A Positive Association between Working Memory Capacity and Human Creativity: A Meta-Analytic Evidence

Abstract

Creativity serves as a fountain for social and scientific development. As one of the most crucial human capabilities, creativity has been believed to be supported by the core component of higher cognitive functions—working memory capacity (WMC). However, the evidence supporting the association between WMC and creativity remains contradictory. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis using random-effects models to investigate the linear association between WMC and creativity by pooling the individual effect size from the previous literature. Further, a subgroup analysis was performed to examine whether such association is specific for different WMC categories (i.e., verbal WMC, visual–spatial WMC and dual-task WMC). The main meta-analytic results showed a significantly positive association between WMC and creativity (r = .083, 95% CI: .050–.115, p < .001, n = 3104, k = 28). The subgroup analysis demonstrated consistent results by showing a significantly positive association between them, irrespective of WMC category. We also found that cultural environments could moderate this association, and we identified a strong correlation in participants from an Asian cultural context. In conclusion, this study provides the evidence to clarify the positive association between WMC and creativity, and implies that the Asian cultural context may boost such an association.

Keywords

• creativity
• working memory
• meta-analysis
• cultural environment
• working memory capacity