Differential influence of asynchrony in early and late chronotypes on convergent thinking

Abstract

Eveningness preference (late chronotype) was previously associated with different personality dimensions and thinking styles that were linked to creativity, suggesting that evening-type individuals tend to be more creative than the morning-types. Nevertheless, empirical data on the association between chronotype and creative performance is scarce and inconclusive. Moreover, cognitive processes related to creative thinking are influenced by other factors such as sleep and the time of testing. Therefore, our aim was to examine convergent and divergent thinking abilities in late and early chronotypes, taking into consideration the influence of asynchrony (optimal versus nonoptimal testing times) and sleep quality. We analyzed the data of 36 evening-type and 36 morning-type young, healthy adults who completed the Compound Remote Associates (CRAs) as a convergent and the Just suppose subtest of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as a divergent thinking task within a time interval that did (n = 32) or did not (n = 40) overlap with their individually defined peak times. Chronotype was not directly associated with creative performance, but in case of the convergent thinking task an interaction between chronotype and asynchrony emerged. Late chronotypes who completed the test at subjectively nonoptimal times showed better performance than late chronotypes tested during their "peak" and early chronotypes tested at their peak or off-peak times. Although insomniac symptoms predicted lower scores in the convergent thinking task, the interaction between chronotype and asynchrony was independent of the effects of sleep quality or the general testing time. Divergent thinking was not predicted by chronotype, asynchrony or their interaction. Our findings indicate that asynchrony might have a beneficial influence on convergent thinking, especially in late chronotypes.

Insomnia and intellect mask the positive link between schizotypal traits and creativity

“…In total, 182 Hungarian speaking participants completed the laboratory testing session and filled out all questionnaires online (mean (sd) of age = 22.2 (4.2); 58% female). A subset of this sample has been analysed in a previous paper ( Simor & Polner, 2017 ).…”

“…The ability of participants to solve problems using remote associations was probed with the Hungarian version of the Compound Remote Associate problems (CRA; Bowden & Jung-Beeman, 2003 ; Hungarian adaptation: Simor & Polner, 2017 ). In each trial of this task, participants are presented three words, and their task is to find a fourth word that can be combined with each of the presented words to create a valid compound word (e.g., AGE/MILE/SAND form the compounds STONEAGE, MILESTONE, and SANDSTONE with the solution word STONE’, ( Bowden & Jung-Beeman, 2003 p. 635).…”

Peer Review #3 of "Genetic influences on creativity: an exploration of convergent and divergent thinking (v0.2)"

“…These results remained after controlling for age and intelligence as 236 covariates, as shown in Table 6. ; moreover, the influence of chronotype and its 284 interaction with asynchrony on convergent thinking but not divergent thinking performances, 285 suggests potential different physiological bases (Simor & Polner, 2017). Therefore, our finding 286 could be viewed as complementary to previous studies, providing the first piece of evidence 287 toward distinct genetic mechanisms for the two creative thinking processes.…”

Influences of time of day on generalization

“…Although interference between memories can be deleterious for their veridical preservation, this lower inhibitory state may be beneficial for connecting memories to uncover shared structure. Indeed, aspects of cognition that rely on noticing connections between otherwise distinct events, such as insight problem-solving in the Remote Associates Test, which involves seeking a word that connects three seemingly unrelated words, show improvements at off-peak times of day (Simor & Polner, 2017;Wieth & Zacks, 2011). Consistent with theories arguing that reduced cognitive control can be adaptive (Amer et al, 2016;Thompson-Schill et al, 2009), generalization may be another instance where low inhibition is an asset (Kumaran & McClelland, 2012).…”