Abstract
This study examines the effects of an incubation period on the creative thinking-
process, particularly on the metaphor creation process. In an experiment, participants
were asked to create“X like a Y” type metaphors on the basis of theme phrases, which
contain adjectives and nouns. Participants in the control group were asked to create
metaphors immediately after they were given the theme phrase. Participants in the in-
cubation group were asked to generate metaphors after a distracter task. Participants
in the wait group were asked to create metaphors after thinking for three minutes. The
results of the experiment revealed that when the theme phrases contained connected but
complex words, the incubation group created more metaphors than the other groups.
When the theme phrases contained diverse but disjointed words, the wait group created
more metaphors than the other groups.
