Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing, China.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Dec 1;44(17):6031-6042. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26494. Epub 2023 Sep 29.
The investigation of similarities and differences in the mechanisms of verbal and visuospatial creative thinking has long been a controversial topic. Prior studies found that visuospatial creativity was primarily supported by the right hemisphere, whereas verbal creativity relied on the interaction between both hemispheres. However, creative thinking also involves abundant dynamic features that may have been ignored in the previous static view. Recently, a new method has been developed that measures hemispheric laterality from a dynamic perspective, providing new insight into the exploration of creative thinking. In the present study, dynamic lateralisation index was calculated with resting-state fMRI data. We combined the dynamic lateralisation index with sparse canonical correlation analysis to examine similarities and differences in the mechanisms of verbal and visuospatial creativity. Our results showed that the laterality reversal of the default mode network, fronto-parietal network, cingulo-opercular network and visual network contributed significantly to both verbal and visuospatial creativity and consequently could be considered the common neural mechanisms shared by these creative modes. In addition, we found that verbal creativity relied more on the language network, while visuospatial creativity relied more on the somatomotor network, which can be considered a difference in their mechanism. Collectively, these findings indicated that verbal and visuospatial creativity may have similar mechanisms to support the basic creative thinking process and different mechanisms to adapt to the specific task conditions. These findings may have significant implications for our understanding of the neural mechanisms of different types of creative thinking.
言语和视空间创造性思维机制的相似性和差异性的研究由来已久,一直颇具争议。先前的研究发现,视空间创造力主要由右脑支持,而言语创造力则依赖于两个半球的相互作用。然而,创造性思维还涉及丰富的动态特征,这在以前的静态观点中可能被忽视了。最近,一种新的方法从动态的角度来衡量大脑的侧化,为探索创造性思维提供了新的视角。在本研究中,我们使用静息态 fMRI 数据计算了动态侧化指数。我们将动态侧化指数与稀疏典型相关分析相结合,来考察言语和视空间创造性思维机制的相似性和差异性。结果表明,默认模式网络、额顶网络、扣带回-脑岛网络和视觉网络的侧化反转对言语和视空间创造力都有显著贡献,因此可以被认为是这些创造性模式共有的神经机制。此外,我们发现言语创造力更多地依赖于语言网络,而视空间创造力更多地依赖于躯体运动网络,这可以被认为是它们机制上的差异。总之,这些发现表明言语和视空间创造力可能具有相似的机制来支持基本的创造性思维过程,而具有不同的机制来适应特定的任务条件。这些发现可能对我们理解不同类型的创造性思维的神经机制具有重要意义。