Creative thinking: Immersive, interactive, and multi-sensory experiences

Virtual reality is a technology widely employed in cognitive science, aimed at studying human behavior and cognition. In recent years, virtual environments (VEs) have been applied to investigate the human creative process, focusing on divergent thinking. Along this line of research, our study addresses the immersive, interactive, and multisensory aspects of the VR technologiesy to enhance individuals’ creative thinking. We tested a sample of N=60 participants, using positive (N=20), negative (N=20), and neutral (N=20) auditory stimulation within an interactive virtual environment, in order to test possible change in divergent and associative thinking of the users. Our findings provide a first piece of evidence that immersive, interactive and multisensorial experiences enhance human creative thinking, particularly using positive auditory stimulations.