The role of attention for insight problem solving: effects of mindless and mindful incubation periods

Propensity or diversity? Investigating how mind wandering influences the incubation effect of creativity

“…This result, again, did not support the mind wandering account or the effect of mindfulness practice on incubation. Note that unlike the two previously mentioned studies, participants in Rummel et al [64] only saw but not actually solved creative problems before the incubation period, so that none of them could be considered encountering any mental impasse before the incubation period.…”

“…Recently, Rummel et al [64] assessed retrospectively the tendency to mind wandering while performing three interpolated tasks during incubation, including a mindful body-scan practice, a low-load task, and a high-load task. As expected, the mindfulness group generated less mind wandering than the other two groups did.…”

Spontaneous or Deliberate: The Dual Influence of Mind Wandering on Creative Incubation

“…Previous studies have explored this problem in different ways. For example, some manipulated the difficulty and cognitive loads of the irrelevant tasks to induce different degrees of MW during the incubation period (e.g., Baird et al., 2012; Murray et al., 2021; Rummel et al., 2021; Smeekens & Kane, 2016; Steindorf et al., 2021), and some inserted thought probes into the simple incubation task to measure the frequency of MW and calculated the correlation between MW and the incubation effect (Leszczynski et al., 2017; Smeekens & Kane, 2016; Tan et al., 2015). Although some studies found a positive correlation between self‐reported MW during incubation and the creative incubation effect (Leszczynski et al., 2017; Tan et al., 2015), some recent studies failed to find the benefits of the undemanding incubation task (Murray et al., 2021; Rummel et al., 2021; Steindorf et al., 2021) as Baird et al.…”

“…Third, the correlation between MW and incubation effect obtained without experimental manipulation may only indicate the relationship between MW‐related traits and the incubation effect, but not the influence of MW itself. Fourth, the incubation periods in most studies were short (i.e., 12–20 minutes; Baird et al., 2012; Murray et al., 2021; Rummel et al., 2021; Smeekens & Kane, 2016; Steindorf et al., 2021), which may not be enough for the incubation caused by MW.…”

“…Indeed, a meta‐analysis found a moderate effect of incubation, which was greater when the cognitive demands for irrelevant activities were low (Sio & Ormerod, 2009). Given that low cognitive demands lead to more mind wandering (MW), recent studies have focused on the potential benefits of MW on the incubation effect of creativity (Baird et al., 2012; Leszczynski et al., 2017; Murray, Liang, Brosowsky, & Seli, 2021; Rummel, Iwan, Steindorf, & Danek, 2021; Steindorf, Hammerton, & Rummel, 2021; Tan, Zou, Chen, & Luo, 2015; Yamaoka & Yukawa, 2020). However, these studies seldom discussed the effects of MW on different types of creativity.…”