The role of (dis)inhibition in creativity: Decreased inhibition improves idea generation

Radel, Rémi; Davranche, Karen; Fournier, Marion; Dietrich, Arne

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2014.09.001

Cited by 183 publications

(177 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In contrast to the assumption that reduced inhibitory control may foster remote associations and stimulate creativity (Radel et al., ), we have reported numerous evidence in the literature that the ability to resist (inhibit) intuitive‐heuristic reasoning leading to fixation is critical to generate creative solutions to problems at all ages by allowing one to adopt other types of reasoning (e.g., analogical thinking and conceptual expansion) belonging to System 2.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 62%

Inhibitory Control as a Core Process of Creative Problem Solving and Idea Generation from Childhood to Adulthood

Cassotti

Agogué

Camarda

et al. 2016

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

115

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Developmental cognitive neuroscience studies tend to show that the prefrontal brain regions (known to be involved in inhibitory control) are activated during the generation of creative ideas. In the present article, we discuss how a dual-process model of creativity-much like the ones proposed to account for decision making and reasoning-could broaden our understanding of the processes involved in creative ideas generation. When generating creative ideas, children, adolescents, and adults tend to follow "the path of least resistance" and propose solutions that are built on the most common and accessible knowledge within a specific domain, leading to fixation effect. In line with recent theory of typical cognitive development, we argue that the ability to resist the spontaneous activation of design heuristics, to privilege other types of reasoning, might be critical to generate creative ideas at all ages. In the present review, we demonstrate that inhibitory control at all ages can actually support creativity. Indeed, the ability to think of something truly new and original requires first inhibiting spontaneous solutions that come to mind quickly and unconsciously and then exploring new ideas using a generative type of reasoning.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 62%

Inhibitory Control as a Core Process of Creative Problem Solving and Idea Generation from Childhood to Adulthood

Cassotti

Agogué

Camarda

et al. 2016

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For example, Goel, Eimontaite, Goel, and Schindler (2015) recently argued that insight problems (such as the RAT) are a subset of well-structured problems, while divergent problem solving tasks (such as the alternative uses and invention tasks) are a subset of ill-structured problems. Our results also echo a number of recent studies that have demonstrated the psychological separability of divergent and convergent problem solving processes (Chermahini & Hommel, 2010;Colzato et al, 2012;Hommel, Colzato, Fischer, & Christoffels, 2011;Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014;Radel et al, 2015). We join these more nuanced arguments to call for more careful analyses of the components of creative performance (e.g., separating divergent vs. convergent processes) in future research on creativity.…”

Section: Situative Creativity 35supporting

confidence: 61%

“…While the RAT is most commonly used as a measure of creativity (e.g., Wiley, 1998), and several prior studies have examined the role of divergent processes in RAT performance (Aiello et al, 2012;Haarmann et al, 2012), we reasoned that it also heavily taps convergent processes since the final output is a single answer that is compared to a predetermined correct answer. We are not the first to treat the RAT in this way: Other recent studies have also studied the RAT as primarily a convergent task in contrast to the alternate uses task (treated as primarily measuring divergent processes), and found both dissociable effects on these tasks from their manipulations and a lack of correlation between performance on these tasks (Colzato, Ozturk, & Hommel, 2012;Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014;Radel, Davranche, Fournier, & Dietrich, 2015). We gave participants 32 items, of varying difficulty, drawn from Mednick and Mednick (1967) and Bowers et al (1990), chosen to reflect a range of difficulty levels.…”

Section: J Chan and T J Nokes-malachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Situative Creativity: Larger Physical Spaces Facilitate Thinking of Novel Uses for Everyday Objects

Chan¹,

Nokes‐Malach²

2016

The Journal of Problem Solving

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People often use spatial metaphors (e.g., think "laterally, " "outside the box") to describe exploration of the problem space during creative problem solving. In this paper, we probe the potential cognitive underpinnings of these spatial metaphors. Drawing on theories of situative cognition, semantic foraging theory, and environmental psychology, we formulate and test the hypothesis that larger physical spaces can facilitate divergent (but not convergent) processes in problem space exploration. Across two experiments, participants worked on a battery of problem solving tasks intended to represent divergent (alternative uses, shape invention) and convergent (remote associates, letter extrapolation) problem solving processes in either a large or a small room. In Experiment 1, participants in the larger room produced more novel alternative uses for everyday objects, and created more novel shape inventions, but generated less practical alternative uses, than participants in the smaller room. In Experiment 2, participants in the larger room (including a variant larger room) also produced more novel alternative uses for everyday objects, and less practical alternative uses, than participants in a small room, but did not create more novel shape inventions. These results suggest that spatial metaphors for problem space exploration may reflect meaningful cognitive phenomena: People may be able to search more broadly in a problem space if they are in an environment where broad physical search is a salient affordance; however, this effect appears to be relatively small and may depend on having sufficiently motivated participants. Correspondence:Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joel Chan at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2504B Newell-Simon Hall, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, via email to joelchuc@cs.cmu.edu, or via telephone to (479) 647-0575. Keywords:situative cognition, creative problem solving, metaphor Acknowledgments:We thank Chris Wiltrout, Emily Schmidt, Courtney Stein, and Jeremy Addison for help with data collection and coding, and Efosa Osazuwa and Tina Liu for help with data coding. We also thank the editor and our two anonymous referees for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

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“…Similarly, another study showed that a decrease in cortical excitability of the lateral frontal cortex, induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation, improved performance on a divergent creativity task (Chrysikou et al 2013). Another recent study showed that exposure to high inhibition demands led to enhanced fluency in a divergent thinking task, but no such changes occurred in a convergent thinking task (Radel et al 2015). These findings suggest that when resources for inhibition were lacking, the frequency and the originality of ideas was facilitated.…”

Section: Implications For the Disinhibitory Notion Of Divergent Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 94%

Creativity Is Enhanced by Long-Term Mindfulness Training and Is Negatively Correlated with Trait Default-Mode-Related Low-Gamma Inter-Hemispheric Connectivity

et al. 2016

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It is becoming increasingly accepted that creative performance, especially divergent thinking, may depend on reduced activity within the default mode network (DMN), related to mind-wandering and autobiographic selfreferential processing. However, the relationship between trait (resting-state) DMN activity and divergent thinking is controversial. Here, we test the relationship between resting-state DMN activity and divergent thinking in a group of mindfulness meditation practitioners. We build on our two previous reports, which have shown DMN activity to be related to resting-state log gamma (25-45 Hz) power and interhemispheric functional connectivity. Using the same cohort of participants (three mindfulness groups with increasing expertise, and controls, n = 12 each), we tested (1) divergent thinking scores (Flexibility and Fluency) using the Alternative Uses task and (2) correlation between Alternative Uses scores and DMN activity as measured by resting-state gamma power and inter-hemispheric functional connectivity. We found that both Fluency and Flexibility (1) were higher in the two long-term mindfulness groups (>1000 h) compared to short-term mindfulness practitioners and control participants and (2) negatively correlated with gamma inter-hemispheric functional connectivity (frontalmidline and posterior-midline connections). In addition, (3) Fluency was significantly correlated with mindfulness expertise. Together, these results show that long-term mindfulness meditators exhibit higher divergent thinking scores in correlation with their expertise and demonstrate a negative divergent thinking-resting-state DMN activity relationship, thus largely support a negative DMN-creativity connection.

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The role of (dis)inhibition in creativity: Decreased inhibition improves idea generation

Cited by 183 publications

References 47 publications

Inhibitory Control as a Core Process of Creative Problem Solving and Idea Generation from Childhood to Adulthood

Inhibitory Control as a Core Process of Creative Problem Solving and Idea Generation from Childhood to Adulthood

Situative Creativity: Larger Physical Spaces Facilitate Thinking of Novel Uses for Everyday Objects

Creativity Is Enhanced by Long-Term Mindfulness Training and Is Negatively Correlated with Trait Default-Mode-Related Low-Gamma Inter-Hemispheric Connectivity

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