Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Otto Loewi Research Center, Section of Physiology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
PLoS One. 2019 Jul 22;14(7):e0220205. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220205. eCollection 2019.
Coping with mental challenges is vital to everyday functioning. In accordance with prominent theories, the adaptive and flexible adjustment of the organism to daily demands is well expressed in task-related changes of cardiac vagal control. While many mental challenges are associated with increased effort and associated decreased task-related heart rate variability (HRV), some cognitive challenges go along with HRV increases. Especially creativity represents a cognitive process, which not only results from mental effort but also from spontaneous modes of thinking. Critically, creativity and HRV are associated with regular exercising and fitness. Furthermore, the cross-stressor adaptation theory suggests that changes in cardiac reactions to physical challenges may generalize to mental challenges. In line with this idea the amount of regular exercising was hypothesized to moderate the association between HRV changes and creativity. A sample of 97 participants was investigated. They reported the amount of regular exercise and their ECG was measured at baseline and during a creativity task. An association between task-related HRV changes and originality as a function of participants' amount of regular exercise was found. Participants reporting more regular exercising produced more original ideas when they had higher HRV increases during the task, while more sedentary participants showed the opposite association. Results suggest that individuals with a higher amount of regular exercise achieve higher originality probably via the engagement in more spontaneous modes of thinking, while more sedentary people may primarily benefit from increased mental effort. This supports the conclusion that higher creativity can be achieved by different strategies.
应对心理挑战对于日常功能至关重要。根据著名理论，机体对日常需求的适应性和灵活性调整在与任务相关的心脏迷走神经控制变化中得到很好的体现。虽然许多心理挑战都伴随着努力增加和相关的心率变异性（HRV）降低，但一些认知挑战伴随着 HRV 增加。创造力尤其代表一种认知过程，它不仅来自心理努力，还来自自发的思维模式。至关重要的是，创造力和 HRV 与定期锻炼和健康有关。此外，交叉压力适应理论表明，对身体挑战的心脏反应变化可能会泛化到心理挑战。根据这一观点，假设定期锻炼的数量可以调节 HRV 变化与创造力之间的关联。研究了 97 名参与者。他们报告了定期锻炼的数量，并在基线和创造力任务期间测量了他们的心电图。发现与任务相关的 HRV 变化与参与者定期锻炼量的原创性之间存在关联。在任务中 HRV 增加时报告更多定期锻炼的参与者产生了更多的原创想法，而久坐不动的参与者则表现出相反的关联。结果表明，定期锻炼量较高的个体可能通过更多地参与自发的思维模式来实现更高的原创性，而久坐不动的人可能主要受益于增加的心理努力。这支持了更高的创造力可以通过不同的策略来实现的结论。
