We examine how idea exposure produces cognitive stimulation. Study participants were given stimulus ideas with a low or high level of originality, or with absurd content. Stimuli were exposed in conditions of face-to-face communication and with computer and paper mediation, respectively. Three...

A common approach to innovation, parallel search, is to identify a large number of opportunities and then to select a subset for further development, with just a few coming to fruition. One potential weakness with parallel search is that it permits repetition. The same, or a similar, idea might...