Incubation is a period during which a subject temporarily makes no conscious attempts to solve a problem but eventually arrives at a solution. Henri Poincaré described cases where insights came after a break from working on complex mathematical problems. This article proposes a hypothesis called the «Poincaré effect»: the higher a person's creativity, the more pronounced the effect of incubation in their creative process. An experimental study was conducted with 525 participants divided into a control group (without incubation) and an experimental group (with an incubation break). Participants performed the «Alternate Uses» test, inventing non-standard ways to use a matchstick. Creativity was assessed based on fluency (the number of ideas) and originality. The results showed that the incubation break led to a significant increase in the fluency of responses in the experimental group. Moreover, among participants with a high level of creativity, incubation contributed to an increase in the originality of responses, confirming the Poincaré effect. These findings align with the awareness model, according to which incubation helps restructure the problem representation and recognize previously found unconscious solutions. The study's conclusions confirm the presence of the Poincaré effect in the phenomenon of incubation and highlight the importance of individual creative abilities in the problem-solving process.

The study aims to estimate the impact of the video game "Fall Guys" on the convergent and divergent cognitive processes of players with different levels of gaming experience. Convergent processes assessed included short-term memory, selective attention, and mental inhibition. The indicator of divergent processes was verbal fluency. Among 203 surveyed students from the first year of psychology faculties, 147 later participated in the experimental study where 74 participants completed cognitive tests before and after playing the video game, while 73 participants completed tests before and after reading popular science texts printed on a paper blank. The gaming condition involved the popular arcade game "Fall Guys." The battery of cognitive tests included a short-term memory assessment, the Eriksen Flanker Task, the SART task, a short version of J. Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, the Guilford Unusual Uses Test, and the Deary-Liewald Task. A total of four sessions were completed based on the number of cognitive indicators. Participants with regular gaming experience showed higher scores in fluid intelligence, reaction speed, verbal fluency, and abilities related to selective attention and mental inhibition compared to non-players. However, short-term video game experience (compared to reading popular science texts) led to a decline in selective attention and mental inhibition but positively affected verbal creativity scores. Therefore, no positive short-term effect of video gaming on convergent processes was identified, though it was observed for verbal fluency scores. The significant differences in cognitive indicators between gamers and non-gamers allow for the discussion of these results in terms of the potential long-term effects of video games on both convergent and divergent processes.

The article explores the evolution of methods for automatically assessing verbal divergent thinking tests. Resear chers have increasingly focused on the ability to evaluate the originality of respondents' answers by calculating their semantic distance from the stimulus task. From 2009 to 2019, latent semantic analysis became the primary method for assessing semantic distances. Overall, in terms of internal consistency and correlation with expert ratings, its application yielded satisfactory results, maintaining an acceptable balance of quality and effort expended. However, issues emerged (dependence on the corpus used, result instability, systematic distortions related to the length of analyzed responses), prompting researchers to transition to more advanced models of distributional semantics (GloVe, Word2Vec etc.), large language models, and supervised learning. Large language models, especially those fine-tuned on creativity test materials, demonstrated higher effectiveness compared to models assessing semantic distances and approached expert evaluations. In addition to evaluating originality, the article considers works proposing methods for automatic assessment of elaboration, flexibility, associative flow, and divergent semantic integration. References to online platforms that allow for automatic assessments of originality in responses to divergent tests are provided. The issue of interpreting results obtained through large language models is discussed. A drawback of using these models is the lack of understanding of the basis on which judgments of the originality of creative products are made. The perspectives of applying explainable artificial intelligence for evaluating results of verbal and non-verbal tests of creative thinking are being discussed.

The issue of incubation is a central and paradoxical topic in the psychology of thinking and creativity. The paradox arises from the observation that problem-solving can advance during periods when the solver is not consciously focused on the problem but is instead engaged in unrelated activities. Despite extensive research on incubation, a unified explanation for this phenomenon remains elusive. This article introduces a new theoretical approach characterized by two distinctive features. First, it advocates for the examination of the general problem of incubation through tasks that facilitate a precise analysis of the underlying processes—specifically, Mednick's triads. Second, to enable a comprehensive analysis of problem-solving processes, this approach incorporates methods from general network theory. Consequently, the theoretical model developed to elucidate incubation encompasses two levels of processes: the propagation of activation across the semantic network and the control processes driven by goal-setting when the individual accepts the problem.

The article presents the results of an experimental study analyzing changes in emotional states during video gaming on a PC and reading texts from paper, as well as during transitions between these two activities. The study involved 62 students (mean age: 18.3 years, SD = 2.28; 82% female). Participants were divided into two groups: one group read texts first and then played a video game, while the other group played a video game first and then read texts. Participants' emotional states were assessed using a self- report questionnaire administered five times: before the experiment, after each 10- minute episode of video gaming, after each 10-minute episode of reading, and finally, at the end of the experiment. The results demonstrate that the intensity of negative and positive emotions, as well as anxiety, is higher during video gaming, while reading is characterized by a state of calmness. The findings further suggest that reading after playing a video game reduces positive emotions and increases calmness, whereas reading popular texts on its own does not significantly alter emotional states. Reading before playing a video game, however, decreases the intensity of positive emotions experienced during gameplay. Transitioning from gaming to reading leads to a reduction in the intensity of most emotions and an increase in calmness, while transitioning from reading to gaming results in a significant rise in emotional intensity. Emotional states change considerably when switching from one activity to another (i.e., from reading to gaming and vice versa) but remain stable for at least 20 minutes during a single activity. It is suggested that the changes in emotional states are not driven by the specific activities themselves but rather by the act of switching between activities. The results are interpreted within the framework of understanding emotions as a readiness to act. It is concluded that a short video game during breaks between academic work can serve as a form of emotional switching and relaxation.

ObjectiveThe study is devoted to comparing various models based on Artificial Intelligence to determine the level of creativity based on drawings performed using the Urban test, as well as analyzing the results of applying explainable artificial intelligence methods to a trained model to identify the most relevant features in drawings that influence the model’s prediction.MethodsThe dataset is represented by a set of 1,823 scanned forms of drawings of participants performed according to the Urban test. The test results of each participant were assessed by an expert. Preprocessed images were used for fine-tuning pre-trained models such as MobileNet, ResNet18, AlexNet, DenseNet, ResNext, EfficientNet, ViT with additional linear layers to predict the participant’s score. Visualization of the areas that are of greatest importance from the point of view of the model was carried out using the Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) method.ResultsTrained models based on MobileNet showed the highest prediction accuracy rate of 76%. The results of the application of explainable artificial intelligence demonstrated areas of interest that correlated with the criteria for expert assessment according to the Urban test. Analysis of erroneous predictions of the model in terms of interpretation of areas of interest made it possible to clarify the features of the drawing on which the model relies, contrary to the expert.ConclusionThe study demonstrated the possibility of using neural network methods for automated diagnosis of the level of creativity according to the Urban test based on the respondents’ drawings. The application of explainable artificial intelligence methods to the trained model demonstrated the compliance of the identified activation zones with the rules of expert assessment according to the Urban test.

The present study is focused on the measurement of the game efficiency by the younger adolescences in the individual and collaborative game problem solving conditions. The previously elaborated computer game system “PL-modified” was used. Social and emotional intelligence as well as gender factor were additionally controlled. 189 middle-school students from the 5—6th grades participated in this study. The results showed that game efficiency was higher in collaborative problem solving conditions (in comparison with the individual game) no matter which additional factor was controlled. Furthermore, the whole sample was divided in two groups by the criterion of the level of social intelligence of those participants who played in each pair. Thus, the group 1 included players with the equal level of social intelligence whereas the group 2 was presented by the gamers with the different levels of social intelligence. The pairs form the group 1 outperformed those participants from the group 2 in their game efficiency. Another independent resul concerns significant impact of social intelligence on the game performance in the pairs of boys. Emotional intelligence demonstrated only one significant positive correlation with the one parameter of game efficiency in the individual conditions. The present results are discussed in terms of the prospects of the usage of ‘PL- modified’ computer game system in the psychological studies conducted on the sample of young adolescents and taking their cognitive abilities into account.

The focus of this article is the reflection of intelligence as ability in social media texts. The authors have developed a model of communicative environments according to which the manifestation of intelligence in a message depends on the communicative situation in which the information is transmitted. Thus, the cognitive complexity of texts is a consequence not only of the author's intellectual capacity, but also of his willingness and ability to adapt the complexity of messages to the characteristics of the recipient. This paper analyses data from individual social media profiles in relation to user intelligence test scores, as well as similar data obtained at a regional level. The study involved 438 subjects who took an intelligence test and provided access to their social media profiles. Facebook users were found to be, on average, more intelligent than VKontakte users, posting more posts containing text, posting less often overall. No significant differences in post characteristics were found between the two social networks. However, differences in the nature of the relationship between intelligence and cognitive complexity of messages were demonstrated for different social networks and for male and female subsamples of users. Correlations were found to be higher at the regional level compared to the individual level, higher for Facebook compared to VKontakte and higher for men compared to women. It is concluded that indicators of texts’ cognitive complexity from social media do reflect the intelligence of their authors, but the extent of this reflection depends on the characteristics of the communicative situation

Besides classical “Aha!” moments after successful solutions, researchers have recently examined the “Oh yes!” phenomenon, which occurs when participants are presented with ready-made answers. We investigated the influence of emotional state on insight ratings in these two situations. We propose two alternative models to predict the impact of emotional state on the likelihood of experiencing “Aha!” and “Oh yes!” moments. The first model is based on the feelings-as-information framework and predicts that a generally more positive mood can be attributed by participants to positive emotions from insight. Participants, interpreting their positive state, believe that it is due to insight and will be more likely to experience both “Aha!” and “Oh yes!” insights. The second hypothesis is based on the attribution theory and connects the evaluation of insight with causal attribution. The causes of failure are attributed to external circumstances, while the causes of success are attributed to internal factors. The prediction aligns with the first hypothesis in the case of correct solutions (success situations). However, in the case of unsuccessful solutions (failure situations), the prediction is opposite. We conducted a study using anagrams as the problem-solving task and employed mood-inducing videos to manipulate the participants' emotional state. Question naires assessing participants' states revealed that our interventions improved the participants' mood, reduced anxiety and fatigue. The results of the analysis supported the second hypothesis. We discuss that the mechanisms through which emotional state influences insight ratings may vary depending on the type of insight and may be related to different attentional focuses, decision-making strategies, or emotional congruence effects.

This paper provides an overview of studies examining the relationship between psychological characteristics and properties of voice. The article presents a historical overview of studies in this field, the main audio characteristics of speech used for voice analysis in modern researches (pitch, intensity and speed), research data on the acoustic and prosodic characteristics of emotions, intentions and personality traits (leadership qualities, charisma, Big Five personality traits). It is shown that negative emotions are recognized by voice better than positive ones, anger and sadness are most accurately recognized. The audio correlates of such measurements of emotions as valence and activation are considered. Acoustic-prosodic characteristics are described not only for basic emotions (anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise), but also of emotions that are of a less intense nature - irritation, resignation, indifference. Just like emotional speech, nonverbal vocalizations have a combination of acoustic properties, which can also be predicted based on their physical properties. It is shown that the perception of charismatic speech is due to a combination of prosodic and lexical properties of speech, and the role of auditory characteristics in the recognition of charisma is lower than in the recognition of emotions, where voice characteristics play a more prominent role than lexical content. When evaluating the Big Five traits using expert assessments, extraversion was found to have the largest number of significant correlations with acousticprosodic and auditory traits. Automatic personality and emotion recognition (using machine learning and neural networks) is a research area, where we can see the burst of empirical studies. Computer technologies assure a high degree of accuracy in personality prediction, but such studies are rarely deeply theoretically grounded. In conclusion, the need for theoretical understanding of the empirical results obtained is emphasized.

В статье представлен обзор работ по изучению взаимосвязи психологических характеристик и акустических свойств голоса. Приводятся историческая справка развития данной области исследований, основные аудиохарактеристики речи, использующиеся для анализа голоса в современных исследованиях (частота основного тона, интенсивность и скорость речи), данные исследований об акустико-просодических характеристиках эмоций, намерений и личностных свойств (лидерские качества, харизматичность, диспозиции Большой пятерки). Показано, что негативные эмоции по голосу распознаются лучше, чем положительные, наиболее точно распознаются гнев и грусть. Рассматриваются аудиокорреляты таких измерений эмоций, как валентность и активация. Описаны акустико-просодические характеристики не только базовых эмоций (гнев, счастье, грусть, страх, отвращение, удивление), но и эмоций, имеющих менее интенсивный характер, – раздражение, уступчивость, безразличие. Так же как и эмоциональная речь, комбинацией акустических свойств обладают невербальные вокализации, которые тоже могут быть спрогнозированы на основе их физических свойств. Показано, что восприятие харизматичной речи обусловлено сочетанием просодических и лексических свойств речи и роль аудиальных характеристик в распознавании харизматичности ниже, чем при распознавании эмоций, где более заметную роль играют именно голосовые характеристики, нежели лексическое содержание. При оценивании черт Большой пятерки с помощью экспертных оценок у экстраверсии было обнаружено наибольшее число значимых корреляций с акустико-просодическими и аудиальными признаками. Рассматриваются исследования в области автоматического распознавания личности и эмоций по голосу с помощью машинного обучения и нейросетей, где в последнее время наблюдается интерес к данной теме. Современные технологии позволяют предсказывать личностные свойства с большой точностью, однако работы в этой области редко бывают основаны на той или иной теоретической модели. В заключение подчеркивается необходимость теоретического осмысления получаемых эмпирических результатов.

В работе исследуются связи характеристик текстовых сообщений пользователей социальной сети ВКонтакте с интеллектом. Анализ проводится на региональном уровне: единицами анализа являются регионы Российской Федерации, сопоставляются усредненные показатели сообщений пользователей, проживающих в регионах, с оценками интеллектуального потенциала регионов. Рассмотренные характеристики сообщений включали фор­мальные и грамматические показатели, а также эмоциональные компоненты сообщений. Оценки интеллектуального потенциала регионов были получены путем усреднения региональных результатов тестирования интеллекта мужчин, желающих поступить на военную службу по контракту, и данных об образовательных достижениях регионов (средний результат ЕГЭ лиц, поступивших в российские вузы в 2018 г.). Анализ показал, что четыре формальных и грамматических показателя (средняя длина слова, относительное количество вводных слов и словосочетаний, относительное количество простых непроизводных предлогов и средняя длина предложения), которые могут рассматриваться как маркеры когнитивной сложности текста, вносят независимый вклад в предсказание регионального интеллекта и в совокупности объясняют 60% его дисперсии. Эмоциональные компоненты сообщений не вносят независимого от маркеров когнитивной сложности текста вклада в предсказание регионального интеллекта. Кроме того, была показана связь регионального интеллекта с активностью и грамотностью пользователей социальной сети ВКонтакте. Значение полученных результатов заключается в том, что они ведут к созданию средств оценки интеллекта по тексту, которые будут иметь, можно полагать, определенные преимущества перед традиционными психометрическими методами его измерения в исследованиях региональных различий интеллекта и его изменения во времени.

The article examines the relationship between characteristics of text messages, composed by users of social network (VKontakte), and intelligence. The analysis is conducted on the regional level: we compared the regional IQ with the text parameters averaged over the users living in one region. The text parameters include formal, grammatical and emotional indexes. The regional IQ is computed as an average z-score of the Unified State Examination score (high school entrants, 2018) and IQ score of the attendees to the volunteer military service. Four text parameters that can be considered as markers of the text cognitive complexity (mean word length, mean sentence length, percent of the parenthetic words and phrases, percent of the simple propositions) predicted regional IQ independently and explained 60% of its variance. Emotional index correlates with regional IQ, but does not predict regional IQ independently of cognitive complexity markers. Moreover, we revealed correlations between regional IQ and literacy of VKontakte users. The significancy of these results is creating the new IQ measure, which allows evaluating regional IQ and its dynamics by means of text analysis. The method has an advantage over the traditional psychometric IQ measures in this field of research.

National IQ estimates are based on psychometric measurements carried out in a variety of cultural contexts and are often obtained from Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests. In a series of studies, J. Philippe Rushton et al. have argued that these tests are not biased with respect to ethnicity or race. Critics claimed their methods were inappropriate and suggested differential item functioning (DIF) analysis as a more suitable alternative. In the present study, we conduct a DIF analysis on Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices Plus (SPM+) tests administered to convenience samples of Yakuts and ethnic Russians. The Yakuts scored lower than the Russians by 4.8 IQ points, a difference that can be attributed to the selectiveness of the Russian sample. Data from the Yakut (n = 518) and Russian (n = 956) samples were analyzed for DIF using logistic regression. Although items B9, B10, B11, B12, and C11 were identified as having uniform DIF, all of these DIF effects can be regarded as negligible (R2 <0.13). This is consistent with Rushton et al.’s arguments that the Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests are ethnically unbiased.

In the current work we aimed to detect the incubation effect using between-subject and within-subject design. We compared the performance rate of solving Remote Association Test in incubation (with a break) and no-incubation conditions. During the incubation phase participants were listening to the audio record of the science-fiction novel. No significant differences were found in the performance level in incubation and no-incubation conditions, neither in within-group nor in the between-group tests. Nonetheless we found the indirect indicators of the processes that are encountered during the incubation period. The discrepancy in the absence of raw performance indicators of incubation on the one hand, and the presence of the difficulty indicators changes on another hand, is discussed in the context of the activation paradigm and the model of awareness of implicit solution.

The incubation period is regarded as an important stage in creative problem solving. The incubation effect manifests itself in the enhanced problem-solving performance after taking a break. Forgetting fixation hypothesis states that incubation provides a problem solver with an opportunity to eliminate inappropriate ideas (mental sets) and therefore to come up with a correct solution. We explored in two studies whether forgetting is an actual mechanism of the incubation period (i.e. whether the traces of inappropriate fixations in memory become weaker as a consequence of incubation). In Study 1 we employed the Alternative Uses Task (AUT) and fixed part of the participants on several most common ways of using an object. We checked then whether incubation helped to forget our fixations. We found the incubation effect (i.e. a greater fluency at the second attempt) only when participants were previously fixated. However, we also found that the incubation didn’t influence the number of fixations. Thus, we failed to find the evidence for forgetting fixation during the incubation period. In Study 2 we used anagrams with two possible solutions and fixed the participant on one of them. Then we used the Lexical Decision Task (LDT) to examine whether these fixations would become weaker as a result of the incubation period. No differences were found between the incubation and no-incubation groups in their response latencies for fixation words. Our results indicate that while the assumption that the function of an incubation period is in overcoming inappropriate mental sets seems to be true, the forgetting fixation theory provides an inaccurate account of underlying mechanisms.

Целью настоящей работы являлось изучение когнитивных механизмов инкубационного периода, который исследователи рассматривают как важный этап в решении творческих задач. Гипотеза забывания фиксаций - одна из наиболее влиятельных гипотез, претендующих на объяснение успешных случаев инкубации. Эта гипотеза предполагает, что инкубация помогает решателю избавиться от неверных решений и, благодаря этому, приблизиться к верному. В двух исследованиях проверялось предположение этой теории о том, что решатель преодолевает неверные идеи благодаря забыванию фиксаций. В Исследовании 1 применялся тест Необычное использование, при этом часть испытуемых была фиксирована на наиболее распространенных способах использования предмета. Результаты Исследования 1, во-первых, продемонстрировали наличие эффекта инкубации (повышение беглости на второй попытке) только в группе с предварительной фиксацией. Во-вторых, было обнаружено, что инкубация не влияла на число решений теста на альтернативное использование, соответствующих фиксациям. В Исследовании 2 мы использовали анаграммы с двумя возможными решениями и фиксировали участников на одном из них. Затем с помощью задачи лексического выбора проверялось, будут ли следы этих фиксаций становиться слабее в результате инкубационного периода. Результаты выполнения задачи лексического решения свидетельствуют об отсутствии различий во времени реакции на решения-фиксации между группой с инкубацией и без инкубации. В целом наши результаты подтверждают, что инкубационный период помогает преодолеть приверженность неверным идеям, но стоящий за этим механизм не является забыванием фиксаций. Обсуждаются другие возможные механизмы.

The study of creative thinking is a pivotal task of psychology and that of then humanities in general. The incubation phenomenon - a preparation to problem solving during a period of relative rest, with no signs of purposeful efforts to resolve the task - is known to scientists for decades. No doubt, some critically important for problem solving (first of all, insightful, as opposed to analytical problem solving) processes must take place during this time. Although a considerable number of studies have been conducted and plausible hypotheses have been formulated, the understanding of this phenomenon still remains far from being satisfying. In this review, a possible association of the incubation phenomenon with activity of the so-called "resting state networks" (RSN) will be scrutinized. The discovery of RSNs is considered a breakthrough in neuroscience of the 21st century, Three most important RSNs are the default mode network (DMN), the central executive network (CEN), and the salience network (SN). We describe them along with methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electro/magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG) that are most frequently used in studying these networks. We discuss new neurocognitive studies of creative thinking, in which an association of insightful problem solving with one of these networks or their combinations has been revealed. We also consider main hypotheses proposed to explain the overcoming of fixation on erroneous solutions during apparent inactivity in terms of network interactions. In our opinion, this new direction of research may help in interdisciplinary grounding earlier psychological explanations and, to some extent, in rehabilitating the "restful inactivity" to optimize the work scheduling of personnel in creative professions.