Characterizing the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative thinking and individual differences in creative ability

• Applicant: Dr. Anna Abraham
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2008 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 99196413

• Final Report Year: 2013

Final Report Abstract

From the time this project was proposed in 2008 to present day in 2013, there has been a momentous surge in the number of published studies that have assess different aspects of creative thinking in relation to brain function. The studies explored within this grant form the foundation from which future research in creative neurocognition will be based. The approach adopted in this project was highly innovative in that creativity, a remarkably complex construct, was studied in terms of component processes. The mental operation that was selected for investigation was conceptual expansion or the ability to widen the conceptual structures of acquired concepts. This operation is fundamental to the generation of creative ideas as thinking in new ways necessitates altering conceptual boundaries. A number of novel experimental paradigms were developed to assess the brain basis of conceptual expansion and the findings across the studies are reassuringly consistent. The neuroimaging evidence (fMRI) indicates that specific frontal and temporal lobe regions, that are known to be crucial for semantic access, selection and retrieval, as well as relational integration of disparate concepts, are engaged during conceptual expansion. The electrophysiological evidence is particularly exciting as ERP paradigms have rarely been adopted in the study of creativity. The findings suggest that the N400 and a subsequent late positivity component can function as indices that code for information processing related to two defining components of creativity, namely originality and relevance. The N400 appears to be sensitive to novelty (originality) whereas the late positivity reflects the success in integrating concepts within existing knowledge (relevance). After these insights regarding the brain basis for conceptual expansion were attained, further investigations were carried out to explore the brain basis of individual differences in creative thinking by contrasting high and low creative groups. These studies, that are currently underway, seek to uncover whether the differences between the groups are quantitative – in that the same brain regions are differentially engaged in terms of degree in each group – and /or qualitative in that both groups engage a different network of regions during conceptual expansion.

Publications

• Can clouds dance? Neural correlates of passive conceptual expansion using a metaphor processing task: Implications for creative cognition. Brain and Cognition. 2012 Mar;78(2):114-22
  Rutter B, Kröger S, Stark R, Schweckendiek J, Windmann S, Hermann C, Abraham A
  
• Can clouds dance? Part 2: an ERP investigation of passive conceptual expansion. Brain and Cognition. 2012 Dec;80(3):301-10
  Rutter B, Kröger S, Hill H, Windmann S, Hermann C, Abraham A
  
• Creativity and the brain: uncovering the neural signature of conceptual expansion. Neuropsychologia. 2012 Jul;50(8):1906-17
  Abraham A, Pieritz K, Thybusch K, Rutter B, Kröger S, Schweckendiek J, Stark R, Windmann S, Hermann C
  
• Using a shoe as a plant pot: neural correlates of passive conceptual expansion. Brain Research. 2012 Jan 9;1430:52-61
  Kröger S, Rutter B, Stark R, Windmann S, Hermann C, Abraham A