Research On The Cognitive Mechanism Underlying Incubation Effect In Group Creativity

In the field of research on the incubation effect of creativity,most of the previous studies had focused on the insight problem.The research on the incubation effect in divergent thinking activities has not achieved consistent results,and there is no consensus on the cognitive mechanism behind it either.In recent years,the development of group creativity research has provided a broader perspective for the study of the incubation effect.The existence of the incubation effect in group creative activities remains to be verified,and the research on the underlying interpersonal neural substrate is still in its preliminary stage.This thesis consists of four parts which contain a total of eight studies to explore the following four important questions:(1)Whether there is an incubation effect in group divergent thinking activities?(2)How does the group incubation affect the process of cognitive interaction between group members?(3)What is the cognitive mechanism behind the group incubation effect?(4)How does the incubation affect the interpersonal brain synchronization(IBS)of group members?Firstly,study 1a and study 2a explored whether there was a incubation effect in group creative activity.Study 1a adopted the delayed incubation paradigm to explore the group incubation effect in divergent thinking activities.The results showed that there was a delayed incubation effect in group creative activity and the collective flexibility increment of incubation group was higher than non-incubation group.Based on study 1a,study 1b controlled the factors of familiarity and fatigue of group members to investigate the general effect and incubation effect by dividing subjects into the familiar-incubation group,the familiar-no incubation group,the unfamiliar-incubation group and the unfamiliar-no incubation group.The results indicated that there was a significant incubation effect between the familiar-incubation group and unfamiliarincubation group or the no incubation groups;and there was no significant difference between the familiar groups and the unfamiliar groups,while there was no significant difference in the general effect between all four groups.This suggested the group incubation effect in divergent thinking activity was not affected by the familiarity of group members,and did not benefit from the elimination of fatigue brought from the incubation period,nor did it rely on a general increase in the group creativity itself.Secondly,study 2a and study 2b explored the Beneficial Forgetting theory of the incubation effect.Study 2a adopted the immediate incubation paradigm to study the incubation effect in group creative activities,the role of beneficial forgetting in incubation could be ruled out if the group’s immediate incubation effect was present.The results showed that the immediate incubation could not be stably detected in group creative activities.In study 2b,the mental fixation of the participants in the incubation group and the non-incubation group was primed,and the memory of mental fixation was tested after the subjects completed the target task.The results indicated that,compared with the no incubation group,the incubation group had a group incubation effect,but there was no significant difference in the performance of the two groups on memory tasks,which meant that the group incubation effect observed in the study was not benefited from the forgetting or breaking of the subjects’ mental fixation.Thirdly,study 3 explored the Intermittent Conscious work of the incubation effect.The study compared the performance on the incubation period interpolated task with stand-alone task,in order to explore the role of conscious processing during the incubation period.The results showed that there was no significant difference in task performance between interpolated task and stand-alone task.The fourth part(study 4a,study 4b,study 4c)investigated the the unconscious work theory of incubation effect.Study 4a compared the incubation effect among three different interpolated task groups(chain free association task,phonemic fluency task and rest)during the incubation period,trying to explore the role of association processing in the incubation period on the group incubation effect.The results showed that the group incubation effect of the chain free association interploted task group was significantly greater than the other twot.Study 4b manipulated the degree of cognitive demands of the interpolation task,compared the high cognitive demand interpolated task group,the low cognitive demand interpolatied task group,and the rest group,attempting to further explore the role of unconscious processing during the incubation period on the group incubation effect from the perspective of mind wandering.The results showed that the group incubation effect of the low cognitive demand group was significantly higher than that of the other three groups,while that of the high cognitive demand group was significantly higher than the no incubation group,but not significantly different from the rest group.The difference between rest group and no incubation group was marginally significant;compared with the high cognitive demand interpolation task group,the low cognitive demand group elicited a higher frequency of mind wandering,and the frequency of mind wandering in both groups was significantly correlated with the group incubation effect.At the same time,in study 4b,we explored the IBS of the group members,and found the low cognitive demand group showed higher IBS increment at the prefrontal regions than the high cognitive demand group and the rest group,but showed no difference from the control group,and the IBS of the control group was significantly higher than that of the rest group.In addition,the increment of IBS after incubation was significantly positively correlated with creative performance.Study 4c adopted the DAT task as the target divergent thinking task,and calculated the semantic distance between the incubation and the non-incubation group.The results showed that there was a significant group incubation effect in the incubation group,and the degree of semantic distance activation after incubation in the incubation group was significantly higher than that in the no incubation group.Combining the results of the above four parts(total eight studies),we found that under the delayed incubation paradigm,there was an incubation effect in group divergent thinking activities,and familiarity of group members had no significant effect on the group incubation effect.Moreover,the spreading activation of semantic distance during incubation period may play a major role in group incubation effect.During the incubation process of group creative activities,the IBS increment among members may reflect the improvement of the interaction among group members from incubation.