The effect of precisely defined associative distance and stimulus acquisition mode in individual creativity support systems

Individual creativity support systems (ICSSs) increase idea generation by providing external stimuli, such as relevant words. However, it is not clear how different elements of ICSS design affect human creative performance. For instance, the finding that word stimuli with remote associative distance are as useful as those having close associative distance is not consistent with the theoretical model of idea generation. Even less is known about how the mode of stimulus acquisition affects users’ creative performance. In this study, we tested the effects of stimuli with different associative distances and of different acquisition modes. Experiment 1 used remote and close words as stimuli to facilitate idea generation. The results showed that remote stimuli were more effective than close ones in idea production and originality. Experiment 2 tested the effect of stimulus acquisition mode on idea generation, with stimulus acquisition being controlled either by users or by the system. The results revealed that if users could control the acquisition of stimuli, they generated more ideas. The implications of these findings with regard to future ICSS design are discussed.