Creativity and change of context: The influence of object-context (in)congruency on cognitive flexibility

•The effect of object-context congruency was studied in a VR environment.•Participants in the incongruent environments displayed higher cognitive flexibility.•Participants in the incongruent environments also produced more original ideas.•Object-incongruency did not affect fluency and the usefulness of ideas.•Differences between the two incongruent environments were found.