Cognitive stimulation with convergent and divergent thinking exercises in brainwriting - Incubation, sequence priming, and group context

in two studies, the influence of divergent (generating many words on differences for given dual words) and convergent (generating many words on similarities for given dual words) exercises on the subsequent performance was assessed with dyads in either a nominal or interactive condition in a brainwriting paradigm. In the first study, these cognitive exercises were given after the first session. In the second study, these tasks were presented before each of the two sessions in either the divergent-convergent or convergent-divergent sequences with a temporal order. Exercises on these tasks had no effect on productivity when they preceded the first session of brainstorming. However the provision of a divergent thinking exercise and a convergent-divergent sequence led participants to generate more ideas and scan more categories than their counterparts in the second session. These findings are discussed in light of the cognitive stimulation and incubation perspectives.