CREATIVITY INTERVENTION: USING STORYTELLING AND MATH PROBLEMS AS INTERVENING TASKS FOR INDUCING INCUBATION
Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco Cantamessa, Dorian Marjanovic, Monica Bordegoni
Author: Al-Shorachi, Evan; Sasasmit, Koonlada; Gonçalves, Milene
Series: ICED
Institution: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Section: Human Behaviour in Design, Design Education
Page(s): 081-090
ISBN: 978-1-904670-74-2
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
Past studies have intermittently shown evidence of incubation effects. In the design field, incubation can occur when designers step away from a problem but continue to think about it unconsciously. However, little is known about which kind of activities should designers engage to prompt creative results. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of two types of intervening tasks during idea generation, in order to induce incubation effects. A math quiz and a storytelling task were used to represent two different types of intervening tasks. Based on our findings, when compared to the control condition, the math task was able to induce incubation effects, especially on fluency and overall creativity score. Conversely, the storytelling task did not seem to induce incubation effects when compared to the other conditions, although it had an influence on the originality of the ideas. This study shows that it is preferable to switch from creative to well-structured tasks to promote incubation effects. Nevertheless, swapping between creative tasks can contribute to the generation of more original ideas, but less feasible, which can be beneficial for brainstorm sessions.
Keywords: Creativity, Early Design Phases, Incubation, Storytelling