Noisy Coffee shops help creativity

shankar s. / CC

Noisy coffee shops could be good for your creativity, according to a study from the Journal of Consumer Research. The study analyzed how ambient sounds impact our creative cognition. They asked test participants to brainstorm while exposed to varying levels of sound, and found that a noisy environment produced better results than complete silence. High levels of sound — think, a freeway overpass or a construction site — weren’t so great for creative cognition.