Du Qiuyu, Gordon Rebecca, Tolmie Andrew
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, University College London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK.
Brain Sci. 2025 Jun 1;15(6):595. doi: 10.3390/brainsci15060595.
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.
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 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.
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.
背景/目的：虽然走神常常与负面结果相关联，但一些研究表明，它对创造力有潜在的益处，特别是通过酝酿过程。然而，仍存在两个关键差距：对走神对创造性表现的影响了解有限，以及缺乏比较研究来考察其对发散性思维和聚合性思维的影响。本研究通过比较两种类型的走神（即有意识和无意识）对这两种创造性思维的影响，利用酝酿后的重复性和新颖性问题来分离其影响，从而填补了这些差距。
85名参与者完成了发散性思维任务（不寻常用途任务，UUT）和聚合性思维任务（复合远距离联想任务，CRA），并穿插进行了0-back酝酿任务。思维探测测量了走神频率和意识。根据流畅性和独创性（UUT）以及准确性（CRA）对表现进行评估，问题按难度分类。
结果显示，走神对发散性思维没有显著影响，不过酝酿提高了流畅性，特别是对于重复性项目。对于聚合性思维，有意识的走神提高了低难度重复性项目的表现，而无意识的走神则阻碍了新颖的中等难度项目。发散性思维和聚合性思维的表现没有相关性，表明存在不同的认知需求。
研究结果提供了证据，表明走神对创造力的影响是有限的且依赖于情境，酝酿过程中的有意识反思比无控制的游离更有益。任务需求和难度水平的差异进一步调节了这些影响。未来的研究应探索自然主义环境，并使用不与核心任务争夺认知资源的酝酿任务，以更好地理解酝酿和走神在创造力中的作用。
