Creativity and speed of information processing: A double dissociation involving elementary versus inhibitory cognitive tasks

We hypothesized that differential focusing of attention mediates the relationship between creative potential and speed of information processing. Supporting our predictions, we found that the greater a person’s creative potential the faster his or her reaction times were on a simple task not involving interference (concept verification task), but the slower his or her reaction times were on a task requiring the inhibition of interfering information (negative priming). Our results replicate with Russian high school students of both sexes findings by Vartanian, Martindale, and Kwiatkowski (2007) for American male college students.