Evidence for an Asymmetric Switch Cost in State Creativity

The role of top-down control in divergent creativity remains heavily debated. An outstanding question about the state dynamics of creativity concerns acute shifts between heightened and lowered creative states. Particularly, do transitions between creative states incur a "switch cost" as observed in other domains of cognition? Prior research showed that asymmetric switch costs are often incurred such that reaction time is asymmetrically slower when participants switch from a task involving more top-down control to a task involving less top-down control. We tested the hypothesis that frequent acute transitions from creativity-cued responding (associated with heightened creative state) to uncued responding (associated with lowered creative state) would incur an asymmetric switch cost such that uncued responding would be disproportionately impacted by state changes. We utilized the "thin slices" verb generation task in a task-switching paradigm. Consistent with the hypothesis of asymmetric switch costs in shifts between creative states, we observed a substantial switch cost when switching from creativity-cued trials to uncued trials, but no switch cost when switching from uncued trials to creativity-cued trials. These findings provide indirect evidence that heightened creative states may require substantially more top-down control than lowered creative states, supporting the theory that divergent creativity requires increased top-down control.