Investigating the Role of Incubation in Design Creativity From a Neuroscientific Perspective

Date

2025-1-10

Author

Yurt, Yaprak Deniz

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Creativity in design is a multifaceted phenomenon shaped by the relationship between person, process, and product. This thesis investigates the role of the incubation period in design creativity, a critical yet understudied stage of the creative process. Drawing on the four-stage model of Wallas, the study examines the effect of incubation on creative performance and its relationship with creative potential. Employing a concurrent mixed methods approach, the study integrates qualitative and quantitative analyses to explore the cognitive mechanisms underpinning incubation, combining electroencephalography (EEG), self-report measures of creative potential, and evaluations of creative outcomes. Seventeen industrial design undergraduates participated in a laboratory experiment designed to investigate three key aspects: (1) the impact of incubation on creative performance, (2) the connection between creative potential and the cognitive mechanisms underlying incubation, and (3) the link between creative potential and creative performance. The findings indicate that upper alpha suppression in the frontal regions predicts cognitive effort and convergent thinking during incubation, suggesting a controlled search within semantic memory. Notably, while the intensity of this suppression negatively correlates with the novelty of design solutions, the study found no evidence that variety and quantity benefit from an incubation period. A significant improvement from control to incubation conditions in novelty scores in one of the two design task groups suggests that the observed increase may stem from incubation effects rather than task differences alone. Overall, the results emphasize the value of breaks in stimulating associative processes that aid novelty generation.

Subject Keywords

incubation, design creativity, design cognition, semantic memory, neuroimaging

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/113482

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis