He Li, Kenett Yoed N, Zhuang Kaixiang, Sun Jiangzhou, Chen Qunlin, Qiu Jiang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of the Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University.
Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2025 Feb;154(2):391-404. doi: 10.1037/xge0001675. Epub 2024 Oct 7.
Semantic memory offers a rich repository of raw materials (e.g., various concepts and connections between concepts) for creative thinking, represented as a semantic network. Similar to other networks, the semantic network exhibits a modular structure characterized by modules with dense internal connections and sparse connections between them. This organizational principle facilitates the routine storage and retrieval of information but may impede creativity. The present study investigated the effect of hub concepts with varying connection patterns on creative thinking from the perspective of a modular structured semantic network. By analyzing a large-scale semantic network, connector hubs (C-hubs) and provincial hubs (P-hubs) were identified based on their intra- and intermodule connections. These hubs were used as cue words in the alternative uses task, a widely used measure of creative thinking. Across four experiments, behavioral and neural evidence indicated that C-hubs facilitate the generation of more novel and remote ideas compared to P-hubs. However, this effect is predominantly observed in the early stage of the creative thinking process, involving changes in brain activation and functional connectivity in core regions of the default mode network and the frontoparietal network, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus, and precuneus. Neural findings suggest that the superior performance of C-hubs relies on stronger interactions between automatic spreading activation, controlled semantic retrieval, and attentional regulation of salient information. These results provide insight into how concepts with varying semantic connection patterns facilitate and constrain different stages of the creative thinking process through the modular structure of semantic network. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
语义记忆为创造性思维提供了丰富的原材料库（例如，各种概念以及概念之间的联系），以语义网络的形式呈现。与其他网络类似，语义网络呈现出一种模块化结构，其特点是模块内部连接紧密，而模块之间连接稀疏。这种组织原则有助于信息的常规存储和检索，但可能会阻碍创造力。本研究从模块化结构语义网络的角度，考察了具有不同连接模式的枢纽概念对创造性思维的影响。通过分析一个大规模语义网络，根据其模块内和模块间的连接确定了连接枢纽（C枢纽）和省级枢纽（P枢纽）。这些枢纽被用作替代用途任务中的提示词，替代用途任务是一种广泛使用的创造性思维测量方法。在四项实验中，行为和神经学证据表明，与P枢纽相比，C枢纽有助于产生更新颖、更具远程性的想法。然而，这种效应主要在创造性思维过程的早期阶段观察到，涉及默认模式网络和额顶叶网络核心区域的大脑激活和功能连接变化，包括背外侧前额叶皮层、角回和楔前叶。神经学研究结果表明，C枢纽的卓越表现依赖于自动扩散激活、受控语义检索和显著信息的注意力调节之间更强的相互作用。这些结果深入揭示了具有不同语义连接模式的概念如何通过语义网络的模块化结构促进和限制创造性思维过程的不同阶段。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
