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Performance on divergent thinking (DT) tests varies by different testing conditions. Although many studies documented that DT performance increases when more time is provided, it still remains unanswered whether DT performance continues to increase linearly or follows a rather non-linear pattern as more time is allowed. The present study examined a potential curvilinear pattern in DT performance by synthesizing 237 effect size in 22 studies using a three-level approach to account for the nested structure of data. Results indicated that liberal time conditions provided significantly better DT performance than the restricted time conditions with the mean effect size (g = 0.666) being considered moderate to large. The effect size was small to moderate (g = 0.493) in a group of studies that merely compared “timed” and “untimed” conditions. The effect was larger (g = 0.901) in a group of studies comparing varying amounts of time. The quadratic term of time difference between the shorter and longer time conditions turned out significantly negative indicating the inverted J-shaped relationship between time-on-task and DT performance: the DT performance increases with more time, and the growth slows down at some point. Implications for testing DT are explored.

Previous research on divergent thinking (DT) indicates that fluency, originality, and flexibility change with time. Although there is a drop in the ideational productivity per minute, ideas tend to get more original and flexible as time passes, a phenomenon known as the order effect. The present research extends previous findings of longer latencies during flexible ideation and examined the relationship between latency and originality. 1325 verbal and 488 figural responses generated by 83 people were analyzed in a multilevel model (MLM) where ideas were nested under the type of DT tasks and the DT task(s) was nested under individuals. Originality was measured with a semantics-based algorithm and latency was measured as the difference in time between consecutive ideas. Analysis controlling the response order found that originality was higher with a longer latency. These findings indicate that longer think time (TT) is a predictor of originality. This holds true in both early versus late sections of DT, as well as across different type of DT tasks. The results are interpreted in terms of associational processes and executive functions.