mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

The Effects of Generative AI on Design Fixation and Divergent Thinking

arXiv 2403.11164 ↗First posted 17 Mar 2024cs.HCcited by 37

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Abstract (arXiv)

Generative AI systems have been heralded as tools for augmenting human creativity and inspiring divergent thinking, though with little empirical evidence for these claims. This paper explores the effects of exposure to AI-generated images on measures of design fixation and divergent thinking in a visual ideation task. Through a between-participants experiment (N=60), we found that support from an AI image generator during ideation leads to higher fixation on an initial example. Participants who used AI produced fewer ideas, with less variety and lower originality compared to a baseline. Our qualitative analysis suggests that the effectiveness of co-ideation with AI rests on participants' chosen approach to prompt creation and on the strategies used by participants to generate ideas in response to the AI's suggestions. We discuss opportunities for designing generative AI systems for ideation support and incorporating these AI tools into ideation workflows.

Key facts. Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 17 Mar 2024.

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Citing papers per year: 2024: 3; 2025: 16; 2026: 18.

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  1. 2024IdeaSynth: Iterative Research Idea Development Through Evolving and Composing Idea Facets with Literature-Grounded Feedbackcited by 42
  2. 2025Inkspire: Supporting Design Exploration with Generative AI through Analogical Sketchingcited by 13
  3. 2025PosterMate: Audience-driven Collaborative Persona Agents for Poster Designcited by 9
  4. 2026Can Good Writing Be Generative? Expert-Level AI Writing Emerges through Fine-Tuning on High-Quality Bookscited by 9
  5. 2026DiscoverLLM: From Executing Intents to Discovering Themcited by 6
  6. 2025Generative AI and Creativity: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysiscited by 5
  7. 2024Conversational Agents as Catalysts for Critical Thinking: Challenging Design Fixation in Group Designcited by 4
  8. 2025Conversational Agents as Catalysts for Critical Thinking: Challenging Social Influence in Group Decision-makingcited by 4
  9. 2025ClearFairy: Capturing Creative Workflows through Decision Structuring, In-Situ Questioning, and Rationale Inferencecited by 4
  10. 2024From Fake Perfects to Conversational Imperfects: Exploring Image-Generative AI as a Boundary Object for Participatory Design of Public Spacescited by 3
  11. 2025Diverse AI Personas Can Mitigate the Homogenization Effect in Human-AI Collaborative Ideationcited by 3
  12. 2025Exploring Collaborative GenAI Agents in Synchronous Group Settings: Eliciting Team Perceptions and Design Considerations for the Future of Workcited by 3
25 more
  1. 2025Human-AI Interactions: Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Impactscited by 3
  2. 2026AI-exhibited Personality Traits Can Shape Human Self-concept through Conversationscited by 3
  3. 2025ACAI for SBOs: AI Co-creation for Advertising and Inspiration for Small Business Ownerscited by 2
  4. 2025StoryEnsemble: Enabling Dynamic Exploration & Iteration in the Design Process with AI and Forward-Backward Propagationcited by 2
  5. 2025The AI Memory Gap: Users Misremember What They Created With AI or Withoutcited by 2
  6. 2025Exploration vs. Fixation: Scaffolding Divergent and Convergent Thinking for Human-AI Co-Creation with Generative Modelscited by 2
  7. 2025Imagining Design Workflows in Agentic AI Futurescited by 1
  8. 2025Supporting Creative Ownership through Deep Learning-Based Music Variationcited by 1
  9. 2026Beyond Input-Output: Rethinking Creativity through Design-by-Analogy in Human-AI Collaborationcited by 1
  10. 2026"When to Hand Off, When to Work Together": Understanding Concurrent Human-Agent Interaction in Shared Co-Creative Workspacescited by 1
  11. 2026Creo: From One-Shot Image Generation to Progressive, Co-Creative Ideationcited by 1
  12. 2025When Discourse Stalls: Moving Past Five Semantic Stopsigns about Generative AI in Design Researchcited by 0
  13. 2025Feed-O-Meter: Investigating AI-Generated Mentee Personas as Interactive Agents for Scaffolding Design Feedback Practicecited by 0
  14. 2026Progressive Ideation using an Agentic AI Framework for Human-AI Co-Creationcited by 0
  15. 2026Generative AI Assisted Workflows in Architectural Conceptual Design: Performance, Creative Self-Efficacy, and Cognitive Loadcited by 0
  16. 2026The Perfection Paradox: From Architect to Curator in AI-Assisted API Designcited by 0
  17. 2026ExpressEdit: Fast Editing of Stylized Facial Expressions with Diffusion Models in Photoshopcited by 0
  18. 2026Brief2Design: A Multi-phased, Compositional Approach to Prompt-based Graphic Designcited by 0
  19. 2026Beyond Compliance: How AI Could Help Creative Writers by Refusing Themcited by 0
  20. 2026IDEAFix: Evaluation Framework for Creative Defixation Prompting in LLMscited by 0
  21. 2026Design Theater: Evaluating the Gap Between User-Facing Design Reasoning and Implementation in Generative UI Toolscited by 0
  22. 2026Personalizing Personal Health Interfaces: Co-Design with Generative AIcited by 0
  23. 2026"Looking for Something Weird to Happen": How Humans Sustain AI Agent Novelty Amid Semantic Collapsecited by 0
  24. 2026Small-world Networks of Agents Brainstorm AI Risks to Support Ideationcited by 0
  25. 2026Does AI Save Time on Product Design? A Randomized Controlled Experiment of AI Prompt-to-Design Workflowscited by 0