How do we humans search for creative ideas

During my thesis, under the supervision of Emmanuelle Volle , I will be studying the cognitive mechanisms that enable humans to generate creative ideas. Following on from the work of Marcela Ovando-Tellez , my project focuses on the very first stage of creative ideation: the memory search processes that enable creative ideas to be generated.

I am focusing on two key aspects: spontaneous memory search by associations of ideas, constrained by the organisation of these associations in an individual's memory, and the role of executive and attentional processes in regulating this search, as a function of context and goals. To date, the way in which these controlled and spontaneous processes are articulated during an idea search remains largely unknown. The fundamental aim of my project is to understand the structure of semantic representation and the functioning of the spontaneous, controlled and attentional processes involved in the generation of creative ideas.