Ideational Productivity, Focus of Attention, and Context

Alpha and Beta Oscillations Differentially Support Word Production in a Rule-Switching Task

Research into the role of brain oscillations in basic perceptual and cognitive functions has suggested that the alpha rhythm reflects functional inhibition while the beta rhythm reflects neural ensemble (re)activation. However, little is known regarding the generalization of these proposed fundamental operations to linguistic processes, such as speech comprehension and production. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography in participants performing a novel rule-switching paradigm. Specifically, Dutch native speakers had to produce an alternative exemplar from the same category or a feature of a given target word embedded in spoken sentences (e.g., for the word "tuna", an exemplar from the same category-"seafood"-would be "shrimp", and a feature would be "pink"). A cue indicated the task rule-exemplar or feature-either before (pre-cue) or after (retro-cue) listening to the sentence. Alpha power during the working memory delay was lower for retro-cue compared with that for pre-cue in the left hemispheric language-related regions. Critically, alpha power negatively correlated with reaction times, suggestive of alpha facilitating task performance by regulating inhibition in regions linked to lexical retrieval. Furthermore, we observed a different spatiotemporal pattern of beta activity for exemplars versus features in the right temporoparietal regions, in line with the proposed role of beta in recruiting neural networks for the encoding of distinct categories. Overall, our study provides evidence for the generalizability of the role of alpha and beta oscillations from perceptual to more "complex, linguistic processes" and offers a novel task to investigate links between rule-switching, working memory, and word production.

Creativity in the Predominantly Inattentive and Combined Presentations of ADHD in Adults

Objective: ADHD and its associated inhibition deficits might promote creativity. However, results in the literature are conflicting, possibly due to the heterogeneity of ADHD. To control for this heterogeneity, creativity, and inhibition were investigated in the predominantly inattentive (ADHD-I) and combined (ADHD-C) presentations. Method: Participants were males/females aged 18 to 51, diagnosed with ADHD-I (n = 21), ADHD-C (n = 19), or without ADHD (n = 43). Self-rated Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale and evaluator-rated figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) were used for measuring creativity, Stroop task for inhibition, and Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales for ADHD symptoms. Results: The ADHD-C group reported higher self-rated creativity than other groups and made more original drawings paired to more abstract titles in the figural TTCT than controls. Conclusion: ADHD-C participants were the most creative. This result was more importantly associated with higher degrees of ADHD symptoms rather than poorer inhibition.

EEG signals respond differently to idea generation, idea evolution and evaluation in a loosely controlled creativity experiment

Many neurocognitive studies endeavor to understand neural mechanisms of basic creative activities in strictly controlled experiments. However, little evidence is available regarding the neural mechanisms of interactions between basic activities underlying creativity in such experiments. Moreover, strictly controlled experiments might limit flexibility/freedom needed for creative exploration. Thus, this study investigated the whole-brain neuronal networks' interactions between three modes of thinking: idea generation, idea evolution, and evaluation in a loosely controlled creativity experiment. The loosely controlled creativity experiment will provide a degree of flexibility/freedom for participants to incubate creative ideas through extending response time from a few seconds to 3 min. In the experiment, participants accomplished a modified figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT-F) while their EEG signals were recorded. During idea generation, a participant was instructed to complete a sketch that was immediately triggered by a sketch stimulus at first sight. During idea evolution, a participant was instructed to complete a sketch that is radically distinctive from what was immediately triggered by the sketch stimulus. During the evaluation, a participant was instructed to evaluate difficulties of thinking and drawing during idea generation and evolution. It is expected that participants would use their experience to intuitively complete a sketch during idea generation while they could use more divergent and imaginative thinking to complete a possible creative sketch during idea evolution. Such an experimental design is named as a loosely controlled creativity experiment, which offers an approach to studying creativity in an ecologically valid manner. The validity of the loosely controlled creativity experiment could be verified through comparing its findings on phenomena that have been effectively studied by validated experimental research. It was found from our experiment that alpha power decreased significantly from rest to the three modes of thinking. These findings are consistent with that from visual creativity research based on event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS) and task-related power changes (TRP). Specifically, in the lower alpha band (8-10 Hz), the decreases of alpha power were significantly lower over almost the entire scalp during idea evolution compared to the other modes of thinking. This finding indicated that idea evolution requires less general attention demands than the other two modes of thinking since the lower alpha ERD has been reported as being more likely to reflect general task demands such as attentional processes. In the upper alpha band (10-12 Hz), the decreases of alpha power were significantly higher over central sites during the evaluation compared to idea evolution. This finding indicated that evaluation involves more task-specific demands since the upper alpha ERD has been found as being more likely to reflect task-specific demands such as memory and intelligence, as was defined in the literature. In addition, new findings were obtained since the loosely controlled creativity experiment could activate multiple brain networks to accomplish the tasks involving the three modes of thinking. EEG microstate analysis was used to structure the unstructured EEG data to detect the activation of multiple brain networks. Combined EEG-fMRI and EEG source localization studies have indicated that EEG microstate classes are closely associated with the resting-state network as identified using fMRI. It was found that the default mode network was more active during idea evolution compared to the other two modes of thinking, while the cognitive control network was more active during the evaluation compared to the other two modes of thinking. This finding indicated that idea evolution might be more associated with unconscious and internal directed attention processes. Taken together, the loosely controlled creativity experiment with the support of EEG microstate analysis appears to offer an effective approach to investigating the real-world complex creativity activity.

Mapping the artistic brain: Common and distinct neural activations associated with musical, drawing, and literary creativity

Whether creativity is a domain‐general or domain‐specific ability has been a topic of intense speculation. Although previous studies have examined domain‐specific mechanisms of creative performance, little is known about commonalities and distinctions in neural correlates across different domains. We applied activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta‐analysis to identify the brain activation of domain‐mechanisms by synthesizing functional neuroimaging studies across three forms of artistic creativity: music improvisation, drawing, and literary creativity. ALE meta‐analysis yielded a domain‐general pattern across three artistic forms, with overlapping clusters in the presupplementary motor area (pre‐SMA), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Regarding domain‐specificity, musical creativity was associated with recruitment of the SMA‐proper, bilateral IFG, left precentral gyrus, and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) compared to the other two artistic forms; drawing creativity recruited the left fusiform gyrus, left precuneus, right parahippocampal gyrus, and right MFG compared to musical creativity; and literary creativity recruited the left angular gyrus and right lingual gyrus compared to musical creativity. Contrasting drawing and literary creativity revealed no significant differences in neural activation, suggesting that these domains may rely on a common neurocognitive system. Overall, these findings reveal a central, domain‐general system for artistic creativity, but with each domain relying to some degree on domain‐specific neural circuits.

The Impact of Bodily States on Divergent Thinking: Evidence for a Control-Depletion Account

Given previous evidence that bodily states can impact basic cognitive processes, we asked whether such impact can also be demonstrated for creative cognition. In particular, we had participants perform a design improvement task and a consequences imagination task while standing up, walking in a predetermined pattern, or walking freely. Results show better divergent-thinking performance with unconstrained than with constrained walking, and better performance for walking than for standing. A second experiment assessed performance in an alternative uses task and a figural combination task while participants were lying, sitting, or standing. Results showed better performance when standing up than when lying or sitting. Taken altogether, these observations provide evidence for an approach in terms of cognitive-control depletion: the more a bodily activity exhausts control resources, the better divergent thinking can unfold, presumably because reduced top-down control brings more ideas into play.

Right Fronto-Temporal EEG can Differentiate the Affective Responses to Award-Winning Advertisements

Affective engineering aims to improve service/product design by translating the customer's psychological feelings. Award-winning advertisements (AAs) were selected on the basis of the professional standards that consider creativity as a prerequisite. However, it is unknown if AA is related to satisfactory advertising performance among customers or only to the experts' viewpoints towards the advertisements. This issue in the field of affective engineering and design merits in-depth evaluation. We recruited 30 subjects and performed an electroencephalography (EEG) experiment while watching AAs and non-AAs (NAAs). The event-related potential (ERP) data showed that AAs evoked larger positive potentials 250-1400 [Formula: see text]ms after stimulus onset, particularly in the right fronto-temporal regions. The behavioral results were consistent with the professional recognition given to AAs by experts. The perceived levels of creativity and "product-like" quality were higher for the AAs than for the NAAs. Event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) analysis further revealed statistically significant differences in the theta, alpha, beta, and gamma band activity in the right fronto-temporal regions between the AAs and NAAs. Our results confirm that EEG features from the time/frequency domains can differentiate affective responses to AAs at a neural circuit level, and provide scientific evidence to support the identification of AAs.

Where do bright ideas occur in our brain? Meta-analytic evidence from neuroimaging studies of domain-specific creativity

Many studies have assessed the neural underpinnings of creativity, failing to find a clear anatomical localization. We aimed to provide evidence for a multi-componential neural system for creativity. We applied a general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to 45 fMRI studies. Three individual ALE analyses were performed to assess creativity in different cognitive domains (Musical, Verbal, and Visuo-spatial). The general ALE revealed that creativity relies on clusters of activations in the bilateral occipital, parietal, frontal, and temporal lobes. The individual ALE revealed different maximal activation in different domains. Musical creativity yields activations in the bilateral medial frontal gyrus, in the left cingulate gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule and in the right postcentral and fusiform gyri. Verbal creativity yields activations mainly located in the left hemisphere, in the prefrontal cortex, middle and superior temporal gyri, inferior parietal lobule, postcentral and supramarginal gyri, middle occipital gyrus, and insula. The right inferior frontal gyrus and the lingual gyrus were also activated. Visuo-spatial creativity activates the right middle and inferior frontal gyri, the bilateral thalamus and the left precentral gyrus. This evidence suggests that creativity relies on multi-componential neural networks and that different creativity domains depend on different brain regions.

Evaluative and generative modes of thought during the creative process

Psychological theories have suggested that creativity involves a twofold process characterized by a generative component facilitating the production of novel ideas and an evaluative component enabling the assessment of their usefulness. The present study employed a novel fMRI paradigm designed to distinguish between these two components at the neural level. Participants designed book cover illustrations while alternating between the generation and evaluation of ideas. The use of an fMRI-compatible drawing tablet allowed for a more natural drawing and creative environment. Creative generation was associated with preferential recruitment of medial temporal lobe regions, while creative evaluation was associated with joint recruitment of executive and default network regions and activation of the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, insula, and temporopolar cortex. Executive and default regions showed positive functional connectivity throughout task performance. These findings suggest that the medial temporal lobe may be central to the generation of novel ideas and creative evaluation may extend beyond deliberate analytical processes supported by executive brain regions to include more spontaneous affective and visceroceptive evaluative processes supported by default and limbic regions. Thus, creative thinking appears to recruit a unique configuration of neural processes not typically used together during traditional problem solving tasks.

The creative brain--revisiting concepts

Creativity is a complex neuro-psycho-philosophical phenomenon which is difficult to define literally. Fundamentally it involves the ability to understand and express novel orderly relationships. The creative process involves four stages--preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. A high level of general intelligence, domain specific knowledge and special skills are necessary pre-requisites. It is possible that in addition, some creative people might have architectural alternations of specific portions of the posterior neocortex. Associated with such pre-requisites, the process of creative innovation (incubation and illumination stages) necessitates the need for an ability of divergent thinking, a novelty seeking behavior, some degree of suppression of latent inhibition and a subtle degree of frontal dysfunction. The author hypothesizes that these features are often inter-linked and subtle frontally disinhibited behavior is conducive towards creativity by allowing uninterrupted flow of creative thought possessing and opening up new avenues towards problem solving. Perhaps the most essential feature of the creative brain is its degree of connectivity--both inter-hemispheric and intra-hemispheric. Connectivity correlates or binds together functions of apparently structurally isolated domains on brain modules sub-serving different functions. It is felt that creative cognition is a self rewarding process where divergent thinking would promote connectivity through development of new synapses. In addition, the phenomenon of synaesthesia has often been observed in creative visual artists. Creative innovation often occurs during low arousal states and creative people often manifests features of affective disorders. This suggests a role of neurotransmitters in creative innovation. Dopaminergic pathways are involved in the novelty seeking attitude of creative people while norepinephrine levels are depressed during discovery of novel orderly relationships. The relationship between mood and catecholamines and that of creative cognition is often in an inverted U-shaped form. It is hypothesized that that subtle frontal dysfunction is a pre-requisite for creative cognition but here again the relationship is also in an inverted U-form.

Semantic divergence and creative story generation: An fMRI investigation

The aim of this fMRI investigation was to identify those areas of the brain associated with approaching a story generation task creatively and to investigate the effects upon these correlates of incorporating a set of words that were unrelated to each other-a strategy considered to encourage semantic divergence. Preliminary experiments were undertaken to investigate the possible confounding effects of the scanner environment upon creativity and to reveal the effects of creative effort and word relatedness upon the creativity of those who would be participating in the fMRI scan. In the final part of the investigation, a factorial fMRI design was used to elucidate brain regions involved in increased creative effort and also the effect upon activity in these regions when participants incorporated words that bore little semantic relationship with each other. Results support the notion that areas of the right prefrontal cortex are critical to the types of divergent semantic processing involved with creativity in this context.