Evidence-Based Exercises to Boost Creativity and Cognition

Divergent Thinking Tasks (Alternate Uses Tests)

Divergent thinking exercises (like the Alternate Uses Task, where you list creative uses for common objects) are shown to improve idea generation capacity. They build idea fluency (many ideas), originality (novel ideas), and flexibility (variety of ideas):

  • Stronger Idea Fluency & Originality: A quantitative review of 156 creativity-training studies found that programs emphasizing divergent thinking yielded significant gains in participants' idea output. Notably, training produced large improvements in originality of ideas (effect size Δ≈0.81) and robust gains in idea fluency (Δ≈0.67) and flexibility (Δ≈0.75) compared to no-training controls. This indicates practicing tasks like Alternate Uses can increase the number of ideas generated and their novelty and variety. (source, source)
  • Enhanced Creative Output with Practice: Specific techniques that prompt divergent thinking have been shown to raise creative idea counts. For example, checklist and "feature listing" exercises (systematically altering or combining features of a problem) led participants to produce more solutions to a design problem than untrained controls. (source) Such tasks encourage exploring multiple categories and perspectives, resulting in greater idea fluency and creative flexibility.

Category-Shifting (Cognitive Flexibility) Tasks

Category-shifting exercises involve switching between different idea categories or tasks in a timed or structured way. This trains cognitive flexibility – the ability to shift mindsets – which in turn enhances creative performance by preventing mental fixation:

  • Improved Creative Performance via Task Switching: Research by Lu et al. (2017) showed that people who repeatedly switched between tasks found more creative solutions than those who worked on one task straight through. (source) In four experiments, participants instructed to alternate back-and-forth between two problems performed better on both tasks than participants using single-task or one-time switch strategies. The frequent switching helped them generate more solutions overall, demonstrating that forcing regular shifts can boost creative output.
  • Breaks Fixation, Increases Flexibility: The benefit of these set-shifting tasks comes from breaking cognitive fixation. Continuously switching topics or categories "freed" participants from sticking to any one approach. (source) By abandoning unproductive lines of thought and embracing new perspectives, they were able to think outside the box and try novel approaches. In short, timed category/task shifts heighten cognitive flexibility, which translates into more diverse and innovative ideas. (source)

Analogical Encoding Tasks (Comparing Cases)

Analogical encoding exercises have learners compare two or more analogous situations to identify common principles. This practice strengthens abstract thinking and analogical reasoning, helping people transfer insights to new problems in creative ways:

  • Extracting Abstract Principles: Studies find that comparing analogous cases side-by-side prompts learners to abstract the deep structure ("schema") of a problem, which can then be applied elsewhere. This improves the ability to recognize underlying similarities between different contexts – a hallmark of creative reasoning.
  • Improved Transfer and Creative Problem-Solving: In one experiment, management students who received analogical training (by comparing two negotiation case studies) were nearly three times more likely to apply the strategic principle in a new negotiation, compared to students who studied the cases separately. Both novices and experienced learners benefited from the comparison process. By focusing on relational patterns rather than surface details, analogical encoding enables creative transfer of solutions across domains (a key aspect of innovation). (source)

Remote Associates & Insight Problem Tasks

Insight-based exercises like the Remote Associates Test (RAT) – where one must find a linking word across distant concepts – train convergent creative thinking and the speed of reaching "Aha!" solutions. Research supports that practicing RAT or similar insight problems can improve one's problem-solving agility and convergent creativity:

  • Boosting Convergent Thinking and Speed: A recent empirical study had participants practice RAT problems intensively over 10 days. The result was a significant improvement in creativity scores and RAT performance post-training for all groups. (source) In other words, repeated training on remote-association puzzles sharpened participants' ability to quickly find the correct connections, indicating improved insight problem-solving efficiency. This kind of exercise helps strengthen associative networks and the speed at which people converge on creative solutions.
  • Trainable "Aha!" Skills: Even though insight is often seen as spontaneous, studies show it can be enhanced with targeted strategies. For example, one experiment compared different insight-training routines and found that instructing people to focus on identifying hidden barriers and assumptions led to significantly higher success rates on insight puzzles than control conditions. (source) By learning to consciously reframe problems and overcome mental blocks, participants solved more "Aha!" problems. This evidence confirms that insight-based creativity (and the speed of reaching insights) can be improved through practice and cognitive strategy training.