Neurophysiological correlates of artistic image creation by representatives of artistic professions (original) (raw)
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Brain networks for visual creativity: a functional connectivity study of planning a visual artwork
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Neuroimaging as contributor to understanding creativity
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Data emerging from neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and neuroelectric techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) contribute to, and often disprove, existing knowledge about creativity. This article explains why neural and cognitive aspects of brain states and brain processing will become germane to any future explanation of creativity.
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We aim for an interdisciplinary approach, which we consider relevant and of interest, focusing on understanding how the brain functions and the intricate neural networks engaged during the creative process, seen as the key to developing and enhancing creativity. Additionally, within the complex scope of this research theme, we will highlight several beneficial effects of art on individual and collective health. Art serves as an alternative energy source for the brain, stimulating connections between mental and physical processes.
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Creativity has been proposed to be either the result of solely right hemisphere processes or of interhemispheric interactions. Little information is available, however, concerning the neuronal foundations of creativity. In this study, we introduced a new artistic task, designing a new tool (a pen), which let us quantitatively evaluate creativity by three indices of originality. These scores were analyzed in combination with brain activities measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results were compared between subjects who had been formally trained in design (experts) and novice subjects. In the experts, creativity was quantitatively correlated with the degree of dominance of the right prefrontal cortex over that of the left, but not with that of the right or left prefrontal cortex alone. In contrast, in novice subjects, only a negative correlation with creativity was observed in the bilateral inferior parietal cortex. We introduced structure equation modeling to analyze the interactions among these four brain areas and originality indices. The results predicted that training exerts a direct effect on the left parietal cortex. Additionally, as a result of the indirect effects, the activity of the right prefrontal cortex was facilitated, and the left prefrontal and right parietal cortices were suppressed. Our results supported the hypothesis that training increases creativity via reorganized intercortical interactions.
The cognitive neuroscience of creativity
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This article outlines a framework of creativity based on functional neuroanatomy. Recent advances in the field of cognitive neuroscience have identified distinct brain circuits that are involved in specific higher brain functions. To date, these findings have not been applied to research on creativity. It is proposed that there are four basic types of creative insights, each mediated by a distinctive neural circuit. By definition, creative insights occur in consciousness. Given the view that the working memory buffer of the prefrontal cortex holds the content of consciousness, each of the four distinctive neural loops terminates there. When creativity is the result of deliberate control, as opposed to spontaneous generation, the prefrontal cortex also instigates the creative process. Both processing modes, deliberate and spontaneous, can guide neural computation in structures that contribute emotional content and in structures that provide cognitive analysis, yielding the four basic types of creativity. Supportive evidence from psychological, cognitive, and neuroscientific studies is presented and integrated in this article. The new theoretical framework systematizes the interaction between knowledge and creative thinking, and how the nature of this relationship changes as a function of domain and age. Implications for the arts and sciences are briefly discussed.
Human Physiology, 2023
This paper provides a methodology and procedure for studying the neurophysiological characteristics of artistic creativity in the natural conditions of artists' studio. Paper provided description of equipment, investigation processes and creation of conditions for research. Recommended psychological diagnostic methods and indicators for self-report in the study are listed. A set of tasks is given that was used during the development of the methodology in addition to the study of artistic creativity processes and stages of artists' work. The listed tasks can be used both for research and for the development of artistic creativity in different groups of participants (experienced and novice). The paper also provides review on neurophysiological investigations of visual creativity in artists, mainly in laboratory conditions.
Neuroimaging creativity: A psychometric view
Behavioural Brain Research, 2010
Many studies of creative cognition with a neuroimaging component now exist; what do they say about where and how creativity arises in the brain? We reviewed 45 brain-imaging studies of creative cognition. We found little clear evidence of overlap in their results. Nearly as many different tests were used as there were studies; this test diversity makes it impossible to interpret the different findings across studies with any confidence. Our conclusion is that creativity research would benefit from psychometrically informed revision, and the addition of neuroimaging methods designed to provide greater spatial localization of function. Without such revision in the behavioral measures and study designs, it is hard to see the benefit of imaging. We set out eight suggestions in a manifesto for taking creativity research forward.