TY - JOUR
T1 - Does Episodic Retrieval Contribute to Creative Writing? An Exploratory Study
AU - van Genugten, Ruben D.I.
AU - Beaty, Roger E.
AU - Madore, Kevin P.
AU - Schacter, Daniel L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Previous research indicates that episodic retrieval contributes to divergent creative thinking. However, this research has relied on standard laboratory tests of divergent creative thinking, such as generating creative uses for objects; it is unknown whether episodic retrieval also contributes to domain-specific forms of creativity. Here we start to explore whether episodic retrieval contributes to content generation on one such domain-specific task: creative writing. In two experiments, we use an episodic specificity induction (ESI) that selectively impacts tasks that draw on episodic retrieval. If episodic retrieval contributes to content generation during creative writing, then ESI should selectively increase the number of episodic details that people subsequently generate on a creative writing task. In our first experiment, we found evidence that ESI increased the number of episodic details participants generated. We observed a similar, though non-significant, trend in the second experiment. These findings constitute a starting point for examining the contribution of episodic retrieval to creative writing, but additional studies will be needed to more definitively characterize the nature and extent of these contributions.
AB - Previous research indicates that episodic retrieval contributes to divergent creative thinking. However, this research has relied on standard laboratory tests of divergent creative thinking, such as generating creative uses for objects; it is unknown whether episodic retrieval also contributes to domain-specific forms of creativity. Here we start to explore whether episodic retrieval contributes to content generation on one such domain-specific task: creative writing. In two experiments, we use an episodic specificity induction (ESI) that selectively impacts tasks that draw on episodic retrieval. If episodic retrieval contributes to content generation during creative writing, then ESI should selectively increase the number of episodic details that people subsequently generate on a creative writing task. In our first experiment, we found evidence that ESI increased the number of episodic details participants generated. We observed a similar, though non-significant, trend in the second experiment. These findings constitute a starting point for examining the contribution of episodic retrieval to creative writing, but additional studies will be needed to more definitively characterize the nature and extent of these contributions.
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U2 - 10.1080/10400419.2021.1976451
DO - 10.1080/10400419.2021.1976451
M3 - Article
C2 - 35814526
AN - SCOPUS:85114787578
SN - 1040-0419
VL - 34
SP - 145
EP - 158
JO - Creativity Research Journal
JF - Creativity Research Journal
IS - 2
ER -