Abstract
Creativity is considered key to human prosperity, yet the neurocognitive principles underlying creative performance, and their development, are still poorly understood. To fill this void, we examined the neural correlates of divergent thinking in adults (25–30 years) and adolescents (15–17 years). Participants generated alternative uses (AU) or ordinary characteristics (OC) for common objects while brain activity was assessed using fMRI. Adults outperformed adolescents on the number of solutions for AU and OC trials. Contrasting neural activity for AU with OC trials revealed increased recruitment of left angular gyrus, left supramarginal gyrus, and bilateral middle temporal gyrus in both adults and adolescents. When only trials with multiple AU were included in the analysis, participants showed additional left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/middle frontal gyrus (MFG) activation for AU compared to OC trials. Correspondingly, individual difference analyses showed a positive correlation between activations for AU relative to OC trials in left IFG/MFG and divergent thinking performance and activations were more pronounced in adults than in adolescents. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrated that creative idea generation involves recruitment of mainly left lateralized parietal and temporal brain regions. Generating multiple creative ideas, a hallmark of divergent thinking, shows additional lateral PFC activation that is not yet optimized in adolescence.
Highlights
Creative performance—generating ideas, solutions, and insights that are both novel and useful (Sternberg and Lubart, 1996)—is key to human survival and prosperity
PERFORMANCE Alternative Uses Test (AUT)-scanner To test for creative idea generation performance we conducted a 2 × 4 × 2 mixed-model ANOVA with age group as between-subjects factor
Similar results were obtained for the composite alternative uses (AU)- and ordinary characteristics (OC)-scores, which are presented in Table 1 [condition effect: F(1, 41) = 160.84, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.80; age group effect: F(1, 41) = 7.19, p = 0.011, η2 = 0.15; condition × age group n.s.: F(1, 41) = 0.68, p = 0.41, η2 = 0.02]
Summary
Creative performance—generating ideas, solutions, and insights that are both novel and useful (Sternberg and Lubart, 1996)—is key to human survival and prosperity. The creative cognition approach emphasizes that creative capacity is inherent to normative human cognitive functioning and that relevant processes are open to investigation. Our exceptional flexible use of language, our ability to create and use new mental categories to organize our experiences, and our ability to mentally manipulate objects are only some examples of mundane forms of creativity that support the creative cognition approach (Ward et al, 1999). These creative outcomes are a function of a variety of cognitive and motivational processes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
