Triggering Insight: Using Neuroscience to Understand How Priming Changes Individual Cognition during Electronic Brainstorming

Abstract

We build on prior theory and research on electronic brainstorming to examine how achievement priming influences individual cognition leading to changes in individual behavior and ultimately team performance. We conducted a repeated measures experiment using electroencephalography with 53 subjects performing two brainstorming tasks. We found that priming altered cognition in the left and right regions of the frontal cortex; that is, achievement priming triggered cognition in areas of the brain related to creative and insightful cognition while the placebo treatment led to cognition in areas related to language production. Thus, priming did not induce “more” cognition, but rather triggered changes in the nature of cognition that led to significantly more ideas and more ideas that were highly novel, workable, and relevant. This study makes two contributions: it shows one theoretical pathway by which achievement priming works; and it show that priming using pictures improves idea generation.

The interactive effects of associative response priming and personality traits on insight problem solving over time

“…Although growing evidence has suggested dissociations between conscious and unconscious processing in insight problem solving, it has been suggested the process of insight problem solving is largely governed by an implicit learning mechanism (Orita & Hattori, 2019;Suzuki & Fukuda, 2013). It has also been found that priming, which is a type of implicit learning, has a great impact on insight problem solving; individuals in a primed condition perform better than individuals in an unprimed condition in creative problem solving (Minas et al, 2018;Mumford et al, 2001).…”

Simulating the Cognitive Leap Using Brainwriting

“…An EBS has the potential to overcome many of the confounding factors for creativity in face‐to‐face brainstorming, such as social conformity (Liikkanen et al, 2011; Stroebe, Diehl, and Abakoumkin, 1992), social loafing (Buisine, Guegan, and Vernier, 2017), production blocking (Minas, Dennis, Potter, and Kamhawi, 2018), or evaluation apprehension (Gabriel, Monticolo, Camargo, and Bourgault, 2016). Furthermore, a well‐designed EBS provides a structured method for people who do not have access to trained design facilitators to assist in shaping and managing group processes as well as ensuring the completion of necessary methodological steps.…”

The Prospects of Using EEG in Tourism and Hospitality Research

“…Compared with other tools measuring brain activities, EEG has two main advantages (Matukin et al, 2016). First, it is a noninvasive and relatively inexpensive technique (Minas et al, 2018). Second, EEG can measure electrical signals in submillisecond intervals, which has the highest temporal resolution among all the neuroimaging techniques (Minas et al, 2018).…”

“…First, it is a noninvasive and relatively inexpensive technique (Minas et al, 2018). Second, EEG can measure electrical signals in submillisecond intervals, which has the highest temporal resolution among all the neuroimaging techniques (Minas et al, 2018). fMRI has a longer resolution time of several seconds (Boshoff, 2017).…”

“…fMRI has a longer resolution time of several seconds (Boshoff, 2017). Compared with fMRI, the disadvantage of EEG is that it has limited spatial resolution, meaning that it is hard to localize the source of the brain wave (Boksem & Smidts, 2015); thus, EEG research has mainly focused on the frequency domain analysis among which the alpha band has been most used (Minas et al, 2018). A two-stage approach to select relevant articles applying EEG in business and management research was adopted.…”