Pilot: The Design Cognition of Incubation-Induced Creativity of Software Designers

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

Incubation, taking time out of a difficult task to do something else, is one of the recognized activities that contributes to creativity. Its effect on software designers and in particular on their design cognition, ie their thinking processes, is unknown. This project aims to determine the effects of incubation on software designers? cognition and creativity. The results from this project will provide the empirical grounding necessary to determine the cognitive and design effects of incubation on the creativity of software designers and will form the basis of potential tools to aid creative design and the basis to compare and develop approaches to teaching creative design at both college and high school levels. The results can be used as the foundation of brain studies of software designers.