Language Experience Shapes Creative Idea Generation

Abstract

Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on creative tasks, suggesting a positive link between bilingualism and creativity. However, the inconsistent definitions of both bilingualism and creativity have made it difficult to understand the precise factors driving the association. Here, we examine the relationship between creativity and bilingualism by focusing on the effects of language proficiency and dominance on divergent thinking. Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals completed the Alternate Uses Task (AUT, a measure of divergent thinking) in each of their languages. Responses were assessed in three ways: number of ideas generated (fluency), the length of each idea (elaboration), and how original each idea was (originality). The originality of each response was scored automatically with a fine-tuned, multilingual large language model. Results revealed that AUT performance was influenced by the language of testing and by participants' language proficiency, indicating a relationship between language experience and divergent thinking. Specifically, higher proficiency and dominance in each language were associated with more original ideas, demonstrating that people's capacity for creative expression is tied to their linguistic abilities. We conclude that verbal creativity assessments, whether in research or real-world settings, should take into account language experience, especially in multilingual populations and contexts.