The Neuroscience of Divergent Thinking

Design Meets Neuroscience: An Electroencephalogram Study of Design Thinking in Concept Generation Phase

Extant research on design thinking is subjective and limited. This manuscript combines protocol analysis and electroencephalogram (EEG) to read design thoughts in the core design activities of concept generation phase. The results suggest that alpha band power had event related synchronization (ERS) in the scenario task and divergent thinking occupies a dominant position. However, it had event related desynchronization (ERD) in analogy and inference activities, etc., and it is stronger for mental pressure and exercised cognitive processing. In addition, the parietooccipital area differs significantly from other brain areas in most design activities. This study explores the relationship of different design thinking and EEG data, which is innovative and professional in the field of design, providing a more objective data basis and evaluation method for future applied research and diverse educational practices.

Neurocognitive Mechanism of Remote and Close Associations: An fMRI Study

Remote association is the ability to combine seemingly unrelated components into new concepts and is evaluated via the Remote Associates Test (RAT). The RAT has generally been used to examine brain activation during insight problem solving but not remote association. Moreover, little is known about the neural correlates of remote association and close association. To address this issue, we used the associative distance in the development of the RAT and designed remote associated items and close associated items. We collected brain images during observation of remote and close associated items from 30 adult participants and analyzed the activation of brain regions involved in remote and close associations. The results showed that processing of remote and close association occurred in the posterior cingulate cortex. After controlling for the influence of other associations, we found that the rostromedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and middle temporal gyrus were involved exclusively in remote association. These results showed that remote association has conjunctive and disjunctive neurocognitive mechanisms. Our results contribute to the understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms of different associations and provide empirical support for the associative theory of creativity.

Visual-Spatial and Verbal Remote Association: An fMRI Study

Although idea connections at verbal and conceptual levels have been explored by remote associates tests, the visual-spatial level is much less researched. This study investigated the visual-spatial ability via Chinese Radical Remote Associates Test (CRRAT), wherein respondents consider the positions of the stimulus and target Chinese radicals. Chinese Compound Remote Associates Test (CCRAT) questions also feature stimuli of a single Chinese character; therefore, it was adopted for comparison to distinguish the roles played by verbal and visual-spatial associations in a remote associative process. Thirty-six adults responded to CRRAT and CCRAT; their brain activities were analyzed. Upon excluding the influence of age, verbal comprehension, and working memory, it was found that the caudate, posterior cingulate cortex, postcentral gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus were activated when the respondents answered CCRAT, but only the caudate showed significant activation when they answered CRRAT. The Chinese radical remote association minus the Chinese compound remote association showed that the middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and precuneus demonstrated significant activation. Therefore, this study demonstrated differences in brain mechanisms between visual-spatial and verbal remote associations.

Brain signal classification for creative tasks

 We tried to determine if emotive self-feedback from conscious assessment of artists’ own works generates sufficient impetus for accomplishment of goals. Self-reports from participants of an ‘experimental’ group working independently and without external feedback on their work are examined. The performance of this group is compared to ‘control’ performers in tutored sessions (with external feedback). On the whole a two-fold analysis was carried out. First, verbal reports of the participants’ feelings about their work in both experimental and control settings were analyzed. Second, a brainwave analysis of each participant was conducted while they were engaged in the same tasks so as to examine effects of concentration and energy output. The Hilbert-Huang transform was used to filter data frequency for brainwaves emitted at channels AF4, AF3, F6 and F7, all positioned along the pre-frontal cortex. Results of participants’ brainwave behavior within frequency ranges of 14–16 Hz, as well as for higher ranges (above 60 Hz), do not show significant difference in the two groups. This indicates that brainwave activity is sustained in individuals who depend on self-feedback appraisals, at least within the domain of creativity investigated in this paper.

Traumatic brain injury and creative divergent thinking

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE

The current study examined how creative divergent thinking (i.e., the ability to produce varied and original solutions to a problem) is impacted by moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).

RESEARCH DESIGN

Descriptive, observational.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

We administered two tasks of divergent thinking, the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) and the Alternative Uses Test (AUT), as well as a battery of neuropsychological tests and psychosocial variables (assessing memory and learning, processing speed, set shifting and psychological distress), to 29 individuals with TBI and 20 demographically-matched healthy comparison participants.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Individuals with TBI performed similarly to healthy individuals on both tests of creative thinking, although they were impaired on the neuropsychological tasks. Moreover, there was no significant correlation between performance on the ATTA and performance on neuropsychological tests, but within the TBI group AUT performance and memory were significantly and positively associated.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings reveal that divergent thinking, as measured by the ATTA and AUT, might be spared following moderate-to-severe TBI. These findings further our understanding of the higher-level cognitive sequelae of TBI and suggest that divergent thinking might be leveraged during treatment planning.

Types of creativity

Imagine the impact if we were to understand, and thus could reliably enhance, something - anything - about how creativity works in the brain. The fact that this prospect is not anywhere in sight makes it clear that no reliable progress has been made on the mechanisms underlying creativity over the last half century. Indeed, with the divergent thinking paradigm shown to be theoretically incoherent for neuroscience, there currently is no viable experimental approach to tackle the problem. Given that creativity is a complex and multifaceted concept, the obvious way forward is to parse it into subtypes. This paper presents a theoretical framework that divides the concept of creativity into three distinct types: a deliberate mode, a spontaneous mode, and a flow mode. Unlike previous attempts, the three creativity types are explicitly defined and delineated from one another based on established concepts in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Moreover, to maximize the framework's heuristic value, this is done separately at three different levels of description: (A) neuroanatomy, (B) processes, and (C) evolutionary algorithms (EAs), or, more precisely, different parameters of EAs. This new theoretical framework advances the field in two significant ways. First, by defining the subtypes in terms of concepts that exist in mainstream psychology and neuroscience, they are valid subtypes, as they can be theoretically defended. Second, by providing a solid theoretical rationale to investigate a more circumscribed aspect of the larger problem, the framework provides a more targeted, and realistic, line of attack that will eventually lead to more meaningful data about the neural mechanisms of creativity.

Real World Problem-Solving

Real world problem-solving (RWPS) is what we do every day. It requires flexibility, resilience, resourcefulness, and a certain degree of creativity. A crucial feature of RWPS is that it involves continuous interaction with the environment during the problem-solving process. In this process, the environment can be seen as not only a source of inspiration for new ideas but also as a tool to facilitate creative thinking. The cognitive neuroscience literature in creativity and problem-solving is extensive, but it has largely focused on neural networks that are active when subjects are not focused on the outside world, i.e., not using their environment. In this paper, I attempt to combine the relevant literature on creativity and problem-solving with the scattered and nascent work in perceptually-driven learning from the environment. I present my synthesis as a potential new theory for real world problem-solving and map out its hypothesized neural basis. I outline some testable predictions made by the model and provide some considerations and ideas for experimental paradigms that could be used to evaluate the model more thoroughly.

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.

A Neurocognitive Framework for Human Creative Thought

We are an intensely creative species. Creativity is the fountainhead of our civilizations and a defining characteristic of what makes us human. But for all its prominence at the apex of human mental faculties, we know next to nothing about how brains generate creative ideas. With all previous attempts to tighten the screws on this vexed problem unsuccessful – right brains, divergent thinking, defocused attention, default mode network, alpha enhancement, prefrontal activation, etc. (Dietrich and Kanso, 2010) – the neuroscientific study of creativity finds itself in a theoretical arid zone that has perhaps no equal in psychology. We propose here a general framework for a fresh attack on the problem and set it out under 10 foundational concepts. Most of the ideas we favor are part and parcel of the standard conceptual toolbox of cognitive neuroscience but their combination and significance to creativity are original. By outlining, even in such broad strokes, the theoretical landscape of cognitive neuroscience as it relates to creative insights, we hope to bring into clear focus the key enabling factors that are likely to have a hand in computing ideational combinations in the brain.

Neuro-Scientific Studies of Creativity

Creativity has historically been investigated in psychological and educational aspects, and developed by psychologists and educationists. Recent progress of computational and cognitive science has opened new horizons in the neuro-scientific approach, bridging the concept of creativity and specialized brain function. This review discusses the psychological and educational theories of creativity, and focuses on the recent works in neuroscience dealing with creativity in view of divergent thinking. We also summarize the brain areas and their networks found by the neuroimaging studies, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Dissociative states in dreams and brain chaos: implications for creative awareness

This article reviews recent findings indicating some common brain processes during dissociative states and dreaming with the aim to outline a perspective that neural chaotic states during dreaming can be closely related to dissociative states that may manifest in dreams scenery. These data are in agreement with various clinical findings that dissociated states can be projected into the "dream scenery" in REM sleep periods and dreams may represent their specific interactions that may uncover unusual psychological potential of creativity in psychotherapy, art, and scientific discoveries.