Neural dynamics of creative drawing
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Date
2023
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Abstract
Creativity is a characteristic element of human cognition. At the brain level, the difference between creative and non-creative problem solving correlates with changes in alpha oscillatory activity. Although interesting, a weakness of these studies is the imbalance between the cognitive demands associated with the creative task (harder) and the control task (easier). This point casts doubt on whether alpha activity is indeed a marker of the creative process or rather is a general index of the cognitive demands of the task. To elucidate this issue, we compared the oscillatory brain response of subjects while performing two cognitively demanding drawing tasks, which differed only in the level of creativity required to execute them. Compared to the ideation of creative drawings, the ideation of conventional drawings induced a greater increase in alpha power, mainly over bilateral frontal and posterior regions. Furthermore, compared to low creative subjects, high creative subjects show a progressive increase in alpha power during the ideation phase, distributed across right frontoparietal and bilateral posterior sites. Taken together, these findings suggest task-specific allocation of cognitive resources over time, with greater cognitve control at the beginning and decreased control towards the end in more structured tasks, and conversely in tasks that demand creative problem solving. Future research should explore these dynamics further, particularly in relation to individual differences in creativity.
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Tesis (Doctor en Neurociencias)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2023
Keywords
Creative cognition, Alpha oscillations, Cognitive demand, Brain activity, Conventional drawing, Creative drawing, Cognitive flexibility