Incubation Research: Potential of Within Subject and Between Subject Experimental Design

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.

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