Abstract
Creative insight plays an important role in our daily life. Previous studies have investigated the neural correlates of creative insight by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, the intrinsic resting-state brain activity associated with creative insight is still unclear. In the present study, we used regional homogeneity (ReHo) as an index in resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) to identify brain regions involved in individual differences in creative insight, which was compued by the response time (RT) of creative Chinese character chunk decomposition. The findings indicated that ReHo in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/caudate nucleus (CN) and angular gyrus (AG)/superior temporal gyrus (STG)/inferior parietal lobe (IPL) negatively predicted creative insight. Furthermore, these findings suggested that spontaneous brain activity in multiple regions related to breaking and establishing mental sets, goal-directed solutions exploring, shifting attention, forming new associations and emotion experience contributes to creative insight. In conclusion, the present study provides new evidence to further understand the cognitive processing and neural correlates of creative insight.
Highlights
Creative insight is generally defined as a sudden comprehension that lead to a new interpretation of a situation and yield the solution to a problem (Sternberg and Davidson, 1995; Kounios et al, 2006; Kounios and Beeman, 2009; Webb et al, 2016)
Several studies indicated that participants experienced positive feelings in Abbreviations: ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; AG, angular gyrus; BOLD, blood oxygenation level dependent; CCDH, creative chunk decomposition-high level; CCDL, creative chunk decomposition-low level; CN, caudate nucleus; CR, correct rate; compound remote associates (CRA), compound remote associate; DMN, default mode network; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; FWHM, full width at half maximum; HIP, hippocampus; IPL, inferior parietal lobe; KCC, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance; MNI, Montreal Neurological Institute; ReHo, regional homogeneity; rs-fMRI, resting-state fMRI; RT, response time; STG, superior temporal gyrus; TPJ, temporoparietal junction
After controlling for age and sex, the creative insight scores were significantly and negatively associated with two clusters located in the left ACC/caudate nucleus (CN), and left angular gyrus (AG)/STG/inferior parietal lobe (IPL)
Summary
Creative insight is generally defined as a sudden comprehension that lead to a new interpretation of a situation and yield the solution to a problem (Sternberg and Davidson, 1995; Kounios et al, 2006; Kounios and Beeman, 2009; Webb et al, 2016). Studies of creative insight have been conducted for more than a dozen years. Previous studies have investigated the characteristics of creative insight, including influencing factors (Öllinger et al, 2008; Yang et al, 2016), phases (Amabile, 1988), and cognitive mechanism (Kershaw and Ohlsson, 2004). Previous studies have conjectured that creative insight could involve in several principle components: emotional experience, breaking and establishing mental sets, and reorienting attention. Several studies indicated that participants experienced positive feelings in Abbreviations: ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; AG, angular gyrus; BOLD, blood oxygenation level dependent; CCDH, creative chunk decomposition-high level; CCDL, creative chunk decomposition-low level; CN, caudate nucleus; CR, correct rate; CRA, compound remote associate; DMN, default mode network; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; FWHM, full width at half maximum; HIP, hippocampus; IPL, inferior parietal lobe; KCC, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance; MNI, Montreal Neurological Institute; ReHo, regional homogeneity; rs-fMRI, resting-state fMRI; RT, response time; STG, superior temporal gyrus; TPJ, temporoparietal junction
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