The study had participants take part in mental games and creativity exercises in one of three conditions: total silence, moderately noisy, and loud.
The people working in moderately noisy conditions scored higher than the others.
It may be that a variety of stimuli prompt the mind to make more diverse associations, which is at the heart of creativity. However, the choice of locations probably is important. A coffee shop, for instance, is a place where you're not likely to be interrupted and where the distractions are fleeting (compared to a bar that has a ball game on the TV). It may also be the case that different phases of your creative process might respond to different conditions.
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