Developing Novel Neuroimaging Paradigm to Assess Neural Correlates of Improvisation and Creative Thinking Using fMRI
The ability to produce novel yet appropriate (or useful) outcomes is broadly defined as creativity. Given the cultural significance of creativity, researchers have been attempting to uncover brain mechanisms underlying creative thinking since the early 19
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Abstract The ability to produce novel yet appropriate (or useful) outcomes is broadly defined as creativity. Given the cultural significance of creativity, researchers have been attempting to uncover brain mechanisms underlying creative thinking since the early 1960s. However, several methodological issues have restricted researchers in uncovering the brain basis for creativity and previous neuroimaging studies have largely produced varied findings, with little overlap. Some of the methodological issues that could account for the large variance in results include treating creativity as a unitary construct, assessing creativity in a test-like environment, as well as explicitly prompting participants to “switch-on” creativity during certain parts of the experiment. To partly mitigate some of these issues, we recently developed a novel game-like and creativity-conducive neuroimaging paradigm that was employed to assess neural correlates of spontaneous improvisation and figural creativity in healthy adults (Saggar Sci Rep 5:10894, 2015). In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of the current state of neuroscience research focused on creativity. We also provide insights regarding our experimental design, challenges faced during prototyping as well as a summary of our results. Lastly, building upon our novel paradigm, we provide pointers to future work for assessing neural correlates of creative capacity enhancement and team creativity.
M. Saggar (*) • L.C. Chromik • A.L. Reiss Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA 94305-5795, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Royalty • G. Hawthorne Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), Building 550, 416 Escondido Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-3086, USA © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 H. Plattner et al. (eds.), Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40382-3_17
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1 Introduction Creativity can be defined as the process of creating unique but meaningful solutions (Ellamil et al. 2012). Creativity is considered a necessary component for success in a wide range of areas and is considered an underlying factor for innovation and forward progress (Dietrich and Kanso 2010). Creativity is also considered an essential part of mental health (Srivastava and Ketter 2010; Torrance 1968). However, despite the importance and usefulness of creativity, it has been understudied compared to other psychological phenomena (Abraham 2013; Dietrich and Kanso 2010). Given the extent to which creativity has been implicated in success, productivity, and mental health, understanding its neural correlates is crucial (Saggar et al. 2015). Previous neuroimaging studies of creativity have not consistently identified localized areas of the brain linked to this cognitive construct (Arden et al. 2010; Dietrich and Kanso 2010). This variation in findings may be partially explained by differing study designs as well as different definitions and ope
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