Assessing the Effect of Cross-Domain Mapping on Creativity in Humans and Large Language Models
Creative ideas often arise by associating remote concepts. Can random associations reliably increase originality, and do they help humans and large language models (LLMs) in the same way? We asked human participants and seven LLMs to design products by drawing inspiration from a random source or addressing an unmet user need. Humans reliably benefited from cross-domain mappings, while LLMs generated more original ideas than humans but showed no overall benefit from the intervention, though this changed with semantic distance. More distant source-target pairings produced more original ideas in both humans and LLMs. Humans benefited at nearly any distance, while only the highest-rated LLMs ...
| Authors | Qiawen Ella Liu, Marina Dubova, Henry Conklin et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 19 March 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 15 September 2026 |
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