Over 50 experiments over the past 30 years have consistently shown that nominal brainstorming, which involves no communication at all, generates greater quantity and quality of ideas than verbal brainstorming, but computer-mediated brainstorming is even better than nominal brainstorming when there are a large number of members. Brainstorming is even better than nominal brainstorming when the number of members is large.
This may be due to the fact that each person is given a PC, so there is no blocking of output; the ability to read back logs at any time eliminates the cognitive cost of remembering the flow of existing conversations; and the anonymity of the speaker eliminates the risk of being ridiculed for outlandish opinions.
The results did not differ from the NOMINAL for a team of 6, but exceeded the NOMINAL for a team of 12. Several other experiments have been reported in which the number of participants must be somewhat large to show a difference.
Computer brainstorms Dennis, A. R., & Valacich, J. S. (1993). Computer brainstorms: More heads are better than one. Journal of applied psychology, 78(4), 531.
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