Part
01
of one
Part
01
I require a synopsis of the cognitive science explaining the role of 'mind wandering' in creative thinking and innovation.
Hello! Thank you for your request regarding the role of mind wandering in creative thinking and innovation. The short answer is that mind wandering can, in many situations, be beneficial to creativity and problem-solving. You will see a deep dive of my findings below.
OVERVIEW
While I began my research by reviewing the reports provided in your request, my primary goal upon beginning this report was to identify additional and more recent sources on the subject. As a result, I conducted my own research into the subject, with a focus on those articles published in the past five years, and a specific interest in those published between 2015 and 2017. Specifically, I focused only on those articles which support the hypothesis that mind wandering can be beneficial to creativity, problem-solving, and innovation. While a number of articles and studies exist which support the opposite viewpoint — that mind-wandering is detrimental at best, and dangerous at worst — I have excluded them from this report. Should you want additional information on that subject, please feel free to submit a second request and a Wonder researcher will pick up where I've left off.
Once I had identified a number of resources — including journal articles, studies, and reports published by well-known media organizations such as Psychology Today and New York Magazine — I reviewed each of them individually in order to gain an idea of the existing research and information on this subject. You will see a deep dive of these findings, in the form of a summary, below.
RESPONSE
Ultimately, research on this subject breaks into two camps: one, that mind wandering and/or daydreaming can be beneficial to creativity and problem-solving; and two, that it can be detrimental. For this report, I have focused exclusively on the former, in order to support your hypothesis that "time-wasting can be useful for imagination [and] creativity." There is a large body of research on this subject, which has been deeply investigated over the past 10 to 15 years.
While many researchers and reporters agree that mind wandering can be beneficial for creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, the majority of information on the subject is anecdotal. I was unable to identify very many sources providing the specific reason why mind wandering supports creativity is unclear.
That said, researchers for PNAS found that, while blood flow to our brain drops about 5 to 10 percent while mind wandering, "wider regions of the brain were active during idling than during engagement on a task." These findings suggest that the use of wider regions of our brain is what allows increased creativity while daydreaming. Specifically, our brain's "default-mode network covers large regions of the brain, mainly in the areas not directly involved in perceiving the world or responding to it." When our thinking expands beyond that default network, we are able to perceive and view the world around us differently than we would normally.
Additionally, while PNAS cites a specific brain function that accounts for the increase in creative thinking while mind wandering, other articles and studies have explained the phenomenon in less specific terms. One report suggests that mind wandering is a necessary function to help process the information we take in on a daily basis. In the same way that dreaming is necessary to "reset" at the end of each day, researchers argue that daydreaming, or mind wandering, is necessary for the same reason.
An article published in Fast Company supports these findings, suggesting that the human brain is wired to function a certain way. However, the author expands on that subject, indicating that the human brain is created to spend time zoning out, or mind wandering. Attempting to change that function can be detrimental, causing the opposite effect one was hoping for. Specifically, "mind-wandering is the by-product of two important mental capacities: the ability to disengage from perception (ignoring something that’s present), and the ability to engage in “meta-awareness” (focusing on our own thoughts). People who exercise both those capacities more regularly tend to have a more restless mind, which research has shown is linked to creativity." To that effect, studies have found that, on average, we spend roughly half our waking hours daydreaming.
SUMMARY
To summarize, a wide number and variety of sources agree that daydreaming — or mind wandering — can be extremely beneficial not only to creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, but also to brain function. While the specific reason for this is somewhat unclear, some sources agree that during active thinking, our minds only use a specific portion of the brain. Alternatively, during mind wandering, our brains use a wider section of thinking and, as a result, perceive the world around us differently.
Thank you for asking Wonder! Let us know if we can help with anything else.