Processing apparently irrelevant information has been identified as a driving force of successful, creative ideation. Here, in two online eye-tracking experiments, participants (N = 200 international adults) had to come up with possible uses for given objects. In Experiment 1, these target items were surrounded by allegedly irrelevant distractor objects. In line with prior research, we found a significant positive relation of the time looking at this peripheral information and the number and originality of the generated uses. But what are the underlying mechanisms of this relation? For one, this effect could be driven by additional inspiration from the peripheral information. For the other, this relation might be due to reduced interference with the standard use of the target item. To address this question, in Experiment 2, we manipulated within-subject whether distractor items were regular objects or random geometric figures and whether there were two or eight distractor items. Participants generated a higher number of and more original uses when distractor items were real objects compared to geometrical figures. However, for neither condition, we could replicate the positive relation of irrelevance processing and creativity, which we found in Experiment 1. This surprising outcome might be due to reduced statistical power compared to the first experiment. Furthermore, the introduction of the novel distractor condition might have led to a strategy shift. Possibly, irrespective of distractor type, participants relied less on the peripheral information which resulted in no relation of irrelevance processing and creativity for any condition.