How subjective idea valuation energizes and guides creative idea generation

What drives us to search for creative ideas, and why does it feel good to find one? While previous studies demonstrated the positive influence of motivation on creative abilities, how reward and subjective values play a role in creativity remains unknown. This study proposes to characterize the role of individual preferences (how people value ideas) in creative ideation via behavioral experiments and computational modeling. Using the Free Generation of Associates Task coupled with rating tasks, we demonstrate the involvement of valuation processes during idea generation: preferred ideas are provided faster. We found that valuation depends on the adequacy and originality of ideas and guides response selection and creativity. Finally, our computational model correctly predicts the speed and quality of human creative responses, as well as interindividual differences in creative abilities. Altogether, this model introduces the mechanistic role of valuation in creativity. It paves the way for a neurocomputational account of creativity mechanisms. Public Significance StatementThis study addresses the role of individual preferences in creativity. It demonstrates that preferences for ideas energize creative idea production: the more participants like their ideas, the faster they provide them. Moreover, preferences rely on an equilibrium between the adequacy and originality of ideas and vary across individuals. This study introduces a computational model which incorporates individual preferences and that correctly predicts the speed and quality of responses in a creative idea generation task, as well as inter-individual differences in creative abilities. Comparison of several versions of this model demonstrated that preferences guide the selection of creative responses.