TY - JOUR
T1 - Creative constraints
T2 - Brain activity and network dynamics underlying semantic interference during idea production
AU - Beaty, Roger E.
AU - Christensen, Alexander P.
AU - Benedek, Mathias
AU - Silvia, Paul J.
AU - Schacter, Daniel L.
N1 - Funding Information:
R.E.B, P.J.S., and M.B. were supported by Grant RFP-15-12 from the Imagination Institute (www.imagination-institute.org), funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Imagination Institute or the John Templeton Foundation. D.L.S was supported by National Institute of Mental Health R01 MH060941.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Functional neuroimaging research has recently revealed brain network interactions during performance on creative thinking tasks—particularly among regions of the default and executive control networks—but the cognitive mechanisms related to these interactions remain poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that the executive control network can interact with the default network to inhibit salient conceptual knowledge (i.e., pre-potent responses) elicited from memory during creative idea production. Participants studied common noun-verb pairs and were given a cued-recall test with corrective feedback to strengthen the paired association in memory. They then completed a verb generation task that presented either a previously studied noun (high-constraint) or an unstudied noun (low-constraint), and were asked to “think creatively” while searching for a novel verb to relate to the presented noun. Latent Semantic Analysis of verbal responses showed decreased semantic distance values in the high-constraint (i.e., interference) condition, which corresponded to increased neural activity within regions of the default (posterior cingulate cortex and bilateral angular gyri), salience (right anterior insula), and executive control (left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) networks. Independent component analysis of intrinsic functional connectivity networks extended this finding by revealing differential interactions among these large-scale networks across the task conditions. The results suggest that interactions between the default and executive control networks underlie response inhibition during constrained idea production, providing insight into specific neurocognitive mechanisms supporting creative cognition.
AB - Functional neuroimaging research has recently revealed brain network interactions during performance on creative thinking tasks—particularly among regions of the default and executive control networks—but the cognitive mechanisms related to these interactions remain poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that the executive control network can interact with the default network to inhibit salient conceptual knowledge (i.e., pre-potent responses) elicited from memory during creative idea production. Participants studied common noun-verb pairs and were given a cued-recall test with corrective feedback to strengthen the paired association in memory. They then completed a verb generation task that presented either a previously studied noun (high-constraint) or an unstudied noun (low-constraint), and were asked to “think creatively” while searching for a novel verb to relate to the presented noun. Latent Semantic Analysis of verbal responses showed decreased semantic distance values in the high-constraint (i.e., interference) condition, which corresponded to increased neural activity within regions of the default (posterior cingulate cortex and bilateral angular gyri), salience (right anterior insula), and executive control (left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) networks. Independent component analysis of intrinsic functional connectivity networks extended this finding by revealing differential interactions among these large-scale networks across the task conditions. The results suggest that interactions between the default and executive control networks underlie response inhibition during constrained idea production, providing insight into specific neurocognitive mechanisms supporting creative cognition.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.01.012
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.01.012
M3 - Article
C2 - 28082106
AN - SCOPUS:85010333142
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 148
SP - 189
EP - 196
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
ER -