Creativity meets neuroscience: Experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking

Dual cognitive pathways to voice quality: Frequent voicers improvise, infrequent voicers elaborate

We investigate the involvement of Working Memory Capacity (WMC, the cognitive resource necessary for controlled elaborate thinking) in voice behavior (speaking up with suggestions, problems, and opinions to change the organization). While scholars assume voice requires elaborate thinking, some empirical evidence suggests voice might be more automatic. To explain this discrepancy, we distinguish between voice quantity (frequency of voice) and voice quality (novelty and value of voiced information) and propose that WMC is important for voice quality, but less for voice quantity. Furthermore, we propose that frequent voicers rely less on WMC to reach high voice quality than people who voice rarely. To test our ideas, we conducted three studies: a between-participant lab-study, a within-participant experiment, and a multi-source field-study. All studies supported our expectation that voice quantity is unrelated to WMC, and that voice quality is positively related to WMC, but only for those who rarely voice. This indicates that the decision to voice (quantity) might be more automatic and intuitive than often assumed, whereas its value to the organization (quality), relies more on the degree of cognitive elaboration of the voicer. It also suggests that frequent and infrequent voicers use distinct cognitive pathways to voice high-quality information: frequent voicers improvise, while infrequent voicers elaborate.

The Effect of Zhongyong Thinking on Remote Association Thinking: An EEG Study

The Doctrine of the Mean (zhongyong) introduced by Confucianism is not only an aspect of faith, but also a way of thinking for Chinese individuals. Zhongyong includes two thinking forms: eclectic thinking (ET; i.e., “neither-A-nor-B”) and integrated thinking (IT; i.e., “both-A-and-B”). Given the inclination of Asian individuals toward situational cognition, this study used questions about situations familiar to Chinese undergraduates to activate either ET or IT. This was done to investigate the effects of the two divergent thinking forms of zhongyong on performance levels on the Remote Associates Test (RAT). Both behavioral and EEG results found that participants in the IT condition demonstrated higher RAT scores than those in the ET condition. The conclusion was that the RAT and priming tasks shared the same neural mechanism. This meant that the priming tasks of IT allowed participants to enter a state of creative preparation in advance, further affecting resolution of the RAT.

The Dynamics of Creative Ideation: Introducing a New Assessment Paradigm

Despite six decades of creative cognition research, measures of creative ideation have heavily relied on divergent thinking tasks, which still suffer from conceptual, design, and psychometric shortcomings. These shortcomings have greatly impeded the accurate study of creative ideation, its dynamics, development, and integration as part of a comprehensive psychological assessment. After a brief overview of the historical and current anchoring of creative ideation measurement, overlooked challenges in its most common operationalization (i.e., divergent thinking tasks framework) are discussed. They include (1) the reliance on a single stimulus as a starting point of the creative ideation process (stimulus-dependency), (2) the analysis of response quality based on a varying number of observations across test-takers (fluency-dependency), and (3) the production of "static" cumulative performance indicators. Inspired from an emerging line of work from the field of cognitive neuroscience of creativity, this paper introduces a new assessment framework referred to as "Multi-Trial Creative Ideation" (MTCI). This framework shifts the current measurement paradigm by (1) offering a variety of stimuli presented in a well-defined set of ideation "trials," (2) reinterprets the concept of ideational fluency using a time-analysis of idea generation, and (3) captures individual dynamics in the ideation process (e.g., modeling the effort-time required to reach a response of maximal uncommonness) while controlling for stimulus-specific sources of variation. Advantages of the MTCI framework over the classic divergent thinking paradigm are discussed in light of current directions in the field of creativity research.

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Design Creativity

Design cognition is a human cognitive ability that is characterized by multi-faceted skills and competencies. This skill requires finding solutions for a vague problem, where the end point is not specified and the transformations from the problem state to the solution state are also flexible. Designers solve such tasks regularly, but the mental processes involved in such a skill are not known completely. Design research has involved empirical studies and theoretical modeling to understand the cognitive processes underlying this skill. In lab-based studies, a sub-class of problem-solving tasks called “ill-structured” tasks has been used to study the design process. However, the use of a cognitive neuroscience perspective has only been nascent. In this review, some defining features of design creativity will be elucidated and a few cognitive neuroscience studies of design creativity that shows the underlying brain networks will be highlighted. Results from these experiments using ill-structured tasks along with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) show that the brain networks underlying design creativity only partially overlap with brain networks underlying other kinds of creativity. This argues for studying design creativity as a unique subset of creativity using experiments that mimic the real-world design creative processes.

Use a Spoon as a Spade?: Changes in the Upper and Lower Alpha Bands in Evaluating Alternate Object Use

Previous electrophysiological research on human creative cognition has related creative ideation to increased activity in the alpha band, an effect which mainly reflects increased general attentional demands. Research on alpha unrelated to creativity has revealed different functional roles of the upper (semantic processes) and lower (attentional processes) alpha sub-bands. At the same time, the need to dissect creative thinking into specific cognitive operations, such as, semantic processing, re-representation, or conceptual expansion has become evident. The main aim of the reported study was to test whether increased semantic processing demands linked to creating conceptual re-representations of objects required for evaluating alternate uses modulate activity in the upper and/or lower alpha sub-bands. For this purpose, we performed an alternate use evaluation task (AUeT), in which participants saw word pairs representing common uses, alternate uses, and unrelated word pairs, and evaluated whether a given use was common or uncommon (question 1), and how usable it was (question 2). Such an approach allowed us to examine the time-course of semantic processing involved in evaluating alternate uses. Additionally, the results could be contrasted with event-related potential (ERP) studies on creative language and semantic processing. We assumed that demands related to access and integration of semantic information needed to create a re-representation of objects (alternate uses) would be larger than in the case of common uses, which do not require creating a re-representation. This should be reflected in more activity in the alpha band in response to alternate than common uses, which was observed in the analysis of the upper alpha band over parieto-occipital sites. In the lower alpha band, more activity over the left than right anterior sites was observed for alternate uses, which might reflect increased attentional demands. Additionally, in the ERP analysis, alternate uses evoked larger N400 (400–500 ms) amplitudes than common uses, a pattern that extended to later time windows (500–1,000 ms). Overall, the results indicate increased semantic processing demands in alternate use evaluation, possibly linked to the creation of conceptual re-representations.

Reappraisal inventiveness: impact of appropriate brain activation during efforts to generate alternative appraisals on the perception of chronic stress in women

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Previous research indicated that more left-lateralized prefrontal activation during cognitive reappraisal efforts was linked to a greater capacity for generating reappraisals, which is a prerequisite for the effective implementation of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life. The present study examined whether the supposedly appropriate brain activation is relevant in terms of more distal outcomes, i.e., chronic stress perception.

DESIGN AND METHODS

Prefrontal EEG alpha asymmetry was recorded while female participants were generating reappraisals for stressful events and was correlated with their self-reported chronic stress levels in everyday life (n = 80).

RESULTS

Women showing less left-lateralized brain activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during cognitive reappraisal efforts reported experiencing more stress in their daily lives. This effect was independent of self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions.

CONCLUSION

These findings underline the practical relevance of individual differences in appropriate brain activation during emotion regulation efforts and the assumedly related basic capacity for the generation of cognitive reappraisals to the feeling of being stressed. Implications include the selection of interventions for the improvement of coping with stress in women in whom the capability for appropriate brain activation during reappraisal efforts may be impaired, e.g., due to depression or old age.

The capacity for generating cognitive reappraisals is reflected in asymmetric activation of frontal brain regions

Encouraging patients to use cognitive reappraisal constitutes the core of modern psychotherapeutic approaches. However, evidence for specific neural correlates of the capacity for cognitive reappraisal, which is a necessary prerequisite for the effective implementation of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life, has been sparse to date. In the present study, the capacity for cognitive reappraisal was studied in terms of the participants’ inventiveness in generating alternative appraisals of anger-evoking events, and was correlated with frontal EEG alpha asymmetry recorded while the participants were generating reappraisals as well as during a common creative idea generation task. During cognitive reappraisal efforts, individuals higher on the capacity for generating cognitive reappraisals showed more left-lateralized activity in lateral prefrontal cortex, specifically in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex extending toward the frontal pole. This effect was observed independently from the activation during novel idea generation without emotional component, indicating that specific demands are implicated in the generation of reappraisals of emotional events. Taken together, the results indicate that individuals higher on the capacity for cognitive reappraisal are more capable or more prone to recruit appropriate brain regions when the situation demands coming up with alternative appraisals of stressful events. The findings may stimulate the development of more individually targeted interventions.

Effects of alpha and gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on verbal creativity and intelligence test performance

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that allows to directly modulate brain oscillations of a given frequency. Using this method, it was recently shown that increasing alpha (10Hz) oscillations improved creative ideation with figural material and that increasing gamma (40Hz) oscillations speeded up performance in a figural matrices intelligence task. The aim of the present study was to examine whether these findings generalize to verbal creativity and intelligence tasks. In addition, we explored whether the stimulation effects are moderated by individual differences in creative potential and intelligence. Twenty-two adults received 10Hz, 40Hz and sham tACS while they worked on a verbal creativity (alternate uses) task and a verbal intelligence (anagram) task. Analyses revealed that 10Hz stimulation had a marginally significant effect on ideational fluency in the alternate uses task, whereas originality was unaffected. The beneficial effect of stimulation on fluency tended to emerge mainly in the individuals with higher creative potential. In the verbal intelligence task, in contrast, 40Hz stimulation did neither impact on performance nor interacted with individual differences in intelligence. These findings provide first tentative evidence that enhancing alpha oscillations through tACS may improve creative thinking not only in the figural but also in the verbal domain. The previously reported beneficial effect of gamma tACS on figural intelligence, however, could not be observed in a verbal task. In sum, the present study further corroborates the causal link between alpha oscillations and creative thinking and suggests that tACS may be a promising tool to enhance cognitive processes.

Neural Foundations of Creativity: A Systematic Review

When considering the importance of the human cognitive function of creativity, we often overlook the fact that it is due to human creativity and to the constant search for new sensory stimuli that our world has, throughout the years, been one of innovation in every aspect of our existence -in the sciences, the humanities, and the arts. Almost everything that surrounds us is the result of human creativity, therefore it is not difficult to understand that although neuroscientific research has led to valuable perceptions into the probable underpinnings of this multifaceted ability, the precise neurological substrates that underlie creativity are yet to be determined. Despite the establishment of a strong link between creativity and divergent thinking, other brain networks have been implicated in this mental process. The following review underlines recent studies on the neural foundations of creativity. A comprehensive analysis of the upmost important facts will be presented, with emphasis on concepts, tests, and methods that have been used to study creativity, and how they have outlined a pathway to the key understanding of this unique human ability.

Brain Areas Subserving Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: An Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Background and Purpose

Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is a well-known and commonly used measure of creativity. However, the TTCT-induced creative hemodynamic brain activity is rarely revealed. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the neural correlates of creative thinking in the setting of a modified version of the figural TTCT adapted for an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment.

Methods

We designed a blocked fMRI experiment. Twenty-five participants (11 males, 14 females, mean age 19.9±1.8) were asked to complete the partially presented line drawing of the figural TTCT (creative drawing imagery; creative). As a control condition, subjects were asked to keep tracking the line on the screen (line tracking; control).

Results

Compared to the control condition, creative condition revealed greater activation in the distributed and bilateral brain regions including the left anterior cingulate, bilateral frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital regions as shown in the previous creativity studies.

Conclusions

The present revealed the neural basis underlying the figural TTCT using fMRI, providing an evidence of brain areas encompassing the figural TTCT. Considering the significance of a creativity test for dementia patients, the neural correlates of TTCT elucidated by this study may be valuable to evaluate the brain function of patients in the clinical field.

Neural correlates of serial order effect in verbal divergent thinking

During the course of divergent thinking (DT), the number of generated ideas decreases while the originality of ideas increases. This phenomenon is labeled as serial order effect in DT. The present study investigated whether different executive processes (i.e., updating, shifting, and inhibition) specifically contribute to the serial order effect in DT. Participants' executive functions were measured by corresponding experimental tasks outside of the EEG lab. They were required to generate original uses of conventional objects (alternative uses task) during EEG recording. The behavioral results revealed that the originality of ideas was higher in later stage of DT (i.e., Epoch 2) than in its earlier stage (i.e., Epoch 1) for higher-shifting individuals, but showed no difference between two epochs for lower-shifting individuals. The EEG results revealed that lower-inhibition individuals showed stronger upper alpha (10-13Hz) synchronization in left frontal areas during Epoch 1 compared to during Epoch 2. For higher-inhibition individuals, no changes in upper alpha activity from Epoch 1 to Epoch 2 were found. These findings indicated that shifting and inhibition contributed to create a serial order effect in DT, perhaps because individuals suppress interference from obvious ideas and switch to new idea categories during DT, thus more original ideas appear as time passes by.

Intelligence and Creativity in Problem Solving: The Importance of Test Features in Cognition Research

This paper discusses the importance of three features of psychometric tests for cognition research: construct definition, problem space, and knowledge domain. Definition of constructs, e.g., intelligence or creativity, forms the theoretical basis for test construction. Problem space, being well or ill-defined, is determined by the cognitive abilities considered to belong to the constructs, e.g., convergent thinking to intelligence, divergent thinking to creativity. Knowledge domain and the possibilities it offers cognition are reflected in test results. We argue that (a) comparing results of tests with different problem spaces is more informative when cognition operates in both tests on an identical knowledge domain, and (b) intertwining of abilities related to both constructs can only be expected in tests developed to instigate such a process. Test features should guarantee that abilities can contribute to self-generated and goal-directed processes bringing forth solutions that are both new and applicable. We propose and discuss a test example that was developed to address these issues.

The Neuroscience of Divergent Thinking

Creativity plays a role in innovation, development, and health. Recent research has used neuroscientific methods to study originality, novelty, insight, divergent thinking, and other processes related to creative mental activity. Findings indicate that both hemispheres are involved in divergent thinking, which is accompanied by both event-related increases and decreases in the neural activation. Divergent thinking seems to be associated with high neural activation in the central, temporal, and parietal regions, indications of semantic processing and re-combination of semantically related information. Most of the research in this area has been done in the last 10 years, and very likely refining and standardizing DT testing and scoring will lead to additional insights about creativity.

Creative ways to well-being: Reappraisal inventiveness in the context of anger-evoking situations

Neuroscientific studies in the field of creativity mainly focused on tasks drawing on basic verbal divergent thinking demands. This study took a step further by investigating brain mechanisms in response to other types of creative behavior, involving more "real-life" creativity demands in the context of emotion regulation and well-being. Specifically, functional patterns of EEG alpha activity were investigated while participants were required to generate as many and as different ways as possible to reappraise presented anger-eliciting situations in a manner that reduces their anger. Cognitive reappraisal involves some of the same cognitive processes as in conventional verbal creativity tasks, inasmuch as it requires an individual to inhibit or disengage from an emotional event, to shift attention between different perspectives, and to flexibly adopt new solutions. To examine whether alpha oscillations during cognitive reappraisal are different from those during conventional creative ideation, the EEG was also assessed during performance of the Alternative Uses task, requiring individuals to generate as many and as original uses of an object as possible. While cognitive reappraisal was associated with a similar pattern of alpha power as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation, the former yielded significantly stronger alpha power increases at prefrontal sites, along with lower alpha increases at more posterior cortical sites, indicating higher cognitive control and less spontaneous imaginative thought processes in the generation of effective strategies to regulate an ongoing negative emotional state.

Functional neuroimaging of visual creativity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

INTRODUCTION

The generation of creative visual imagery contributes to technological and scientific innovation and production of visual art. The underlying cognitive and neural processes are, however, poorly understood.

METHODS

This review synthesizes functional neuroimaging studies of visual creativity. Seven functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and 19 electroencephalography (EEG) studies were included, comprising 27 experiments and around 800 participants.

RESULTS

Activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of the fMRI studies comparing visual creativity to non-rest control tasks yielded significant clusters in thalamus, left fusiform gyrus, and right middle and inferior frontal gyri. The EEG studies revealed a tendency for decreased alpha power during visual creativity compared to baseline, but comparisons of visual creativity to non-rest control tasks revealed inconsistent findings.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings are consistent with suggested contributions to visual creativity of prefrontally mediated inhibition, evaluation, and working memory, as well as visual imagery processes. Findings are discussed in relation to prominent theories of the neural basis of creativity.

The Association between Resting Functional Connectivity and Visual Creativity

Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), the temporal correlation of intrinsic activation between different brain regions, has become one of the most fascinating field in the functional imaging studies. To better understand the association between RSFC and individual creativity, we used RSFC and the figure Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT-F) to investigate the relationship between creativity measured by TTCT and RSFC within two different brain networks, default mode network and the cognitive control network, in a large healthy sample (304). We took the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) to be the seed regions and investigated the association across subjects between the score of TTCT-F and the strength of RSFC between these seed regions and other voxels in the whole brain. Results revealed that the strength of RSFC with the MPFC was significantly and negatively correlated with the score of TTCT-F in the precuneus. Meanwhile, we also found that the strength of RSFC with the left DLPFC was significantly and positively correlated with the score of TTCT-F in the right DLPFC. It suggests that the decreased RSFC within DMN and the increased RSFC within CCN presents a potential interaction mechanism between different region for higher creativity.

What relates newspaper, definite, and clothing? An article describing deficits in convergent problem solving and creativity following hippocampal damage

Creativity relies on a diverse set of cognitive processes associated with distinct neural correlates, and one important aspect of creativity, divergent thinking, has been associated with the hippocampus. However, hippocampal contributions to another important aspect of creativity, convergent problem solving, have not been investigated. We tested the necessity of hippocampus for convergent problem solving using a neuropsychological method. Participants with amnesia due to hippocampal damage (N = 5) and healthy normal comparison participants (N = 5) were tested using a task that promoted solutions based on existing knowledge (Bowden and Jung-Beeman, 2003). During each trial, participants were given a list of three words (e.g., fly, man, place) and asked to respond with a word that could be combined with each of the three words (e.g., fire). The amnesic group produced significantly fewer correct responses than the healthy comparison group. These findings indicate that the hippocampus is necessary for normal convergent problem solving and that changes in the status of the hippocampus should affect convergent problem solving in the context of creative problem-solving across short intervals. This proposed contribution of the hippocampus to convergent problem solving is consistent with an expanded perspective on hippocampal function that acknowledges its role in cognitive processes beyond declarative memory. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Interaction effect of response medium and working memory capacity on creative idea generation

This study aimed to examine the interaction effect of response medium (i.e., write down ideas and orally report ideas) and working memory capacity (WMC) on creative idea generation. Participants (N = 90) with higher or lower WMC were asked to solve Alternative Uses Task (AUT) problems in the condition of writing down or speaking out ideas. The results showed that fluency of AUT performance was higher in the writing than in the speaking condition. Additionally, participants with higher WMC performed better on AUT fluency than those with lower WMC in the writing condition, while they showed no difference in the speaking condition. Moreover, level of cognitive demand fully mediated the effect of response medium on AUT fluency. Theoretically, these findings indicated the importance of WMC in creative idea generation, which supported the controlled-attention theory of creativity. Practical implications and future directions were discussed.

More mind wandering, fewer original ideas: be not distracted during creative idea generation

Several studies suggest that mind wandering (MW) benefits creativity when the MW occurs in the incubation period of creative problem solving. The aim of present study was to examine the effects of MW that occurs in the course of creative idea generation. Participants received an Alternative Uses Task (AUT) and were asked to generate ideas for 20min. Their MW frequencies as time passed were measured by means of probe-caught MW. Comparisons of the AUT performances of high and low MW groups revealed that greater MW was associated with lower fluency and originality scores on the AUT. Furthermore, the high MW group showed greater MW as time passed, while the low MW group's MW was steady during the course of idea generation. Accordingly, the originality of idea generation decreased with time passing for the high MW group but was steady for the low MW group. The findings suggest that the MW during the course of creative idea generation is negatively related to creativity, perhaps because the control processes involved in idea generation are impaired by the mind wandering.

Training of verbal creativity modulates brain activity in regions associated with language- and memory-related demands

This functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study was designed to investigate changes in functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation as a result of a computerized, 3-week verbal creativity training. The training was composed of various verbal divergent thinking exercises requiring participants to train approximately 20 min per day. Fifty-three participants were tested three times (psychometric tests and fMRI assessment) with an intertest-interval of 4 weeks each. Participants were randomly assigned to two different training groups, which received the training time-delayed: The first training group was trained between the first and the second test, while the second group accomplished the training between the second and the third test session. At the behavioral level, only one training group showed improvements in different facets of verbal creativity right after the training. Yet, functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation were strikingly similar across both training groups. Whole-brain voxel-wise analyses (along with supplementary region of interest analyses) revealed that the training was associated with activity changes in well-known creativity-related brain regions such as the left inferior parietal cortex and the left middle temporal gyrus, which have been shown as being particularly sensitive to the originality facet of creativity in previous research. Taken together, this study demonstrates that continuous engagement in a specific complex cognitive task like divergent thinking is associated with reliable changes of activity patterns in relevant brain areas, suggesting more effective search, retrieval, and integration from internal memory representations as a result of the training.

THE CREATIVE INVESTIGATION OF BRAIN ACTIVITY WITH EEG FOR GENDER AND LEFT/RIGHT-HANDED DIFFERENCES

This paper studied the differences of gender and left/right-handed groups from a neuroscience perspective through task-related power of alpha power changes during the generation of creative ideas. Aiming to investigate the effects of the differences, it will help understand the specific neural processes for different genders and left/right-handed groups. We used B-Alert X10®; electroencephalography (EEG) system, computed for left and right hemispheres, to determine if EEG metrics differentiated between the gender and left/right-handed groups. This study assessed EEG power spectral density (PSD) while 17 healthy participants worked on the alternative uses (AU) task. The results showed that (1) the creativity level has no relations with the gender; there is no obvious difference between males and females on the process of creative idea generation. (2) The creativity level is high related to the cultivation of innovative ability. There is obvious higher alpha power changes in posterior regions of the right hemisphere compared to the left hemisphere of the brain for high original group, and a stronger task-related alpha synchronization showed in the right hemisphere than that in the left one for the low original group. (3) There is comparatively lower alpha power in parietal region in the left hemisphere than that in the right one for the left-handed participants, and higher alpha power in the frontal region for the left-handed and in parietal region for right-handed participants. The comparison among different genders and left/right-handed participants can help us understand more about the creative thinking manifested in the human brain.

The combined effects of neurostimulation and priming on creative thinking. A preliminary tDCS study on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

The role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in influencing creative thinking has been investigated by many researchers who, while succeeding in proving an effective involvement of PFC, reported suggestive but sometimes conflicting results. In order to better understand the relationships between creative thinking and brain activation in a more specific area of the PFC, we explored the role of dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC). We devised an experimental protocol using transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). The study was based on a 3 (kind of stimulation: anodal vs. cathodal vs. sham) × 2 (priming: divergent vs. convergent) design. Forty-five healthy adults were randomly assigned to one stimulation condition. Participants' creativity skills were assessed using the Product Improvement subtest from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). After 20 min of tDCS stimulation, participants were presented with visual images of common objects. Half of the participants were instructed to visualize themselves using the object in an unusual way (divergent priming), whereas the other half were asked to visualize themselves while using the object in a common way (convergent priming). Priming was aimed at inducing participants to adopt different attitudes toward the creative task. Afterwards, participants were asked to describe all of the possible uses of the objects that were presented. Participants' physiological activation was recorded using a biofeedback equipment. Results showed a significant effect of anodal stimulation that enhanced creative performance, but only after divergent priming. Participants showed lower skin temperature values after cathodal stimulation, a finding which is coherent with studies reporting that, when a task is not creative or creative thinking is not prompted, people show lower levels of arousal. Differences in individual levels of creativity as assessed by the Product Improvement test were not influential. The involvement of DLPFC in creativity has been supported, presumably in association to shift of attention modulated by priming.

Brain activity and connectivity during poetry composition: Toward a multidimensional model of the creative process

Creativity, a multifaceted construct, can be studied in various ways, for example, investigating phases of the creative process, quality of the creative product, or the impact of expertise. Previous neuroimaging studies have assessed these individually. Believing that each of these interacting features must be examined simultaneously to develop a comprehensive understanding of creative behavior, we examined poetry composition, assessing process, product, and expertise in a single experiment. Distinct activation patterns were associated with generation and revision, two major phases of the creative process. Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was active during both phases, yet responses in dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal executive systems (DLPFC/IPS) were phase‐dependent, indicating that while motivation remains unchanged, cognitive control is attenuated during generation and re‐engaged during revision. Experts showed significantly stronger deactivation of DLPFC/IPS during generation, suggesting that they may more effectively suspend cognitive control. Importantly however, similar overall patterns were observed in both groups, indicating the same cognitive resources are available to experts and novices alike. Quality of poetry, assessed by an independent panel, was associated with divergent connectivity patterns in experts and novices, centered upon MPFC (for technical facility) and DLPFC/IPS (for innovation), suggesting a mechanism by which experts produce higher quality poetry. Crucially, each of these three key features can be understood in the context of a single neurocognitive model characterized by dynamic interactions between medial prefrontal areas regulating motivation, dorsolateral prefrontal, and parietal areas regulating cognitive control and the association of these regions with language, sensorimotor, limbic, and subcortical areas distributed throughout the brain. Hum Brain Mapp 36:3351–3372, 2015. © 2015 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc..

Functional role of frontal alpha oscillations in creativity

Creativity, the ability to produce innovative ideas, is a key higher-order cognitive function that is poorly understood. At the level of macroscopic cortical network dynamics, recent electroencephalography (EEG) data suggests that cortical oscillations in the alpha frequency band (8-12 Hz) are correlated with creative thinking. However, whether alpha oscillations play a functional role in creativity has remained unknown. Here we show that creativity is increased by enhancing alpha power using 10 Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (10 Hz-tACS) of the frontal cortex. In a study of 20 healthy participants with a randomized, balanced cross-over design, we found a significant improvement of 7.4% in the Creativity Index measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a comprehensive and most frequently used assay of creative potential and strengths. In a second similar study with 20 subjects, 40 Hz-tACS was used instead of 10 Hz-tACS to rule out a general "electrical stimulation" effect. No significant change in the Creativity Index was found for such frontal 40 Hz stimulation. Our results suggest that alpha activity in frontal brain areas is selectively involved in creativity; this enhancement represents the first demonstration of specific neuronal dynamics that drive creativity and can be modulated by non-invasive brain stimulation. Our findings agree with the model that alpha recruitment increases with internal processing demands and is involved in inhibitory top-down control, which is an important requirement for creative ideation.

Frontopolar activity and connectivity support dynamic conscious augmentation of creative state

No ability is more valued in the modern innovation-fueled economy than thinking creatively on demand, and the "thinking cap" capacity to augment state creativity (i.e., to try and succeed at thinking more creatively) is of broad importance for education and a rich mental life. Although brain-based creativity research has focused on static individual differences in trait creativity, less is known about changes in creative state within an individual. How does the brain augment state creativity when creative thinking is required? Can augmented creative state be consciously engaged and disengaged dynamically across time? Using a novel "thin slice" creativity paradigm in 55 fMRI participants performing verb-generation, we successfully cued large, conscious, short-duration increases in state creativity, indexed quantitatively by a measure of semantic distance derived via latent semantic analysis. A region of left frontopolar cortex, previously associated with creative integration of semantic information, exhibited increased activity and functional connectivity to anterior cingulate gyrus and right frontopolar cortex during cued augmentation of state creativity. Individual differences in the extent of increased activity in this region predicted individual differences in the extent to which participants were able to successfully augment state creative performance after accounting for trait creativity and intelligence.

Thin slices of creativity: using single-word utterances to assess creative cognition

We investigated the hypothesis that individual differences in creative cognition can be manifest even in brief responses, such as single-word utterances. Participants (n = 193) were instructed to say a verb upon seeing a noun displayed on a computer screen and were cued to respond creatively to half of the nouns. For every noun-verb pair (72 pairs per subject), we assessed the semantic distance between the noun and the verb, using latent semantic analysis (LSA). Semantic distance was higher in the cued ("creative") condition than the uncued condition, within subjects. Critically, between subjects, semantic distance in the cued condition had a strong relationship to a creativity factor derived from a battery of verbal, nonverbal, and achievement-based creativity measures (β= .50), and this relation remained when controlling for intelligence and personality. The data show that creative cognition can be assessed reliably and validly from such thin slices of behavior.

The interplay between spontaneous and controlled processing in creative cognition

Neural studies of creativity have yielded relatively little consistent results. For example, in functional neuroanatomical studies, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has often been implicated as a critical neural substrate. However, results in electrophysiological (EEG) studies have been inconsistent as to the role of the PFC. EEG results have more often implicated widespread alpha synchronization, particularly in posterior regions, in creative cognition. Recent fMRI evidence has indicated that the PFC may be activated as a part of and together with other components of a deliberate control brain network. Controlled processing is neurologically dissociated from, but may co-occur with, spontaneous cognition mediated by a subset of the default-mode network (e.g., the angular gyrus [BA 39] in the posterior parietal cortex, which has been increasingly implicated in creative cognition). When the demand for controlled processing is substantially increased, default-mode processing may be suppressed. There is now preliminary evidence to suggest an association between alpha synchronization and default-mode processing. Creative cognition likely emerges from an optimal balance between spontaneous processing and controlled processing.

How art changes your brain: differential effects of visual art production and cognitive art evaluation on functional brain connectivity

Visual art represents a powerful resource for mental and physical well-being. However, little is known about the underlying effects at a neural level. A critical question is whether visual art production and cognitive art evaluation may have different effects on the functional interplay of the brain's default mode network (DMN). We used fMRI to investigate the DMN of a non-clinical sample of 28 post-retirement adults (63.71 years ±3.52 SD) before (T0) and after (T1) weekly participation in two different 10-week-long art interventions. Participants were randomly assigned to groups stratified by gender and age. In the visual art production group 14 participants actively produced art in an art class. In the cognitive art evaluation group 14 participants cognitively evaluated artwork at a museum. The DMN of both groups was identified by using a seed voxel correlation analysis (SCA) in the posterior cingulated cortex (PCC/preCUN). An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to relate fMRI data to psychological resilience which was measured with the brief German counterpart of the Resilience Scale (RS-11). We observed that the visual art production group showed greater spatial improvement in functional connectivity of PCC/preCUN to the frontal and parietal cortices from T0 to T1 than the cognitive art evaluation group. Moreover, the functional connectivity in the visual art production group was related to psychological resilience (i.e., stress resistance) at T1. Our findings are the first to demonstrate the neural effects of visual art production on psychological resilience in adulthood.

EEG alpha power and creative ideation

Neuroscientific studies revealed first insights into neural mechanisms underlying creativity, but existing findings are highly variegated and often inconsistent. Despite the disappointing picture on the neuroscience of creativity drawn in recent reviews, there appears to be robust evidence that EEG alpha power is particularly sensitive to various creativity-related demands involved in creative ideation. Alpha power varies as a function of creativity-related task demands and the originality of ideas, is positively related to an individuals' creativity level, and has been observed to increase as a result of creativity interventions. Alpha increases during creative ideation could reflect more internally oriented attention that is characterized by the absence of external bottom-up stimulation and, thus, a form of top-down activity. Moreover, they could indicate the involvement of specific memory processes such as the efficient (re-)combination of unrelated semantic information. We conclude that increased alpha power during creative ideation is among the most consistent findings in neuroscientific research on creativity and discuss possible future directions to better understand the manifold brain mechanisms involved in creativity.

The time-course of EEG alpha power changes in creative ideation

Increases in EEG alpha power during creative ideation are among the most consistent findings in the neuroscientific study of creativity, but existing studies did not focus on time-related changes of EEG alpha activity patterns during the process of creative ideation so far. Since several cognitive processes are involved in the generation of creative ideas, different EEG correlates may result as a function of time. In this study we addressed this crucial point. Forty-five participants worked on the "Alternative Uses Task" while the EEG was recorded and changes in task-related power (relative to rest) in the upper-frequency band (10-12 Hz) for three isochronous time intervals of the idea generation period were determined. Alpha power changes during idea generation followed a characteristic time course: we found a general increase of alpha power at the beginning of idea generation that was followed by a decrease and finally by a re-increase of alpha prior to responding that was most pronounced at parietal and temporal sites of the right hemisphere. Additionally, the production of more original ideas was accompanied by increasing hemispheric asymmetry (more alpha in the right than left hemisphere) with increasing duration of the idea generation period. The observed time course of brain activity may reflect the progression of different but well-known stages in the idea generation process: that is the initial retrieval of common and old ideas followed by the actual generation of novel and more creative ideas by overcoming typical responses through processes of mental simulation and imagination.

Alpha power increases in right parietal cortex reflects focused internal attention

This study investigated the functional significance of EEG alpha power increases, a finding that is consistently observed in various memory tasks and specifically during divergent thinking. It was previously shown that alpha power is increased when tasks are performed in mind—e.g., when bottom-up processing is prevented. This study aimed to examine the effect of task-immanent differences in bottom-up processing demands by comparing two divergent thinking tasks, one intrinsically relying on bottom-up processing (sensory-intake task) and one that is not (sensory-independence task). In both tasks, stimuli were masked in half of the trials to establish conditions of higher and lower internal processing demands. In line with the hypotheses, internal processing affected performance and led to increases in alpha power only in the sensory-intake task, whereas the sensory-independence task showed high levels of task-related alpha power in both conditions. Interestingly, conditions involving focused internal attention showed a clear lateralization with higher alpha power in parietal regions of the right hemisphere. Considering evidence from fMRI studies, right-parietal alpha power increases may correspond to a deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction, reflecting an inhibition of the ventral attention network. Inhibition of this region is thought to prevent reorienting to irrelevant stimulation during goal-driven, top-down behavior, which may serve the executive function of task shielding during demanding cognitive tasks such as idea generation and mental imagery.

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This study investigated the functional significance of EEG alpha activity.

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Right-parietal alpha power increased as a function of internal attention demands.

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Alpha power increases during divergent thinking indicates focused attention.

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Right-parietal alpha may reflect activity of the ventral attention network.