Gong Zheng, Miao Kuan, Liu Xuerong, Luo Mengjie, Yu Yang, Chen Zhiyi
School of Psychology, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
Experimental Research Center for Medical and Psychological Science (ERC-MPS), Army Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China.
J Intell. 2023 Jan 13;11(1):15. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence11010015.
Creativity serves as a fountain for social and scientific development. As one of the most crucial human capabilities, creativity has been believed to be supported by the core component of higher cognitive functions—working memory capacity (WMC). However, the evidence supporting the association between WMC and creativity remains contradictory. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis using random-effects models to investigate the linear association between WMC and creativity by pooling the individual effect size from the previous literature. Further, a subgroup analysis was performed to examine whether such association is specific for different WMC categories (i.e., verbal WMC, visual−spatial WMC and dual-task WMC). The main meta-analytic results showed a significantly positive association between WMC and creativity (r = .083, 95% CI: .050−.115, p < .001, n = 3104, k = 28). The subgroup analysis demonstrated consistent results by showing a significantly positive association between them, irrespective of WMC category. We also found that cultural environments could moderate this association, and we identified a strong correlation in participants from an Asian cultural context. In conclusion, this study provides the evidence to clarify the positive association between WMC and creativity, and implies that the Asian cultural context may boost such an association.
创造力是社会和科学发展的源泉。作为人类最重要的能力之一，创造力一直被认为是由高级认知功能的核心组成部分——工作记忆容量（WMC）所支撑的。然而，支持WMC与创造力之间关联的证据仍然相互矛盾。在此，我们使用随机效应模型进行了一项荟萃分析，通过汇总以往文献中的个体效应量来研究WMC与创造力之间的线性关联。此外，还进行了亚组分析，以检验这种关联是否特定于不同的WMC类别（即言语WMC、视觉空间WMC和双任务WMC）。荟萃分析的主要结果显示，WMC与创造力之间存在显著的正相关（r = 0.083，95%CI：0.050 - 0.115，p < 0.001，n = 3104，k = 28）。亚组分析通过显示无论WMC类别如何，它们之间都存在显著的正相关，得出了一致的结果。我们还发现文化环境可以调节这种关联，并且我们确定在亚洲文化背景的参与者中存在很强的相关性。总之，本研究提供了证据来阐明WMC与创造力之间的正相关，并表明亚洲文化背景可能会增强这种关联。
