Varieties of Inner Speech and Creative Potential

Inner speaking, the covert talking that goes on inside a person's mind, can shape creative thought. How the phenomenological properties and quality of inner speaking correlate with a person's creative potential, however, is an open scientific problem. To explore this, participants ( n = 267) filled in the revised Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire and the revised Launay Slade Hallucination Scale (auditory subscale), and performed three tests of creative potential: one divergent (Alternative Uses Test) and two convergent thinking tests (Compound Remote Associates Test, short Hagen Matrices Test). The results showed that a tendency to engage in condensed and evaluative/ critical inner speaking negatively correlated with convergent thinking ability; and the results pointed toward a potential negative correlation of auditory hallucination proneness with divergent and convergent thinking ability. No evidence was found for a correlation of the dialogicality, imagining of others’ voices, or positive/regulatory aspect of the participants day-to-day inner speech, with creative potential. Herewith, the presented study contributes novel insight into the relationship between the varieties of inner speech and creative potential.

Time course of EEG power during creative problem-solving with insight or remote thinking

Problem-solving often requires creativity and is critical in everyday life. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative problem-solving remain poorly understood. Two mechanisms have been highlighted: forming new connections from and between the problem elements and insight solving (with a sudden realization of a solution). We examined EEG activity during an adapted version of a classical insight problem task, the Remote Associates Test, that requires finding a word connecting three words. It allowed us to explore remoteness in semantic connections (by varying the remoteness of the solution word across trials) and insight solving (identified as a "Eureka" moment reported by the participants). Semantic remoteness was associated with a power increase in alpha band (8-12Hz) in a left parieto-temporal cluster, beta band (13-30Hz) in a right fronto-temporal cluster in the early phase of the task, and theta band (3-7Hz) in frontal cluster before the participants responded. Insight solving was associated with power increase preceding the response in alpha and gamma band (31-60Hz) in left temporal clusters and theta band in a frontal cluster. Source reconstructions show the brain regions associated with these clusters. Overall, our findings shed new light on the dynamic of some of the mechanisms involved in creative problem-solving.

Visual-Spatial and Verbal Remote Association: An fMRI Study

Although idea connections at verbal and conceptual levels have been explored by remote associates tests, the visual-spatial level is much less researched. This study investigated the visual-spatial ability via Chinese Radical Remote Associates Test (CRRAT), wherein respondents consider the positions of the stimulus and target Chinese radicals. Chinese Compound Remote Associates Test (CCRAT) questions also feature stimuli of a single Chinese character; therefore, it was adopted for comparison to distinguish the roles played by verbal and visual-spatial associations in a remote associative process. Thirty-six adults responded to CRRAT and CCRAT; their brain activities were analyzed. Upon excluding the influence of age, verbal comprehension, and working memory, it was found that the caudate, posterior cingulate cortex, postcentral gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus were activated when the respondents answered CCRAT, but only the caudate showed significant activation when they answered CRRAT. The Chinese radical remote association minus the Chinese compound remote association showed that the middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and precuneus demonstrated significant activation. Therefore, this study demonstrated differences in brain mechanisms between visual-spatial and verbal remote associations.

The Predictive Ability of Emotional Creativity in Creative Performance Among University Students

This study investigated the predictive ability of emotional creativity (EC) in creative performance (CP). The sample consisted of 297 male and female students from literary, educational, and administrative specializations. EC was assessed by Averill’s Emotional Creativity Inventory that includes three dimensions: preparedness, novelty, and effectiveness. Mednick’s Remote Associates Test was used to assess CP. Results revealed that the three dimensions of EC predicted CP. Statistically significant differences in EC were found in favor of female students and students from literary and educational specializations, whereas no significant differences were found by cumulative grade. Nevertheless, statistically significant differences in CP by cumulative grade were found in favor of students with high grades. No statistically significant differences in CP by gender and specialization were found. It was recommended based on the results that the three dimensions of EC be integrated in programs seeking to enhance students’ creative thinking skills.

Baseline Differences in Anxiety Affect Attention and tDCS-Mediated Learning

Variable responses to transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) protocols across individuals are widely reported, but the reasons behind this variation are unclear. This includes tDCS protocols meant to improve attention. Attentional control is impacted by top-down and bottom-up processes, and this relationship is affected by state characteristics such as anxiety. According to Attentional Control Theory, anxiety biases attention towards bottom-up and stimulus-driven processing. The goal of this study was to explore the extent to which differences in state anxiety and related measures affect visual attention and category learning, both with and without the influence of tDCS. Using discovery learning, participants were trained to classify pictures of European streets into two categories while receiving 30 min of 2.0 mA anodal, cathodal, or sham tDCS over the rVLPFC. The pictures were classifiable according to two separate rules, one stimulus and one hypothesis-driven. The Remote Associates Test (RAT), Profile of Mood States, and Attention Networks Task (ANT) were used to understand the effects of individual differences at baseline on subsequent tDCS-mediated learning. Multinomial logistic regression was fit to predict rule learning based on the baseline measures, with subjects classified according to whether they used the stimulus-driven or hypothesis-driven rule to classify the pictures. The overall model showed a classification accuracy of 74.1%. The type of tDCS stimulation applied, attentional orienting score, and self-reported mood were significant predictors of different categories of rule learning. These results indicate that anxiety can influence the quality of subjects’ attention at the onset of the task and that these attentional differences can influence tDCS-mediated category learning during the rapid assessment of visual scenes. These findings have implications for understanding the complex interactions that give rise to the variability in response to tDCS.

THE INTERPLAY OF BILINGUALISM, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS AND CREATIVITY IN PROBLEM SOLVING AMONG MALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The present study explores the interplay among bilingualism, executive functions and creativity in problem solving among adult male university students. In this context, the associations between two factors critical for understanding the topic, i.e. type of bilingualism (i.e. balanced versus non-balanced bilingualism) and type of creative thinking (i.e. convergent versus divergent thinking) are examined, as well. 28 Russian/Hebrew/English trilinguals (balanced Russian/Hebrew bilinguals), and 25 non-balanced Hebrew/English bilinguals participated in the study. All participants performed several standard tasks on executive functions (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Eriksen flanker task, digit span test, Corsi block-tapping test) and two tests on creativity: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Form A) and Remote Associates Test (in appropriate languages). The findings showed that the Russian-speaking participants performed better on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, particularly in flexibility and fluency measures. On the Remote Associates Test, balanced bilinguals outperformed non-balanced bilinguals in the English version and exhibited the same results in the Hebrew version of the test. In this case, there were significant correlations between the Remote Associates Test results in all three languages in the Russian group. Thus, balanced bilingualism seems to be also characterized by a well-organized language system in which all of the individual’s languages are interconnected. This appears to be a significant factor in the performance of balanced bilinguals on the Remote Associates Test in the different languages. In addition, the findings seem to confirm the hypothesis that balanced bilingualism positively influences divergent thinking. The hypothesis that performance of bilinguals on creativity tasks is linked to distinctions in the development of their executive functions was not confirmed.