REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks

By Denise J. Cai, S. Mednick, Elizabeth M. Harrison, Jennifer C. Kanady, Sara C. Mednick. 2009

515 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Replay in Deep Learning: Current Approaches and Missing Biological Elements (2021, neutral): “REM sleep also facilitates creative problem solving (Lewis et al., 2018; Baird et al., 2012; Cai et al., 2009).”
About sleep's role in memory. (2013, background): “Furthermore, priming before naps filled with REM sleep had a much stronger impact on later creative answers compared with naps without REM or quiet resting, indicating that REM sleep improves creative problem solving instead of reducing creativity (163).”
Having a creative day: understanding entrepreneurs’ daily idea generation through a recovery lens (2018, background): “Nevertheless, there is reason to expect that, given the stressful nature of entrepreneurs' jobs (Cardon and Patel, 2015), recovery may be important for entrepreneurs and, critically, will impact on their creativity.”
The restless engram: consolidations never end. (2012, background): “, by loosening the bonds of associative memory representations and thereby disintegrating elements of these memories (Stickgold and Walker, 2013; Korman et al., 2005; Cai et al., 2009; Sterpenich et al., 2014; Landmann et al., 2015).”
Possible genetic and epigenetic links between human inner speech, schizophrenia and altruism. (2012, unknown): “…out, REM sleep is important for assimilating new information within past experiences, thereby creating a richer network of associations for future use and fluid interpretation, this latter being the hallmark of a creative mind, from idle word play to the abstraction of shapes (Cai et al., 2009).”
Inspired by Distraction (2012, methodology): “This was calculated as [(postincubation UUT score – baseline UUT score)/ (baseline UUT score)] × 100 (see Cai et al., 2009, for a similar analytic method).”
The science of mind wandering: empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. (2015, background): “…and dreaming (Fox et al. 2013): Both require that attention is decoupled from perceptual input and is accompanied by self-generated thought (e.g., dreams), both involve dampened executive and meta-cognitive processing, and both have been linked to benefits in creative incubation (Cai et al. 2009).”