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Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope
Previous studies have shown that creativity is enhanced by a broad attentional scope, defined as an ability to utilize peripheral stimuli and process information globally. We propose that the reverse relationship also holds, and that breadth of attention also is a consequence of engaging in a creati...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6160668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30298040 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01772 |
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author | Wronska, Marta K. Kolańczyk, Alina Nijstad, Bernard A. |
author_facet | Wronska, Marta K. Kolańczyk, Alina Nijstad, Bernard A. |
author_sort | Wronska, Marta K. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Previous studies have shown that creativity is enhanced by a broad attentional scope, defined as an ability to utilize peripheral stimuli and process information globally. We propose that the reverse relationship also holds, and that breadth of attention also is a consequence of engaging in a creative activity. In Study 1, participants showed increased breadth of attention in a visual scanning task after performing a divergent thinking task as opposed to an analytic thinking task. In Study 2, participants recognized peripheral stimuli displayed during the task better after performing a divergent thinking task as compared to an analytic task, whereas recognition performance of participants performing a task that involves a mix of divergent and analytic thinking (the Remote Associates Test) fell in between. Additionally, in Study 2 (but not in Study 1), breadth of attention was positively correlated with performance in a divergent thinking task, but not with performance in an analytic thinking task. Our findings suggest that the adjustment of the cognitive system to task demands manifests at a very basic, perceptual level, through changes in the breadth of visual attention. This paper contributes a new, motivational perspective on attentional breadth and discusses it as a result of adjusting cognitive processing to the task requirements, which contributes to effective self-regulation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6160668 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61606682018-10-08 Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope Wronska, Marta K. Kolańczyk, Alina Nijstad, Bernard A. Front Psychol Psychology Previous studies have shown that creativity is enhanced by a broad attentional scope, defined as an ability to utilize peripheral stimuli and process information globally. We propose that the reverse relationship also holds, and that breadth of attention also is a consequence of engaging in a creative activity. In Study 1, participants showed increased breadth of attention in a visual scanning task after performing a divergent thinking task as opposed to an analytic thinking task. In Study 2, participants recognized peripheral stimuli displayed during the task better after performing a divergent thinking task as compared to an analytic task, whereas recognition performance of participants performing a task that involves a mix of divergent and analytic thinking (the Remote Associates Test) fell in between. Additionally, in Study 2 (but not in Study 1), breadth of attention was positively correlated with performance in a divergent thinking task, but not with performance in an analytic thinking task. Our findings suggest that the adjustment of the cognitive system to task demands manifests at a very basic, perceptual level, through changes in the breadth of visual attention. This paper contributes a new, motivational perspective on attentional breadth and discusses it as a result of adjusting cognitive processing to the task requirements, which contributes to effective self-regulation. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6160668/ /pubmed/30298040 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01772 Text en Copyright © 2018 Wronska, Kolańczyk and Nijstad. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Wronska, Marta K. Kolańczyk, Alina Nijstad, Bernard A. Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title | Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title_full | Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title_fullStr | Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title_full_unstemmed | Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title_short | Engaging in Creativity Broadens Attentional Scope |
title_sort | engaging in creativity broadens attentional scope |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6160668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30298040 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01772 |
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