THE IMMEDIATE INCUBATION EFFECT ON CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING: USING THE REMOTE ASSOCIATION TASK

This study was conducted to investigate an unconscious aspect of immediate incubation effect in creativity. To understand the process of immediate incubation, we used a remote association test (RAT) and a lexical decision task (LDT) for measuring word accessibility which represents unconscious activation. Correct response to the RAT was measured for the conscious reporting. In Experiments, participants were given 20 moderate and difficult RAT items with, or without certain incubation time. The incubation group showed significant improvement in word accessibility on the RAT answers through the lexical decision, relative to the control group. The incubation group, however, did not show improvement in their reporting of actual RAT answers. These findings confirm a two-step process of the incubation effect, in the sense that unconscious level activation often fails to be retrieved to the conscious surface. In addition, the difficulty of item had no significant effect on both actual RAT answers and word accessibility of the answer.