Creativity and Irrelevance Processing: Evidence From Online Eye Tracking

Processing nominally irrelevant information has been linked to successful creative ideation, especially in open-minded individuals. To investigate attentional processing, prior studies in this field relied on in- laboratory eye tracking. Despite several advantages, this method also comes with downsides like high costs and slow data collection. To address these issues, online, webcam-based eye tracking might be a prom- ising solution. In three preregistered experiments, we transferred an established paradigm from in-laboratory research to the online context. Participants (N = 100 for each study) had to come up with possible uses for visually presented items, which were surrounded by nominally irrelevant distractor objects. Between exper- iments, we manipulated the kind of these distractor items (Study 1: real objects; Study 2: real objects for half of the trials and random geometric figures for the other half; Study 3: random geometric figures). In line with prior in-laboratory research, in Study 1 and in the real objects condition in Study 2, we found a positive rela- tion of the time processing this nominally irrelevant information and the originality of the produced uses. For the random geometric figures condition of Study 2 and in Study 3, no such relation was found. We conclude that irrelevance processing only promotes creativity if the additional information is somehow related to the given task and can thus stimulate novel ideas. In contrast, simply shifting the visual focus away from a task might not be sufficient to facilitate creative thinking. We discuss the potential and limitations of online web- cam-based eye tracking for creativity research.