Ut Na Sio and Thomas C. Ormerod included thirty-seven of the most rigorous studies and concluded that the incubation effect is real, all right, but that it does not work the same in all circumstances. Sio and Ormerod divided incubation breaks into three categories. One was relaxing, like lying on the couch listening to music. Another was mildly active, like surfing the Internet. The third was highly engaging, like writing a short essay or digging into other homework. For math or spatial problems, like the Pencil Problem, people benefit from any of these three; it doesn’t seem to matter which
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