The incubation effect, implications for underlying mechanisms

Abstract

The incubation effect refers to the phenomenon whereby problem solving performance improves when a preliminary period of work on a problem is followed by a break from, rather than continued work on, the problem. To date, the incubation literature has been centered on investigating the most "testable" casual mechanisms of incubation, including the ideas that benefit accrues from incorrect ways of initially thinking about the problem fading over the incubation period before a return to the task, or from a chance encounter with problem-relevant information present in the problem solver's surrounding environment. Although support for the latter hypothesis was indicated in the present thesis, little support for the former was evidenced here, possibly due to methodological difficulties. Relatively unconsidered in the incubation literature to date has been the popular notion of the role of "unconscious processes." In the present thesis, the role of such unconscious processes in the incubation effect was conceptualized in the more contemporary terms of spreading activation, involving the idea that a spread of activation related to initial work on a problem may continue for a period of time after directly attending to the problem. In two of the present studies, more sensitive measurement techniques were employed to directly test for the presence of continued problem-related activation after an initial period of work; these studies indicated some support for the spreading activation hypothesis of incubation.