Exploration of Physiological Arousal in Divergent and Convergent Thinking using 2D screen and VR Sketching Tools.

Abstract

Creativity Support Tools (CSTs), like sketching tools, enable designers in their creative activities. As designers may have different needs during different thinking phases, accessing physiological responses in real-time would enable CSTs to better adapt to these different phases. Several studies have focused on either different phases on the same tool or the same phase on different tools. We investigate ways to discriminate divergent and convergent thinking phases using physiological response. We replicated the same experiment with thirty participants each on two different CSTs: in immersive virtual reality and on an interactive whiteboard (2D). We analyzed Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) during a divergent thinking task followed by a convergent thinking task. Our results revealed significant changes in arousal, measured through HRV and GSR, which seem specific to each creative thinking phase. We discuss how each phase can be linked with specific reactions independently of the CST. We suggest that it may be possible to detect a favorable creative state depending on the task being performed.