short-scale of creative activities that a) maintains coverage of the original domains, b) provides good model fit, c) has good reliability, d) demonstrates balanced item difficulty, e) is measurement invariant across sex, and f) possesses convergent validity with divergent thinking. For an 8-item short version of the original Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements, we identified an item set that satisfies the most pre-specified criteria using data from N = 296 adults. In a replication sample (N = 327) we replicate the findings and report good model fit, good reliability, adequate item difficulty, and measurement invariance across sex. We derive recommendations on the measurement of creative activities, and discuss implications for understanding creativity in general.

Immersive and maladaptive daydreaming and divergent thinking in autism spectrum disorders.

Little is known about the internal mental experiences of individuals with ASD. While some research suggests a limited capacity for imagination, other studies show heightened interest in fantasy and unique forms of creative thinking in ASD. This study explored daydreaming experiences in adults with ASD, with a focus on immersive daydreaming and its relation to divergent thinking abilities. Individuals with and without a diagnosis of ASD were surveyed on their daydreaming habits and completed a divergent thinking task. Experiences of immersive daydreaming were identified in 42% of adults with ASD and were related to broad ASD traits in those without a diagnosis of ASD. However, ASD diagnosis was unrelated to originality of divergent thinking, which was negatively associated with immersive daydreaming. Moreover, daydreaming experiences in ASD were diverse. A more nuanced understanding of the mental experiences in ASD may assist in the development of interventions and support for this population.

What inspires us? An experimental analysis of the semantic meaning of irrelevant information in creative ideation

Past research showed that apparently irrelevant information for a creative task at hand can lead to higher creative performance, especially in open-minded individuals. Through two diverse experimental procedures, the present work investigated which type of irrelevance information can inspire (i.e., increase) the creative performance during a divergent thinking (DT) task and how open-minded individuals can be inspired by this kind of information. In Experiment 1, the attentional processing of information that was either apparently relevant or irrelevant for the execution of a verbal DT task was assessed by means of an eye-tracking methodology. In Experiment 2, creative performance was explored through a verbal priming paradigm, which forcedly introduced apparently irrelevant information during the DT task. In both experiments, the level of irrelevance was operationalized in terms of semantic distance between the different kind of information. Results from both experiments highlighted the role of the semantic meaning of the irrelevant information as one of the main determinants, along with Openness, of inspiration (i.e., enhancement) of the creative performance.

Measuring child-level originality through the strategic use of incubation periods during divergent thinking assessment

Divergent thinking, which can be described as the ability to conceive of and express a variety of novel solutions to open-ended problems (Gibson et al., 2009), is one of the most commonly studied constructs related to creative thinking. There is considerable evidence that divergent thinking is predictive of later creative behavior and achievement. However, current methods depend heavily on social comparison as a means for operationalizing children's divergent thinking outcomes, which may diminish the ability to detect key indicators of creative potential, such as child-level originality. The current study introduces a child-level, “personal-originality” approach to scoring children's performance in common divergent thinking tasks. While originality is often assessed in terms of statistical rarity or subjective ratings, personal-originality scoring captures divergent thinking at the child level through the strategic use of incubation periods. That is, children demonstrate personal originality by producing new ideas after time away from the task. The current study explored the effects of a 2 min incubation period on 42 three- to six-year-olds’ divergent thinking performance. Results indicate children do, indeed, produce original ideas after time off-task. Moreover, the personal-originality outcome measure introduced in the present study demonstrated strong evidence of convergent validity.

Creative flexibility and creative persistence: Evaluating the effects of instructed vs autonomous choices to shift vs. dwell on divergent and convergent thinking

To creatively solve complex problems both flexibility and persistence are needed. Recent studies have suggested that creativity is improved by instructing participants to switch more frequently between two task items. However, “switch costs” are a well-documented phenomenon. To assess how creative performance is affected by prompts that promote flexibility (shifting) versus persistence (dwelling), participants were assigned to one of three conditions: asked-to-stay, free-to-choose, or required regular-switch. The results from two different divergent-thinking tasks showed that the required regular shifting condition did not achieve higher originality than did the free-to-choose condition. Participants’ retrospective metacognition reports also showed positive experiential effects of being free to choose, highlighting the importance of autonomy in effort-allocation decisions. Collectively with previous studies on task-scheduling and creativity, dynamic creativity relies not only on transitions that yield new perceptual/conceptual input, but also on phases of dwelling or persistence that allow the emergence of still-forming, novel incipient ideas.

Examining associations between social anhedonia and convergent thinking using the Remote Associates Test

ABSTRACT Introduction: Social anhedonia (SocAnh) predicts increased risk of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, with evidence that these disorders are associated with increased creativity. However, it is still largely unknown whether SocAnh is associated with one central aspect of creative thinking, convergent thinking. Methods: In two studies, college students with either extreme levels of SocAnh (n = 44 and n = 70) or controls with an average level of SocAnh (n = 111 and n = 100) completed a convergent thinking task, the Remote Associates Test, and also completed measures of current affect. In the second study, participants also completed a divergent thinking task. Results: In both studies, the SocAnh group had better performance than controls on the convergent thinking task. Further, this group difference remained after removing shared variance with current affect. In Study 2, groups did not differ on divergent thinking. Conclusions: Overall, consistent with research linking schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and creativity, the current research suggests that SocAnh is associated with increases in some aspects of creativity.

Does Word Frequency Impact Ideational Fluency in Divergent Thinking? A Meta-analytic Exploration with the Alternate Uses Test

The Alternate Uses Test (AUT) is one of the most popular divergent thinking tasks and commonly used to measure creativity. Researchers using AUT often pick an everyday object and instruct participants to think of possible uses for it. Yet, the word frequency of the selected objects may impact the outcomes. The present study investigates the variation in the fluency scores from AUT in terms of word frequency values of the selected everyday object. We expected a positive relationship between the word frequency metrics and the fluency scores when other potential factors are controlled such as time-on-task, explicit instructions, the form of task administration and a number of various psycholinguistic characteristics. The mean effect (average fluency score) is 9.08, 95% [7.54, 10.61] from 114 effects from 31 studies. There was a significant interaction effect of Time-on-Task and Word Frequency (b = -.01, t (3.05) = -3.51, p = .038). These findings indicate that word frequency is correlated with fluency scores under strict time conditions, and this effect seems to disappear with lenient time conditions. The results are discussed based on the recommended assessment practices in the literature.

Intentionality of Self-Generated Thought: Contributions of Mind Wandering to Creativity

ABSTRACT Studies suggest that internally oriented cognitive processes are central to creativity. Here, we distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of mind wandering and explore their behavioral and neural correlates. We used a sample of 155 healthy adults from the mind-brain-body dataset, all of whom completed resting-state fMRI scans and trait-level measures of mind wandering. We analyzed intentional and unintentional mind wandering tendencies using self-report measures. Next, we explored the relationship between mind wandering tendencies and creativity, as measured by a divergent thinking task. Finally, we describe patterns of resting-state network connectivity associated with mind wandering, using graph theory analysis. At the behavioral level, results showed a significant positive association between creativity and both intentional and unintentional mind wandering. Neuroimaging analysis revealed higher weighted degree connectivity associated with both forms of mind wandering, implicating core regions of the default network and the left temporal pole. We observed topological connectivity differences within the default network: intentional mind wandering was associated with degree connectivity in posterior regions, whereas unintentional mind wandering showed greater involvement of prefrontal areas. Overall, the findings highlight patterns of resting-state network connectivity associated with intentional and unintentional mind wandering, and provide novel evidence of a link between mind wandering and creativity.