Research Area:
Cognitive Neuroscience
An incubation effect occurs when a problem solution benefits from an extra work period when the initial and extra period of work are separated by a task phase during which attention is distracted away from the problem (incubation) compared to when the two work periods occur in immediate succession (control). Paucity of studies: Incubation effects have been frequently examined and often (but not always) demonstrated in convergent (Dodds, Ward, & Smith, 2004) but not divergent thinking (DT).
Publication:
49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society
