Inhibition and Creativity in Aging: Does Distractibility Enhance Creativity?

Abstract

As a fundamental attention regulation process, inhibition serves to selectively filter out distraction (i.e., access), dampen activation of automatically activated irrelevant or no-longer-relevant information (i.e., deletion), and select for task-appropriate thoughts and/or responses in the face of competition (i.e., restraint). Inhibition allows us to direct attention or processing toward target information, thoughts, or actions. It is affected by several factors and is especially compromised with aging as demonstrated in both behavioral and neuroimaging research. Nevertheless, older adults show significant and durable plasticity in inhibition performance. Heightened distractibility as a result of impaired inhibition in older adults can manifest as a cost or a benefit with a tendency to be related to better creativity performance when distraction becomes task relevant. In this article, we review the components of inhibitory theory, summarizing intraindividual variability and interindividual differences in inhibition, with a specific focus on the inhibitory deficit associated with aging. The review also brings together theories and empirical findings to support the relationship between inhibitory deficit and creativity in the context of aging.