[ccvannorman]

fta: For example, a participant was shown three words (e.g., dress, dial, flower), with the requirement being to find a single associated word (in this case "sun") that can be combined to make a common word or phrase (i.e., sundress, sundial and sunflower).

The researchers used three experiments involving verbal tasks in either a quiet environment or while exposed to:

Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics Instrumental music without lyrics Music with familiar lyrics

What a pitri dish experiment. I don't give this any value whatever to actual creative tasks like painting or designing a video game. Music can help induce a state of flow to be creative in a multitude of work environs -- OK, but this research proved you can't solve a simple word riddle quite as well.

[tylerl]

Agreed.

This was like studying the effect of food quality on mental function by having participants solve addition problems while eating one of: a Skittle, a carrot, or a Tylenol.

[altairiumblue]

I think this is because you expect creativity to mean something resembling artistic ability (e.g. painting), while the paper's definition is closer to problem solving (performance on CRATs).

[tnzn]

When a scientific definition is too far away from the common definition, using the word in a headline becomes a problem

[matchagaucho]

Came here to basically say this.