The Role of Mind Wandering During Incubation in Divergent and Convergent Creative Thinking

Background/Objectives. While mind wandering has often been linked to negative outcomes, some research suggests it has potential benefits for creativity, particularly through incubation. To address inconsistencies in prior research findings, the current study investigated the role of mind wandering during incubation in divergent and convergent creative thinking. The study compared the effects of two types of mind wandering (i.e., with and without awareness) on both types of creative thinking, using repeated and novel problems post-incubation to isolate effects.Methods. Eighty-five participants completed divergent (Unusual Uses Task, UUT) and convergent (Compound Remote Associate Task, CRA) thinking tasks, interspersed with a 0-back incubation task. Thought probes measured mind wandering frequency and awareness. Performance was assessed for fluency and originality (UUT) and accuracy (CRA), with problems categorized by difficulty.Results. Results revealed no significant effects of mind wandering on divergent thinking, though incubation improved fluency, particularly for repeated items. For convergent thinking, mind wandering with awareness enhanced performance on low-difficulty repeated items, while mind wandering without awareness hindered novel moderate-difficulty items. Divergent and convergent performance showed no correlation, suggesting distinct cognitive demands.Conclusions. The findings provide evidence that mind wandering’s impact on creativity is limited and context-dependent, with conscious reflection during incubation more beneficial than uncontrolled drifting. Differences in task demands and difficulty levels further modulate these effects. Future research should explore naturalistic settings and use of incubation tasks that do not compete for cognitive resources with the core task to better understand incubation and mind wandering’s roles in creativity.