Flow in Visual Creativity

The overall aim of this research was to experimentally and qualitatively investigate potential antecedents and consequences of flow (being 'in the zone') specific to the visual creativity context. In this thesis I propose four areas which may be unique to creative flow and which require experimental evidence: 1) the ambiguity of feedback and goals; 2) the paradoxical balance between conscious choice/control and automaticity; 3) the links between flow, affect, and creativity, and 4) direct influences of flow on creative performance. To explore these issues, a mixed methods approach was used. A simplified, experimental analogue of the visual creative process, the creative mental synthesis task (CMST; Finke & Slayton, 1988), was used with non-artists. This was a novel use of the task, which was previously focused on creative performance, not the subjective experience of creating