Early birds, save your creative challenges for just before bed. Your least productive time of day may be the perfect opportunity for a moment of insight, according to a study from a recent issue of Thinking & Reasoning.

Mareike Wieth, an assistant professor of psychological science at Albion College, and her colleagues divided study participants into morning types and evening types based on their answers on the Morningness Eveningness Question­naire (those who scored in the neutral range—about half of initial respondents—were excluded). Wieth instructed them to solve three analytic problems and three insight-oriented ones. No time-of-day effect was found for analytic problem solving, but subjects’ performance on tasks requiring creative insight was consistently better during their nonoptimal times of day.

Wieth believes this effect is the result of a reduction in inhibitory attentional control—the ability to filter information that is irrelevant to the task at hand. “This less focused cognitive state makes people more susceptible to think about other, seemingly unrelated information—like things they experienced earlier or their to-do list,” she explains. “This additional information floating around in your mind during your nonoptimal time of day ultimately helps you reach that creative aha! moment.”

This article was published in print as "Sleepy Brains Think Freely."

8 Comments

1. 1. jtdwyer in reply to GG 04:45 PM 5/6/12

   Please, get some sleep!

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2. 2. tontobius in reply to jtdwyer 06:42 PM 5/6/12

   The author of that comment is probably incapable of sleep - it looks computer-generated, probably some student testing his Markov text generator.

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3. 3. jtdwyer in reply to tontobius 06:50 PM 5/6/12

   For his sake, I hope you're right!

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4. 4. rgcorrgk 07:01 PM 5/6/12

   Regarding the superb, yet concise, Tori Rodriguez article above, much anecdotal knowledge confirms, "sleepy brains think freely".
   In many ways we value "creativity"; but, creative thinking often yields creative ACTION - and that is fraught with danger... Be it an animal coming up with a creative way to cross a river or an MD with some creative new surgery, it’s a gamble. When we are in the middle of the “rat race” it is generally safest to stick to the beaten path. However when you are sleepy (i.e. safe, bored & unoccupied) the luxury of creative thinking can be fully embraced. It is no accident that two of the greatest minds the world has ever known, Newton & Einstein did some of their most creativity work at points of, essentially, down time.
   PS: On the flip side, there is a reason they say, “Idle hands are the devils work shop" (didn’t Karl Mark have a lot of idle time on his hands).
   
   Richard Carlson
   

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5. 5. Hans L 10:31 PM 5/6/12

   I could have told them years ago that a sleepy mind is less inhibited./Hans L

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6. 6. almir 03:45 AM 5/7/12

   By the same token, does it mean that when the person is to a certain degree intoxicated by alcohol or drugs, his mind would be less inhibited to be more creative?

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7. 7. jtdwyer 08:35 AM 5/7/12

   The improved creativity is not the result of being less inhibited in behavior or fearful of change. It's about engaging in more parallel modes of thinking that are less inhibitative of thoughts allowed for consideration - as opposed to serial modes of goal-directed thinking in which thoughts are selected for consideration based on their potential for directly contributing to the achievement of immediate goals. You can finally stop thinking about what to do next and consider how those things you did turned out...

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8. 8. Steve3 in reply to jtdwyer 06:12 PM 5/7/12

   Ha!! Got you!!! More Markov text generator babble!!!
   
   I feel sleepy... it's 5pm my sleepy feeling time.

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