Yahoo News Mind healing: Can you really boost your own creativity?
A recent study suggests a surprising way to boost your creative powers: use “switch-tasking”. Jackson Lu and colleagues at Columbia University asked participants to complete tasks involving convergent thinking (problem solving, Experiment 1) and divergent thinking (idea generating, Experiment 2).
Some were instructed to work on one task during the first half of their allotted time and then switch to a second task.
Others were told to alternate between tasks at pre-set intervals, and the third group were allowed to switch between the two tasks at their discretion.
In both experiments, those who alternated between tasks at set intervals outperformed everyone else.
Regular switching encourages us to look at a task from new angles when we return to it
Yet when asked which approach they preferred, most said they would choose to switch between tasks at their own discretion, presumably because they feel it gives them maximum autonomy and flexibility. However, the researchers argue that few of us recognise when we’re becoming cognitively “fixated”; when our thinking is becoming “stuck”.
The best way to overcome this rigidity, they suggest, is to switch between tasks at regular, pre-set intervals. Regular switching encourages us to look at a task from new angles when we return to it, making it easier to generate more fresh ideas.
Lu’s findings are not without precedent. Steven Smith and colleagues at Texas A&M University asked participants to list as many examples as possible of two different categories. Participants who were instructed to switch regularly between the two categories generated more solutions than those who completed one category listing and then switched to the second.
Furthermore, they found task switching was more useful the more abstract the category. So for example, switch taskers considerably outperformed those who worked sequentially when asked to list as many cold things vs heavy things or as many things to take on a camping trip vs fattening foods, but they gained little advantage when asked to generate examples of birds vs clothing.
It’s important to distinguish between switch-tasking and multitasking. Switch-tasking means we deliberately alternate between problems, whereas when we multitask we fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing several things at once.
In truth, when we try to multitask, we’re actually switch-tasking every few milliseconds rather than at longer, predetermined intervals, and as a result our performance deteriorates.
What, then, is the best approach when you’re given a creative task?
Before you begin, make a schedule that requires you to stop at regular intervals – whether you feel ‘ready’ to do so or not. During the break, you can switch to another creative task, or do something totally different, if you prefer.
During the initial phase of solution generation, work alone if possible. In another experiment, Steven Smith and Nicholas Kohn found that exchanging ideas in a group decreased the number of categories of ideas that participants explored.
Look out for cognitive fixation. The more you think you’re “on a roll”, the more likely it is that you’re narrowing down the scope of creative possibility. Take your scheduled breaks!
Linda Blair is a clinical psychologist. To order her book, The Key to Calm (Hodder & Stoughton), for £12.99 plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
