Spontaneous eye blinks during creative task correlate with divergent processing

Abstract

Creativity consists of divergent and convergent thinking, with both related to individual eye blinks at rest. To assess underlying mechanisms between eye blinks and traditional creativity tasks, we investigated the relationship between creativity performance and eye blinks at rest and during tasks. Participants performed an alternative uses and remote association task while eye blinks were recorded. Results showed that the relationship between eye blinks at rest and creativity performance was compatible with those of previous research. Interestingly, we found that the generation of ideas increased as a function of eye blink number during the alternative uses task. On the other hand, during the remote association task, accuracy was independent of eye blink number during the task, but response time increased with it. Moreover, eye blink changes in participants who responded quickly during the remote association task were different depending on their resting state eye blinks; that is, participants with many eye blinks during rest showed little increasing eye blinks and achieved solutions quickly. Positive correlations between eye blinks during creative tasks and yielding ideas on the alternative uses task and response time on the remote association task suggest that eye blinks during creativity tasks relate to divergent thinking processes such as conceptual reorganization.