Assessing the role of attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility in convergent and divergent thinking during creative task performance.

Hughes, ZD ORCID: 0000-0001-5383-4584, Ball, LJ ORCID: 0000-0002-5099-0124 and Judge, J ORCID: 0000-0002-4029-6876 (2026) Assessing the role of attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility in convergent and divergent thinking during creative task performance. BMC Psychology. ISSN 2050-7283

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Abstract

Findings regarding the role of attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility in creative cognition have been inconsistent, potentially due to methodological differences in measures of attention and creativity. To clarify these relationships, we conducted two experiments assessing how attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility relate to convergent and divergent creative thinking. In Experiment 1, individual differences in flanker task performance (reaction time and accuracy) across congruent, incongruent and reversed trials were used to derive metrics of inhibition and flexibility, which were then used to predict performance on the Compound Remote Associates Test (CRAT) and Alternative Uses Task (AUT). In Experiment 2, we extended this approach by incorporating the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test to measure cognitive flexibility, and by eliciting subjective reports of problem-solving strategy (i.e., insight vs. analysis) for each CRAT item. Across both experiments, convergent creativity, indexed by CRAT accuracy, was predicted by both attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility, especially when these supported the use of analytic problem-solving strategies, as measured by retrospective self-report. In contrast, divergent creativity showed weaker and more selective associations, whereby attentional inhibition predicted AUT originality, but not AUT fluency or AUT flexibility, while cognitive flexibility was not significantly related to any AUT dimension. These findings suggest that attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility demonstrate a stronger and more consistent predictive relationship with convergent thinking performance compared to divergent thinking performance.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Attentional inhibition; Cognitive flexibility; Convergent thinking; Creative cognition; Divergent thinking; 5202 Biological Psychology; 52 Psychology; 5201 Applied and Developmental Psychology; Behavioral and Social Science; Basic Behavioral and Social Science; Mental health; 1701 Psychology; 5201 Applied and developmental psychology; 5202 Biological psychology; 5203 Clinical and health psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Psychology (from Sep 2019)
Publisher:	BMC
Date of acceptance:	15 April 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	3 June 2026
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2026 10:40
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2026 10:40
DOI or ID number:	10.1186/s40359-026-04582-7
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28711

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