Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10F, 35394 Giessen, Germany.
Brain Cogn. 2012 Mar;78(2):114-22. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2011.11.002. Epub 2011 Dec 26.
Creativity has emerged in the focus of neurocognitive research in the past decade. However, a heterogeneous pattern of brain areas has been implicated as underpinning the neural correlates of creativity. One explanation for these divergent findings lies in the fact that creativity is not usually investigated in terms of its many underlying cognitive processes. The present fMRI study focuses on the neural correlates of conceptual expansion, a central component of all creative processes. The study aims to avoid pitfalls of previous fMRI studies on creativity by employing a novel paradigm. Participants were presented with phrases and made judgments regarding both the unusualness and the appropriateness of the stimuli, corresponding to the two defining criteria of creativity. According to their respective evaluation, three subject-determined experimental conditions were obtained. Phrases judged as both unusual and appropriate were classified as indicating conceptual expansion in participants. The findings reveal the involvement of frontal and temporal regions when engaging in passive conceptual expansion as opposed to the information processing of mere unusualness (novelty) or appropriateness (relevance). Taking this new experimental approach to uncover specific processes involved in creative cognition revealed that frontal and temporal regions known to be involved in semantic cognition and relational reasoning play a role in passive conceptual expansion. Adopting a different vantage point on the investigation of creativity would allow for critical advances in future research on this topic.
创造力在过去十年的神经认知研究中成为焦点。然而，作为创造力神经相关物的脑区却呈现出异质性。造成这些差异的原因之一是，创造力通常不会从其许多潜在的认知过程方面进行研究。本 fMRI 研究集中于概念扩展的神经相关物，这是所有创造性过程的核心组成部分。该研究旨在通过采用新的范式来避免之前关于创造力的 fMRI 研究的缺陷。参与者会看到短语，并对刺激的不寻常性和适当性进行判断，这对应于创造力的两个定义标准。根据各自的评估，获得了三个由参与者确定的实验条件。被判断为既不寻常又适当的短语被归类为参与者表现出概念扩展。研究结果表明，在参与被动概念扩展时，额叶和颞叶区域会被激活，而不是简单地处理不寻常性（新颖性）或适当性（相关性）的信息。采用这种新的实验方法来揭示创造性认知中涉及的特定过程表明，已知与语义认知和关系推理相关的额叶和颞叶区域在被动概念扩展中发挥作用。从不同的角度研究创造力可以为该主题的未来研究带来重要进展。
