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The present study aimed to explore the neural correlates underlying the effects of idea evaluation on idea generation in creative thinking. Participants were required to generate original uses of conventional objects (alternative uses task) during EEG recording. A reflection task (mentally evaluating the generated ideas) or a distraction task (object characteristics task) was inserted into the course of idea generation. Behavioral results revealed that participants generated ideas with higher originality after evaluating the generated ideas than after performing the distraction task. The EEG results revealed that idea evaluation was accompanied with upper alpha (10-13 Hz) synchronization, most prominent at frontal cortical sites. Moreover, upper alpha activity in frontal cortices during idea generation was enhanced after idea evaluation. These findings indicate that idea evaluation may elicit a state of heightened internal attention or top-down activity that facilitates efficient retrieval and integration of internal memory representations.

Previous studies have uncovered various influencing factors of the incubation effect in creative problem solving. Often, tests of divergent thinking (DT) are used as estimates of the potential for creative problem solving. The impact of emotional state during the incubation interval on subsequent creative performance has not yet been investigated. A within-subject design was used in this study. Participants (N 44) were asked to solve the instances problems (i.e., a verbal DT task) in four conditions (positive, neutral, negative incubation conditions, and a continuous working condition). During the incubation intervals, participants watched a series of emotion-appropriate videos to induce corresponding emotions. The results showed that participants’ originality scores were higher after an incubation interval (regardless of the emotions induced) than when continuously working. Originality scores were the highest when positive emotion was induced during the incubation interval. These findings demonstrated that emotional state during the incubation interval influences the incubation effect. The findings are interpreted in the context of the unconscious work theory of incubation. Limitations and future directions are explored.

Previous studies revealed inconsistent findings about the effects of cognitively low or high demanding interpolated tasks during incubation period on post-incubation creative performance. To explain this contradiction, two intervention tasks were administered (Reflecting on the generated ideas [RF] and the Word puzzle task [WP]), which are supposed to elicit remote associative processes but with varying levels of cognitive demands, along with two verbal control tasks (phonemic fluency task and object characteristics task). A delayed-incubation paradigm was used to assess whether performance on verbal creative problem solving (Alternative Uses Task, AUT) could be stimulated by the applied intervention tasks. The results showed that only RF and WP tasks, but not the control tasks, were associated with significant incubation effects. The findings suggest that the interpolated tasks that were assumed to elicit remote associative processes can unfold beneficial effects on verbal creative problem solving, regar...