Or an Irrelevance to the Creative Process?

Four studies suggested that conscious processing makes valuable, essential contributions to the creative process. A conscious goal to be creative elicited more creative story titles, whereas nonconscious priming of creativity failed to increase creativity. A cognitive load that preoccupied conscious processing lowered the creativity of musical improvisation, while uncreative aspects of performance were unaffected. Conscious distraction reduced the creativity of drawings — but again did not have any impact on the uncreative aspects of performance. Depletion of the conscious self’s resources by a manipulated exercise in habitbreaking led people to generate fewer and less creative responses on an alternate uses task. Creativity may depend on effective interplay between conscious and nonconscious processes.