Remote Associates Task Research Articles

0293 The Effect of Sleep Loss on Divergent Thinking using a Remote Associates Task

Abstract Introduction Sleep loss-induced neurobehavioral deficits are a recognized threat to health, safety, and performance. Sleep loss has previously been shown to differentially impact distinct types of cognitive function, although less is known about the higher-order cognitive function, divergent thinking. Understanding the influence of sleep on divergent thinking can assist in developing targeted strategies to mitigate specific cognitive function impairments. Methods Eight participants (3M/5F), mean age 27.875y (± 5.5y SD) were studied over the course of 40 days in a crossover design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two study schedules, with 4 participants in each that alternated the order of sleep restriction and total sleep deprivation. The schedules consisted of a baseline assessment and 6 study phases [sleep extension prior to sleep restriction (10h Time in Bed (TIB)), sleep restriction (6h TIB), recovery following sleep restriction, sleep extension prior to total sleep deprivation (10h TIB), total sleep deprivation (62h), and recovery following sleep restriction. The Remote Associates Task (RAT), a task to assess divergent thinking by presenting a triad of apparently unrelated words with the goal of identifying a unifying 4th word, was administered the evening of the last day of every phase. RAT performance metrics included number of triads attempted, correct responses, repeated trials, and mean correct and incorrect reaction times. Results No differences were found in total number of word triads attempted by participants (p=0.18). The number of correct responses during baseline was lower than during sleep restriction, recovery from sleep restriction, and total sleep restriction (p=0.00691), most likely reflecting a steep learning curve. No significant main effect of phase was found for any RAT metric. Conclusion These preliminary findings suggest divergent thought as measured by the RAT is conserved across a differential amounts of sleep. More studies are needed to better characterize the impact of sleep loss on divergent thinking as well as possible mediating effects of other higher-order cognitive functions. Support (If Any) Department of Defense Military Operational Medicine Research Program (MOMRP)

Assessing creativity independently of language: A language-independent remote associate task (LI-RAT)

Most creativity measures are either complex or language-dependent, hindering cross-cultural creativity assessment. We have therefore developed and tested a simple, language-independent insight task based on pictures in the style of the widely used verbal remote associate task (RAT). We demonstrate that the language-independent RAT (LI-RAT) allows assessment of different aspects of insight across large samples with different languages. It also correlates with other creativity and general problem-solving tasks. The entire stimulus set, including its preliminary normative data, is made freely available. This information can be used to select items based on accuracy, mean solution time, likelihood to produce an insight, or conceptual and perceptual similarity between the pictures per item.

Effects of Affiliative and Aggressive Humor On Creative Thinking

Previous correlational studies suggest that negative humor style such as aggressive humor style is negatively and positive humor style such as affiliative humor style is positively correlated with creativity. However, it is not yet to experimentally demonstrate the effect of aggressive and affiliative humor on creativity. Therefore, this experimental study was designed to investigate the effect of affiliative humor (AF) and aggressive humor (AG) on creative thinking. The researcher included 60 (38 male, 22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each of AF, AG, and control conditions. To induce humor, theyused12 jokes in each condition. They used Remote Association Task (RAT) for convergent thinking and Alternative Use of task (AUT) for divergent thinking to measure individual creativity. The author expected that (i) people who engage in affiliative humor would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the aggressive humor group, (ii) people who engage in affiliative humor would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and aggressive humor group. Results showed that the affiliative humor successfully induced convergent thinking better than the control group and aggressive humor in the RAT score. Similarly, AF humor successfully induced better creativity than the control group and AG humor group in three components of divergent thinking; fluency, flexibility, and elaboration. However, the mean score of AF humor was better than the AG humor group but not significant. In addition, aggressive humor, likewise affiliative humor, also induced creative thinking in the RAT task and AUT. Thus, the results partially supported all the hypotheses and indicated that in real life, humor induces individual creative thinking whether the humor is positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Both types of humor increase creative thinking. Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 31(1): 93-104, 2022 (January)

Transcranial direct current stimulation of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex eliminates creativity impairment induced by acute stress

The creativity impairment under acute stress may be closely related to the down-regulation of the prefrontal cortex function caused by stress-related neurotransmitters and hormones. In the current study, we explored whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) eliminated stress-induced creativity impairment and the potential mechanism from the perspective of stress response recovery. Seventy participants were randomly allocated to a group undergoing the activation of right DLPFC and the deactivation of left DLPFC (R+L−; N = 35), and a group of sham stimulation (sham; N = 35). Participants received tDCS after the stress induction, and then completed the Alternative Uses Task (AUT) and the Remote Association Task (RAT) during the stimulation. The stress response was indicated using heart rate, cortisol, and emotion changes. Results showed that R+L− stimulation facilitated the recovery of anxious state compared to sham stimulation. We also found that the decreased value of AUT scores after stress in the R+L− group was significantly lower than that in the sham group. Moreover, further analysis revealed state anxiety mediated the effect of tDCS on the flexibility component of the AUT. We concluded that bilateral tDCS over the DLPFC is efficient in alleviating stress-induced creativity impairment, which may correlate with greater recovery of state anxiety. Our findings provide causal evidence for the neurophysiological mechanisms by which stress affects creativity, as well as clinical suggestions for stress-related psychiatric disorders prevention and intervention.

Design Training and Creativity: Students Develop Stronger Divergent but Not Convergent Thinking.

Design training programs that teach creativity often emphasize divergent thinking (generation of ideas) more than convergent thinking (evaluation of ideas). We hypothesized that training would lead to more both types of creativity, but especially divergent thinking. Three groups of university students (N=120; n=40 in each group) were recruited to participate: senior design students (graduate students with at least 4years of design training as undergraduates); junior design students (undergraduates in their first year of design training); and undergraduate students in majors unrelated to design. The students completed three tasks in a classroom setting to assess divergent thinking (Alternate Uses Task), convergent thinking (Remote Associates Task), and nonverbal abstract reasoning (Raven’s Progressive Matrices Test). The results of one-way ANOVAs showed that as expected, senior design students significantly outperformed junior design students and non-design majors in divergent thinking. However, contrary to expectations, senior design students had significantly lower scores than the non-design group on convergent thinking; the junior design students’ scores fell in the middle but were not significantly different from either of the other groups. There were no group differences in nonverbal abstract reasoning. These findings suggest that design training significantly improves students’ ability to generate ideas but does not improve, or may even hinder, their ability to evaluate whether the ideas are useful for the task at hand. The results have implications for developing a research-based curriculum in design training programs.

Spontaneous and deliberate modes of creativity: Multitask eigen-connectivity analysis captures latent cognitive modes during creative thinking

Despite substantial progress in the quest of demystifying the brain basis of creativity, several questions remain open. One such issue concerns the relationship between two latent cognitive modes during creative thinking, i.e., deliberate goal-directed cognition and spontaneous thought generation. Although an interplay between deliberate and spontaneous thinking is often implicated in the creativity literature (e.g., dual-process models), a bottom-up data-driven validation of the cognitive processes associated with creative thinking is still lacking. Here, we attempted to capture the latent modes of creative thinking by utilizing a data-driven approach on a novel continuous multitask paradigm (CMP) that widely sampled a hypothetical two-dimensional cognitive plane of deliberate and spontaneous thinking in a single fMRI session. The CMP consisted of eight task blocks ranging from undirected mind wandering to goal-directed working memory task, while also included two widely-used creativity tasks, i.e., alternate uses task (AUT) and remote association task (RAT). Using eigen-connectivity (EC) analysis on the multitask whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) patterns, we embedded the multitask FCs into a low-dimensional latent space. The first two latent components, as revealed by the EC analysis, broadly mapped onto the two cognitive modes of deliberate and spontaneous thinking, respectively. Further, in this low-dimensional space, both creativity tasks were located in the upper right corner of high deliberate and spontaneous thinking (creative cognitive space). Neuroanatomically, the creative cognitive space was represented by not only increased intra-network connectivity within executive control and default mode network, but also by higher coupling between the two canonical brain networks. Further, individual differences reflected in the low-dimensional connectivity embeddings were related to differences in deliberate and spontaneous thinking abilities. Altogether, using a continuous multitask paradigm and a data-driven approach, we provide initial empirical evidence for the contribution of both deliberate and spontaneous modes of cognition during creative thinking.

The Role of Incubation in Creative Problem Solving: Within a Collectivistic Cultural Context

Creative thinking is essential for the progress in education, industry and life in general. Incubation is a widely studied phenomenon in creativity research, referring to leaving a problem aside for a period, to accrue performance on a creative problem. This study investigated the effect of incubation on creative problem-solving by means of a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, and remote associates tasks (RATs) were used as a measure of creative problem-solving. For this purpose, a sample of 60 students (22 males, 38 females) was recruited from the population of a private university. They were assigned to a control condition and two different experimental conditions based on the time of onset of incubation. The data collected was analyzed for a significant effect across all conditions by means of a chi-squared test and covariates were inferred by means of Spearman's Rho, with a significance level set at ?<.05. The results did not find an incubation effect in creative problem-solving, and several possible explanations may account for this trend, especially the limited cross-cultural application of measurement tools and theoretical paradigms. The disparity is especially prominent with regards to Pakistan, which is predominantly collectivistic, and the educational system stymies creative thinking. Future research must take into account the relevance of culture in creative problem-solving, and propose solutions to circumvent the dearth of creative potential in developing nations such as Pakistan. Keywords: Incubation, Creative Problem-Solving, Creativity, Remote Associate Tasks, Cross-Cultural Psychology

Multicultural experience and multilingualism as predictors of creativity

Aims and objectives: Past research has shown that multicultural experience and multilingualism can be positively associated with creativity. However, very few studies have focused simultaneously on all these variables. Our aim is to consider both sets of predictors simultaneously, clarifying whether the impact of these variables on creativity is cumulative or redundant. Design/methodology/approach: The design combines correlational and quasi-experimental approaches. It is also strongly multivariate and includes various measurement methods. Variables of interest were assessed with questionnaires ( N = 596) and creativity tasks ( N = 174) in laboratory settings. The scope of the study, therefore, is relatively large and encompasses several indicators. Data and analysis: We use multiple regressions with latent and manifest variables. Latent variables were constructed for all sets of key predictors (multilingualism, traveling experience, living abroad experience); predictors were regressed on four types of creativity variables, also latent in most cases (creative potential; creative interests, activities, and achievements; creative performance in a writing task; creative performance on a remote association task). Findings/conclusions: Results shows that both multicultural experience and multilingualism are positively related with various manifestations of creativity. Overall, the results indicate complementary effects of multicultural experience and multilingualism on creativity. The most robust predictors are multilingualism and variables representing deep immersion in foreign countries. Originality: Three features make this study unique: (a) it examines both multilingualism and multiculturalism; (b) the sample population is broader than in most studies, which often focus on migrant populations; and (c) it implements a multimethod operationalization of creativity. Significance/implications: The paper goes beyond received approaches to the link between human diversity and creativity; the analysis is put in relation with other research work that focuses on policy implications for diversity, particularly in the areas of bilingualism and bicultural identity. Implications regarding the connections between creativity, multilingualism, and general executive functioning are also discussed.

Learning by Insight-Like Sudden Comprehension as a Potential Strategy to Improve Memory Encoding in Older Adults.

Several cognitive functions show a decline with advanced age, most prominently episodic memory. Problem-solving by insight represents a special associative form of problem-solving that has previously been shown to facilitate long-term memory formation. Recent neuroimaging evidence suggests that the encoding network involved in insight-based memory formation is largely hippocampus-independent. This may represent a potential advantage in older adults, as the hippocampus is one of the earliest brain structures to show age-related volume loss and functional impairment. Here, we investigated the potential beneficial effects of learning by insight in healthy older (60–79 years) compared to young adults (19–28 years). To this end, we compared later memory performance for verbal riddles encoded incidentally via induced insight-like sudden comprehension in both age groups. We employed a variant of the Compound Remote Associate Task (CRAT) for incidental encoding, during which participants were instructed to judge the solvability of items. In a 24-h delayed surprise memory test, participants attempted to solve previously encountered items and additionally performed a recognition memory test. During this test, older adults correctly solved an equal proportion of new CRA items compared to young adults and both age groups reported a similar frequency of Aha! experiences. While overall memory performance was better in young participants (higher proportion of correctly solved and correctly recognized old CRA items), older participants exhibited a stronger beneficial effect of insight-like sudden comprehension on later recognition memory for CRA items. Our results suggest that learning via insight might constitute a promising approach to improve memory function in old age.

The link between dissociative tendencies and hyperassociativity

Background and objectivesAnecdotal and research evidence suggests that individuals with dissociative symptoms exhibit hyperassociativity, which might explain several key features of their condition. The aim of our study was to investigate the link between dissociative tendencies and hyperassociativity among college students. MethodsThe study (n = 118) entailed various measures of hyperassociativity, measures of dissociative tendencies, depressive experiences, unusual sleep experiences, cognitive failures, and alexithymia. ResultsWe found a positive association between dissociative experiences (i.e., depersonalization) and hyperassociativity specific for associative fluency and associative flexibility tasks (including neutral and valenced material), but not for a remote association task. We also found tentative evidence for cognitive failures and alexithymia explaining the link between hyperassociativity and daytime dissociation and nighttime unusual sleep experiences. LimitationsLimitations include the use of hyperassociation tasks limited to verbal associations vs. imagistic associations, the lack of a measure of trauma history, and a sample limited to college students. ConclusionOur study reports a link between depersonalization and hyperassociativity on tasks that allow for free associations across different semantic domains, potentially explained by alexithymia and cognitive failures. This finding may, with replication, open the pathway to applied intervention studies.

Do our eyes mirror our thought patterns? A study on the influence of convergent and divergent thinking on eye movement.

Research indicates that deliberate thinking and eye movements are related. However, how various thought processes influence eye movements is not explored well. The present research examined the role of convergent and divergent thinking in eye movement. Divergent thinking involves novel alternatives, multiple uses, and unconventional answers which may require scanning visual surroundings precisely and extensively. Hence, it was hypothesized that divergent thinking would involve more scattered and detailed visual scanning than convergent thinking. Two experiments were conducted using repeated measures design: both involved a visual remote association task for convergent thinking and an adapted visual task of the alternate uses task for divergent thinking. Experiment 1 tracked participants' eye movement while solving the task when images of objects were on the screen; whereas, in Experiment 2, the blank screen paradigm was used where the images of items were removed and the eyes were tracked while participants solved the task. Data analysis showed that the eye movements were moreobject focused during convergent thinking than divergent thinking. The results confirmed that participants in divergent thinking had more detailed and dispersed visual scanning than in convergent thinking.

The mnemonic effects of insight on false memory in the DRM paradigm.

Insight accompanied by an 'aha!' experience has a mnemonic effect. Previous studies of insight have often focused on the mnemonic effect of insight on veridical memories, while the effect of insight on false memories is not known. More understanding of the mnemonic effect of insight on false memories could have implications for the mechanism of insightful mnemonic effects. The present research examined whether insight has a mnemonic effect on false memories. Participants were asked to perform Chinese verbal compound remote associate (CRA) tasks and then complete the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task, the critical lure of which was also the solution to the Chinese CRA problem. Compared to non-insight, insight was associated with a lower critical lures rate in Experiment 1 and with lower critical lures and unrelated words rates in Experiment 2 when the presentation of DRM list words was random. Giving a warning before DRM tasks could reduce the critical lures rate of non-insight but had little effect on insightful solutions in Experiment 3. These findings indicate that insight can reduce false memories.

Impact of Physical Activity on an Individual’s Creativity: A Day-Level Analysis

Abstract Physical activity is fast emerging as a predictor of complex cognitive processes, yet its impact on creativity is not well researched. This study analyzes the immediate and retention effects of an enjoyable physical activity intervention at the end of the workday on the divergent and convergent thinking components of creativity via a randomized controlled trial of 68 MBA students. The treatment group participated in a 15-min enjoyable physical activity (dance), and the control group participated in an enjoyable nonphysical activity (socialization), and their impact on divergent and convergent thinking was measured via parallel forms of Guilford Alternate Uses Task and Remote Association Task, respectively. Dance significantly improved divergent and convergent thinking immediately after the intervention and also showed retention at the end of the work day compared with preintervention levels, whereas socialization showed such an effect only on flexibility immediately after the intervention and no retention. The results support executive function hypothesis and ego depletion theory.

Memory for the source of solutions in remote associate tasks: The role of generation effect and the Aha!-experience

The aim of the current work is to study the role of the Aha!-experience in remembering the source of solutions, either self-generated or externally presented. In memory studies there are specific source-monitoring errors, which occur whenever a participant claims to have generated an idea that was derived from different sources (unconscious plagiarism). Several previous studies have shown that experiencing the feeling of Aha! during either problem-solving or the presentation of the correct solutions can have a beneficial relationship to the subsequent recall of the material with the processing of which it was associated. However, studies of the Aha!-experience on the source monitoring task (self-generated solutions vs presented solutions) have not been conducted. In the authors’ study, the hypothesis that the feeling of Aha!, associated with the task being solved, can affect source-monitoring accuracy. During the first stage of the experiment, participants (80 people) had to solve Compound Remote Associates Task items and to estimate whether they had a feeling of Aha!, when either generating the solution or being presented with it in case they failed to generate it. At the second stage, conducted a week later, participants had to recall if the solution was generated by themselves or just presented. The results confirm the generation effect, which manifests itself in successfully recalling problems for which a solution was found (sufficient generation) compared to problems with no-solutions found (fail-to-generate). Participants quite accurately recognized the source of the solution a week later, attributing generated solutions to themselves, while attributing fail-to-generate solutions to the presented ones. However, the authors did not find any additional impact of the Aha!-experience on the problem’s recognition, nor on the sourcemonitoring task performance. In the conclusion of the article, the contradictions of different experimental data concerning the influence of the Aha!-experience on long-term memory and further areas of research is discussed.

Personality, Stress, and Intuition: Emotion Regulation Abilities Moderate the Effect of Stress-Dependent Cortisol Increase on Coherence Judgments.

ObjectiveFindings on the relationship between hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) activity and cognitive performance are inconsistent. We investigated whether personality in terms of emotion regulation abilities (ERA) moderates the relationship between stress-contingent HPA activity and accuracy of intuitive coherence judgments.MethodERA and cortisol responses to social-evaluative stress as induced by a variant of the Trier Social Stress Test were measured in N = 49 participants (32 female, aged 18 to 33 years, M = 22.48, SD = 3.33). Subsequently, in a Remote Associates Task they provided intuitive judgments on whether word triples, primed by either stress-reminding or neutral words, are coherent or not.ResultsUnder relative cortisol increase participants low in ERA showed reduced performance whereas individuals high in ERA showed increased performance. By contrast, under conditions of low cortisol change, individuals low in ERA outperformed those high in ERA.ConclusionPersonality can moderate the link between stress and cognition such as accurate intuition. This can happen to a degree that existing effects may not be become apparent in the main effect (i.e. without considering personality), which highlights the necessity to consider personality in stress research, ERA in particular. We discuss the findings with respect to individual differences in neurobehavioral mechanisms potentially underlying ERA and corresponding interactions with cognitive processing.

Priming older adults and people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease problem-solving with false memories

In two experiments we investigated whether older adult controls (OACs) and people with mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) benefit from false memory priming effects in subsequent problem-solving tasks. In addition, and unlike in previous false memory priming studies with older adults, we examined latency measures in the recognition phase. In Experiment 1 participants were asked to solve compound remote associate task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been preceded by the presentation of Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists whose critical lures (CLs) were also the solutions to those problems. In Experiment 2, we used a similar paradigm but investigated whether CLs could prime solutions to subsequent analogical reasoning problems. In this latter experiment, we also examined whether these priming effects were stronger when the activation of the CL term occurred during the memory task (was presented as part of the list; i.e., true memories) or when these items were not presented but arose during encoding due to spreading activation (i.e., false memories). We found that all three groups' performance on these tasks was facilitated only by false memories spontaneously generated from the prior presentation of DRM lists. That is, performance on CRATs and analogical reasoning tasks was better (greater accuracy and faster speed) when those problems were preceded by DRM lists whose CLs also served as the solution to those problems. These findings are consistent with previous results from studies with children, young adults, and older adults and extends them to people with more moderate AD.

Effects of stress on functional connectivity during problem solving

AimOur purpose was to examine how stress affects functional connectivity (FC) in language processing regions of the brain during a verbal problem solving task associated with creativity. We additionally explored how gender and the presence of the stress-susceptible short allele of the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism influenced this effect. MethodsForty-five healthy participants (Mean age: 19.6 ​± ​1.6 years; 28 females) were recruited to be a part of this study and genotyped to determine the presence or absence of at least one copy of the short (S) allele of the serotonin transporter gene, which is associated with greater susceptibility to stress. The participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging in two separate sessions (stress and no stress control). One session utilized a modified version of the Montreal Imaging Stress Test (MIST) to induce stress while the other session consisted of a no stress control task. The MIST and control tasks were interleaved with task blocks during which the participants performed the compound remote associates task, a convergent task that engages divergent thinking, which is a critical component of creativity. We examined the relationship between stress effects on performance and effects on connectivity of language processing regions activated during this task. ResultsThere was no main effect of stress on functional connectivity for individual ROI pairs. However, in the examination of whether stress effects on performance related to effects on connectivity, changes in middle temporal gyrus connectivity with stress correlated positively with changes in solution latency for individuals with the S allele, but anti-correlated for those with only the L allele. A trend towards a gene ​× ​stress interaction on solution latency was also observed. DiscussionResults from the study suggest that genetic susceptibility to stress, such as the presence of the S allele, affects neural correlates of performance on tasks related to verbal problem solving, as indicated by connectivity of the middle temporal gyrus. Future work will need to determine whether connectivity of the middle temporal gyrus serves as a marker for the effect of stress susceptibility on cognition, extending into stress susceptible patient populations.

Cocaine enhances figural, but impairs verbal ‘flexible’ divergent thinking

Anecdotal evidence suggests that cocaine use will help overcome creative ‘blocks’ by enhancing flexible thinking. Given that cocaine is likely to enhance dopamine (DA) levels, which in turn are positively associated with divergent thinking (DT); is a possibility that is tested in the present study. Furthermore, the impact of cocaine is tested on convergent thinking (CT), another aspect of creative thinking, which has been reported to be impaired with high DA levels. It was hypothesized that cocaine would enhance DT and impair CT. A placebo-controlled within-subjects study including 24 healthy poly-drug users was set up to test the influence of oral cocaine (300 mg) on creativity. Verbal CT was assessed with the Remote Associates Task (RAT); figural CT was assessed with the Picture Concepts Task (PCT) and the Tower of London (TOL). Verbal DT was assessed with the Alternative Uses Task (AUT); figural DT was assessed with the Pattern/Line Meanings Task (PLMT). Findings showed that, compared to placebo, cocaine impaired figural CT (TOL) and flexible DT of verbal stimuli (AUT), while it enhanced figural DT (PLMT). No significant effects of cocaine were observed regarding the PCT and RAT. It was demonstrated that cocaine-induced effects on creativity in poly-drug users are stimulus-dependent. Cocaine enhanced performance on figural DT but impaired performance on verbal (flexible) DT. Cocaine impaired CT on only one figural task and but not on the other tasks. As creativity is an important aspect in cognitive therapies, it is important to further understand these discrepancies in creativity task performance.

Modulation of creativity by transcranial direct current stimulation

BackgroundCreativity is the use of original ideas to accomplish something innovative. Previous research supports the notion that creativity is facilitated by an activation of the right and/or a deactivation of the left prefrontal cortex. In contrast, recent brain imaging studies suggest that creativity improves with left frontal activation. ObjectiveThe present study was designed to further elucidate the neural basis of and ways to modulate creativity, based on the modulation of prefrontal cortical activity through the non-invasive brain stimulation technique transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). MethodsNinety healthy University students performed three tasks on major aspects of creativity: conceptual expansion (Alternate Uses Task, AUT), associative thinking (Compound Remote Associate Task, CRA), and set shifting ability (Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, WCST). Simultaneously, they received cathodal stimulation of the left and anodal stimulation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the reverse protocol, or sham stimulation. ResultsThe main pattern of results was a superior performance with bilateral left cathodal/right anodal stimulation, and an inferior performance in the reversed protocol compared to sham stimulation. As a potential underlying physiological mechanism, resting state EEG beta power, indicative of enhanced cortical activity, in the right frontal area increased with anodal stimulation and was associated with better performance. ConclusionThe findings provide new insights into ways of modulating creativity, whereby a deactivation of the left and an activation of the right prefrontal cortex with tDCS is associated with increased creativity. Potential future applications might include tDCS for patients with mental disorders and for healthy individuals in creative professions.

Modulations in resting state networks of subcortical structures linked to creativity

Creativity is a sine qua non ability for almost all aspects of everyday life. Although very profound behavioural models were provided by 21st century psychologists, the neural correlates of these personality features associated with creativity are largely unknown. Recent models suggest strong relationships between dopamine release and various creative skills. Herein, we employed functional connectivity analyses of resting-state functional magnetic imaging data in order to shed light on these neural underpinnings of creative aspects. For improved sensitivity, we performed the study at ultra-high magnetic field (7 T). Seed regions were defined based on subcortical (ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra, nucleus caudatus) activation foci of a remote associates task (RAT). In addition, bilateral PCC was used as seed region to examine the default-mode network. Network strength across subjects was regressed against a battery of psychological variables related to creativity. Dopaminergic network variations turned out to be indicative for individual differences in creative traits. In this regard, the caudate network showed stronger connectivity in individuals with higher extraversion measures, while connectivity with the midbrain network was found increased with higher ideational behaviour and emotional stability.