Thought Dynamics: Which Role for Mind Wandering in Creativity?

A Wandering Mind is Not Always a Creative Mind: How Thought Dynamics Explain the Relationship between Mind Wandering and Creativity

“…Several studies have shown opposing associations between mind wandering and other cognitive measures, such as mindfulness (Seli, Carriere, & Smilek, 2015), rumination, and self‐reflection (Vannucci & Chiorri, 2018), and psychological traits such as ADHD and OCD symptoms (Carriere, Seli, & Smilek, 2013; Seli et al., 2016; Seli, Smallwood, Cheyne, & Smilek, 2015). Spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering are therefore considered distinct cognitive experiences with different triggers and underlying cognitive mechanisms (Seli et al., 2016; Vannucci & Agnoli, 2019).…”

“…We propose that understanding the mind wandering–creativity link can be advanced by looking not only at whether one's thoughts are on task or wander elsewhere but also in terms of how thoughts arise (i.e., deliberately or spontaneously) and the manner in which they unfold (i.e., how freely thoughts flow) (Christoff, Irving, Fox, Spreng, & Andrews‐Hanna, 2016; Marron & Faust, 2019; Mills, Raffaelli, Irving, Stan, & Christoff, 2018; Vannucci & Agnoli, 2019). Both spontaneousness (e.g., Calic, Shamy, Kinley, Watter, & Hassanein, 2020; Kounios & Beeman, 2015; Ross & Vallée‐Tourangeau, 2022) and freely movingness of thoughts (e.g., de Rooij, Vromans, & Dekker, 2018; Guilford, 1967; Mednick, 1962; Wu & Koutstaal, 2020) have previously been linked to creativity, but less so in relation to mind wandering (e.g., Gable et al., 2019; Irving et al., 2022; Vannucci & Agnoli, 2019). This suggests that the context of thoughts (i.e., do they occur while a person is performing a task, or do they occur off task) and their dynamics (i.e., how they arise and unfold) might together help explain how mind wandering can enhance creativity.…”

The Dynamic Creativity Framework

“…The importance of different dispositions in the use of information in creative thinking can also be highlighted in the study of mind wandering (see Vannucci & Agnoli, 2019). With mind wandering, we identify an attention shift from the primary task “away from the here and now towards one’s private thoughts and feelings” (Smallwood et al, 2007, p. 818).…”

The Wandering Mind

“…Possibly, one promising way to achieve better goal maintenance is to practice mindfulness, specifically the focused-attention (FA) type . Currently, there is some initial evidence that mindfulness can reduce self-generated thought (Bennike, Wieghorst, & Kirk, 2017;Mrazek, Franklin, Phillips, Baird, & Schooler, 2013;Vanucci & Agnoli, 2019;Xu, Purdon, Seli, & Smilek, 2017). The practice of mindfulness is straightforward: 1) you bring your attention to an object of focus such as your breath, 2) while focusing on the object you monitor your attention without judgement, 3) you bring you attention back to the object of focus when your attention has slipped.…”

“…Many studies until now have indicated that self-generated thought can facilitate adaptive (goal-oriented) behavior. Engaging in self-generated thought has been shown to among others enhance creative insight and problem-solving (e.g., Baird et al, 2012;Gable, Hopper, & Schooler, 2019;Leszczynski et al, 2017;Tan, Zou, Chen, & Luo, 2015;Vanucci & Agnoli, 2019), to improve memory for personally relevant information Steindorf & Rummel, 2017), to provide opportunities for future planning (Baird et al, 2011;Medea et al, 2016), to foster patience for long-term rewards in decision making (Smallwood, Ruby, & Singer, 2013), and to improve metacognitive monitoring (Allen et al, 2013). These works highlight at least two important things.…”