Writer's block?
Head to a bustling coffee shop!
Yes, caffeine helps. But new research shows that the moderate noise level in busy cafés also perks up your creative cognition.
Researchers led by Ravi Mehta conducted five experiments to understand how ambient sounds affect creative cognition. As the researchers write in their paper, "Instead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking out of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment may trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas." (Here's a helpful chart on typical noise levels.)
The next time you're stumped on a creative challenge, head to a bustling coffee shop, not the library.
The full study, "Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition," is published in the Journal of Consumer Research.