The ability to associate remotely-connected elements underlies discoveries and creations in fields as diverse as Physics, Mathematics and Art. Philosopher and physicist Henri Poincare once noted that “to create consists of making new combinations of associative elements which are useful. The most fertile will often be those formed of elements drawn from domains that are far apart.” Others have since made an explicit connection between associative processes and creativity and consider the former the basis for creative output.
Unconscious thought, then, may indeed be better at associative search than conscious thought, but the products of unconscious thought may not always immediately enter into consciousness. Instead, they may remain unconscious, only emerging later into consciousness as ‘insight’ or eventually dissipating. Alternatively, they may surface as tacit cognitive or affective recognition of patterns, coherences, or themes. For example, when presented with coherent stimuli such as an incomplete drawing of a camel, participants in one study were able to recognize better than by chance the existence of some coherence in the incomplete drawings, but could not always articulate what it was. We suggest that this feeling of ‘something is there’ may be a partial manifestation of unconscious generation.
Our findings
[This article has been reprinted, with permission, from Rotman Management, the magazine of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management]