Creativity and the Wandering Mind : Spontaneous and Controlled Cognition

Creativity and the Wandering Mind: Spontaneous and Controlled Cognition summarizes research on the impact of mind wandering and cognitive control on creativity, including imagination, fantasy and play. Most coverage in this area has either focused on the negative consequences of mind wandering on focused problem solving or the positive effect of mindfulness, but not on the positive consequences of mind wandering. This volume bridges that gap. Research indicates that most people experience mind wandering during a large percentage of their waking time, and that it is a baseline default mode of brain function during the awake but resting state. This volume explores the different kinds of mind wandering and its positive impact on imagination, play, problem-solving, and creative production.

• Discusses spontaneous and controlled processes in creativity
• Examines the relationship between mind wandering, consciousness, and imagination
• Reviews research on problem-solving, imagination, play, and learning
• Highlights the positive impact of mind wandering on creative thought and output

David D. Preiss, PhD, is Director and Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile School of Psychology. He is co-editor of 3 books on educational psychology and related topics, author of more than 40 papers and book chapters on writing, creativity, and instructional processes and recipient of several grants from diverse Chilean research agencies to investigate instructional processes as well as individual differences in creativity and writing. As a poet he has published 5 books of poetry.

Diego Cosmelli is a Biochemist and holds a PhD in Cognitive Sciences from the École Polytechnique, France. He is Associate Professor at the School of Psychology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he is the Vice-director for Research and Graduate Studies and head of the Psychophysiology Lab. His research interests focus on the mechanisms of attentional and perceptual processes in human beings. He has published over 30 articles in peer reviewed journals including Psychophysiology, NeuroImage, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and PLoS ONE, among others.

James C. Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. He is the author/editor of more than 45 books and 300 papers, which include theoretical contributions such as the Four-C Model of Creativity (with Ron Beghetto) and empirical work, such as the study that spawned the “Sylvia Plath Effect. He is a past president of Division 10 (Society for Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, & the Arts) of the American Psychological Association (APA). James has won many awards, including Mensa’s research award, the Torrance Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and APA’s Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards. He co-founded two major journals (Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and Psychology of Popular Media Culture). He has tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN, appeared in the hit Australian show Redesign Your Brain, narrated the comic book documentary Independents, and is set to appear in a 2021 Netflix documentary. He wrote the book and lyrics to Discovering Magenta, which had its NYC premiere in 2015, and co-authored a book on bad baseball pitchers with his father.