Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Faculty of industrial Engineering & Management, 3200003, Haifa, Israel.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2021 Apr;21(2):311-326. doi: 10.3758/s13415-021-00869-x. Epub 2021 Feb 23.
Theories of the processes involved in creative cognition posit that cognitive control has a negative effect on creative idea generation but a positive effect on creative idea evaluation. Brain stimulation research has started to examine empirically the effects of cognitive control, with several reports of decreased cognitive control facilitating creative ideation. Such studies have shown how decreased cognitive control mechanisms facilitate creative idea generation, potentially by allowing participants access to less inhibited weaker-related associations, thereby increasing novelty. In the current study, we advance this line of work by investigating how cognitive control affects creative thinking, potentially inhibiting or facilitating novel idea generation based on task demands. Participants read sentences with the final word missing and were instructed to complete the sentence with an uncommon (but appropriate) ending. Participants performed this task while undergoing either anodal (excitatory), cathodal (inhibitory), or sham (control) transcranial direct current stimulation over their left prefrontal cortex. These responses were then rated for their novelty and appropriateness by an independent sample of raters. We found that anodal stimulation increased the appropriateness and decreased the novelty of participants' responses. Contrary to previous studies, we did not find that cathodal stimulation increased the novelty of participants' responses, which may be due to the nature of our task. Overall, we demonstrate how cognitive control mechanisms may inhibit novel idea generation.
涉及创造性认知过程的理论假设，认知控制对创造性思维的产生有负面影响，但对创造性思维的评价有积极影响。脑刺激研究已经开始从实证上检验认知控制的影响，有几项研究报告表明，认知控制的降低有助于创造性思维的产生。这些研究表明，认知控制机制的降低如何促进创造性思维的产生，可能是通过允许参与者获得较少抑制的较弱相关联想，从而增加新颖性。在本研究中，我们通过研究认知控制如何影响创造性思维来推进这一研究，根据任务需求潜在地抑制或促进新颖思维的产生。参与者阅读最后一个单词缺失的句子，并被指示用一个不常见（但合适）的词来完成句子。参与者在接受左前额叶经颅直流电刺激（阳极刺激：兴奋，阴极刺激：抑制，假刺激：对照）的同时执行此任务。然后，由独立的评分者样本对这些反应的新颖性和适当性进行评分。我们发现，阳极刺激增加了参与者反应的适当性，降低了其新颖性。与之前的研究相反，我们没有发现阴极刺激会增加参与者反应的新颖性，这可能是由于我们任务的性质所致。总的来说，我们证明了认知控制机制如何抑制新颖思维的产生。
