Relationship between the diversity of information and idea generation

摘要

We attempted to determine whether the provision of diverse information could facilitate creative idea generation. For this purpose, we enlisted 35 students to generate two ideas individually by using the scanning material provided. The results revealed that the participants tended to select similar articles and to reduce their diversity even though diverse materials were provided. Further, the diversity of the materials they used actually was positively correlated with the quality of the generated ideas. We concluded that the diversity of materials that were not provided but nevertheless used had an effect on idea generation.