Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Austria; BioTecMed Graz, Austria.
Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Austria; BioTecMed Graz, Austria.
Cortex. 2018 Feb;99:93-102. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.024. Epub 2017 Nov 11.
This fMRI study investigated what brain processes contribute to the generation of new ideas. Brain activation was measured while participants generated new original object uses, recalled original object uses, or recalled common object uses. Post-scan evaluations were used to confirm what ideas were newly generated on the spot or actually retrieved from memory. When compared to the recall of common ideas, the generation of new and old original ideas showed a similar activation pattern including activation of bilateral parahippocampal and mPFC regions, suggesting that the construction of new ideas builds on similar processes like the reconstruction of original ideas from episodic memory. As a difference, the generation of new object uses involved higher activation of a focused cluster in the left supramarginal gyrus compared to the recall of original ideas. This finding adds to the converging evidence that the left supramarginal gyrus is crucially involved in the construction of novel representations, potentially by integrating memory content in new ways and supporting executively demanding mental simulations. This study deepens our understanding of how creative thought builds on and goes beyond memory.
这项 fMRI 研究探讨了大脑的哪些过程有助于产生新的想法。当参与者生成新的原创用途、回忆原创用途或回忆常见用途时，测量大脑激活情况。扫描后评估用于确认哪些想法是当场新生成的，还是实际从记忆中检索到的。与回忆常见想法相比，生成新旧原创想法显示出相似的激活模式，包括双侧海马旁回和 mPFC 区域的激活，表明新想法的构建基于类似的过程，如从情景记忆中重建原始想法。作为区别，与回忆原始想法相比，新物体用途的生成涉及左缘上回一个集中簇的更高激活。这一发现增加了越来越多的证据表明，左缘上回在新的表示构建中起着至关重要的作用，可能是通过以新的方式整合记忆内容，并支持执行要求高的心理模拟。这项研究加深了我们对创造性思维如何建立在记忆基础上并超越记忆的理解。
