Does Incubation Enhance Creativity?

摘要

Incubation effect refers to the increased likelihood of solving problems after a break (incubation period) from active work. Several experiments reported the incubation effects with various problem solving tasks. Thinking of creativity which necessarily includes divergent thinking, would a break from the task at hand produce higher likelihood of solving problems from a novel perspective? Numerous anecdotes in science are in support of this speculation. One theory of incubation effects (Yaniv & Meyer, 1987) explains that sensitization to useful clues in environment during incubation period facilitates the probability of solution. The theory predicts incubation effects if environmental clues are encountered during the incubation period. This prediction suggests that different types of activity during the break would have different effects on the later performance. This study was conducted to investigate the role of the break and the types of activity during the break in creativity tasks.