Attentional Priming Effects on Creativity

The authors tested the hypothesis that a broad or narrow scope of perceptual attention engen- ders an analogously broad or narrow focus of concep- tual attention, which in turn bolsters or undermines creative generation. In the first two experiments, par- ticipants completed visual tasks that forced them to fo- cus perceptual attention on a comparatively broad or narrow visual area. As predicted, broad, compared to narrow initial focusing of perceptual attention subse- quently led to generation of more original uses for a brick (Experiment 1) and generation of more unusual category exemplars (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, participants were merely asked to contract their frontalis versus corrugator muscles, producing rudi- mentary peripheral feedback associated with broad versus narrow perceptual focus. As predicted, frontalis contraction, relative to corrugator contraction, led to the production of more original uses for a pair of scis- sors. Together, these three experiments provided con- verging initial support for our attentional priming hypothesis, suggesting that situationally induced vari- ations in the scope of perceptual attention (and simple cues associated with such variations) may corre- spondingly expand or constrict the focus of conceptual attention within the semantic network, thereby improv- ing or diminishing creativity.