Creative Connections: Computational Semantic Distance Captures Individual Creativity and Resting-State Functional Connectivity.

As selective revealing is being recognized as a new means to find collaboration partners, little attention has been paid on how selectively revealed solutions are best formulated in order to be positively perceived. Prior research has highlighted that technological gatekeepers, i.e. individuals with who handle the R&D communication network and hence potential recipients of revealed knowledge, rely on cognitive and perceptual abilities during the recognition and evaluation of novel technologies. To enrich existing knowledge about opportunity recognition in selective revealing, this study took a cognitive perspective and intended to explore the effects of different formulated revealed solutions on the identification of collaborative opportunities. By priorly manipulating the superficial and structural commonalities of two revealed solutions conducted in collaboration with industry experts, I designed a 2*2 within-subject experiment to validate whether such an induction of analogies increases the percipience of a selectively revealed opportunity. The data, which was attained during an online-experiment with university students from different fields of studies also included individual factors such as prior knowledge about markets and technologies, creative ability (proxied by divergent thinking test and creative self-efficacy) and other demographic characteristics. The gathered data was analyzed through a linear-mixed effect model to capture the repeated design of the experiment. The computation illustrated that relational commonalities between a market and a revealed solution considerably improved the perception about a revealed solution and the willingness to engage a collaboration. In addition, the results demonstrated that superficial similarities facilitate the retrieval of analogies from structural commonalities. For the individual factors, the provided evidence could not support the initial hypotheses that individual creativity and prior knowledge positively moderate the effects of superficial and structural similarities. Contrarily, the results revealed negative moderating effects of creativity and the field of study. Despite further research is necessary, this study delivered implications for both ends of the information flow in selective revealing by conjointly examining the effects of selectively revealed opportunities and personal traits, and enriched this field of study through comprehending the drivers of early action in open innovation and strategic renewal. As selective revealing is being recognized as a new means to find collaboration partners, little attention has been paid on how selectively revealed solutions are best formulated in order to be positively perceived. Prior research has highlighted that technological gatekeepers, i.e. individuals with who handle the R&D communication network and hence potential recipients of revealed knowledge, rely on cognitive and perceptual abilities during the recognition and evaluation of novel technologies. To enrich existing knowledge about opportunity recognition in selective revealing, this study took a cognitive perspective and intended to explore the effects of different formulated revealed solutions on the identification of collaborative opportunities. By priorly manipulating the superficial and structural commonalities of two revealed solutions conducted in collaboration with industry experts, I designed a 2*2 within-subject experiment to validate whether such an induction of analogies increases the percipience of a selectively revealed opportunity. The data, which was attained during an online-experiment with university students from different fields of studies also included individual factors such as prior knowledge about markets and technologies, creative ability (proxied by divergent thinking test and creative self-efficacy) and other demographic characteristics. The gathered data was analyzed through a linear-mixed effect model to capture the repeated design of the experiment. The computation illustrated that relational commonalities between a market and a revealed solution considerably improved the perception about a revealed solution and the willingness to engage a collaboration. In addition, the results demonstrated that superficial similarities facilitate the retrieval of analogies from structural commonalities. For the individual factors, the provided evidence could not support the initial hypotheses that individual creativity and prior knowledge positively moderate the effects of superficial and structural similarities. Contrarily, the results revealed negative moderating effects of creativity and the field of study. Despite further research is necessary, this study delivered implications for both ends of the information flow in selective revealing by conjointly examining the effects of selectively revealed opportunities and personal traits, and enriched this field of study through comprehending the drivers of early action in open innovation and strategic renewal. Keywords: Selective Revealing, Opportunity Recognition, Open Innovation, Analogical Reasoning, Gatekeepers

The role of executive functioning in creative thinking is under debate. Some authors suggested that increased inhibitory control, a component of executive functioning, is detrimental to creative solutions, whereas others argued that executive functions are central to creative problem-solving, thus questioning Guilford’s classical distinction between divergent and convergent thinking. Executive functions decline with age. In this study, we investigated the contributions of executive functioning and its age-related decline and divergent thinking to creative problem-solving. To this aim, we divided our sample of sixty healthy adults into two age groups of young adults (20–26 years) and elderly (60–70 years) and we assessed their creative problem-solving abilities (using the compound remote associate problems) as well as other potential cognitive predictors of creative problem-solving (i.e., impulsivity, divergent thinking, verbal working memory, and decision-making style). A linear regression model revealed that the ability to solve problems creatively is negatively predicted by older age and impulsivity, while positively predicted by divergent thinking and verbal working memory. These findings reveal a combined contribution of executive functions and divergent thinking to creative problem-solving, suggesting that both convergent and divergent processes should be considered in interventions to contrast age-related decline.

Several theories posit that creative people are able to generate more divergent ideas. If this is correct, simply naming unrelated words and then measuring the semantic distance between them could serve as an objective measure of divergent thinking. To test this hypothesis, we asked 8,914 participants to name 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. A computational algorithm then estimated the average semantic distance between the words; related words (e.g., cat and dog) have shorter distances than unrelated ones (e.g., cat and thimble). We predicted that people producing greater semantic distances would also score higher on traditional creativity measures. In Study 1, we found moderate to strong correlations between semantic distance and two widely used creativity measures (the Alternative Uses Task and the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap Task). In Study 2, with participants from 98 countries, semantic distances varied only slightly by basic demographic variables. There was also a positive correlation between semantic distance and performance on a range of problems known to predict creativity. Overall, semantic distance correlated at least as strongly with established creativity measures as those measures did with each other. Naming unrelated words in what we call the Divergent Association Task can thus serve as a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking.

Using the divergent association task to measure divergent thinking in Chinese elementary school students

Sex differences in the relationship between white matter connectivity and creativity

Enhanced dynamic complexity in the human EEG during creative thinking

With the ever-changing social environment, individual creativity is facing a severe challenge induced by stress. However, little is known regarding the underlying mechanisms by which acute stress affects creative cognitive processing. The current research explored the impacts of the neuroendocrine response on creativity under stress and its underlying cognitive flexibility mechanisms. The enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay was employed to assess salivary cortisol, which acted as a marker of stress-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Eye blink rate (EBR) and pupil diameter were measured as respective indicators of dopamine and noradrenaline released by the activation of the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) axis. The Wisconsin card task (WCST) measured cognitive flexibility, while the alternative uses task (AUT) and the remote association task (RAT) measured separately divergent and convergent thinking in creativity. Results showed higher cortisol increments following acute stress induction in the stress group than control group. Ocular results showed that the stress manipulation significantly increased EBR and pupil diameter compared to controls, reflecting increased SAM activity. Further analysis revealed that stress-released cortisol impaired the originality component of the AUT, reducing cognitive flexibility as measured by perseverative errors on the WCST task. Serial mediation analyses showed that both EBR and pupil diameter were also associated with increased perseverative errors leading to poor originality on the AUT. These findings confirm that physiological arousal under stress can impair divergent thinking through the regulation of different neuroendocrine pathways, in which the deterioration of flexible switching plays an important mediating role.

Recent pedagogical approaches increasingly emphasize meaningful learning and creativity over rote memorization. Fantasy literature is hypothesized to positively influence divergent thinking because it immerses readers in imaginative narratives that stimulate cognitive flexibility by encouraging the exploration of alternative possibilities and creative problem-solving. The review aimed to estimate the effectiveness of fantasy in the context of teaching-learning to promote the divergent thinking of learners. The study was reported under Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A systematic search was conducted across PubMed, ERIC, Google Scholar, and Scopus to identify documents. A total of 38 studies were initially identified, from which, after rigorous screening and eligibility checking, 8 studies were included in the analysis. The meta-analysis employed a random-effects model, with the Fisher r-to-z transformed correlation coefficients, yielding a significant positive effect size (μ^=0.742, 95% CI: 0.367 to 1.117, z=3.88, p<0.001) indicating the effectiveness of fantasy in enhancing divergent thinking. However, significant heterogeneity was observed (τ2=0.2776, I2=96.72%, Q (7) =381.543, p<0.001), with a 95% prediction interval ranging from −0.3570 to 1.8404. The synthesis of results shows a medium effect size for the impact of fantasy literature on divergent thinking, with the average effect being statistically significant. The findings suggest that integrating fantasy literature into education can effectively foster divergent thinking in students, enhancing their creativity and problem-solving abilities.

Default network contributions to episodic and semantic processing during divergent creative thinking: A representational similarity analysis

Regional gray matter volume of dopaminergic system associate with creativity: Evidence from voxel-based morphometry

The Profiles of Creative Students

Background: Multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) has emerged as a powerful unbiased approach for generating seed regions of interest (ROIs) in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) analysis in a data-driven manner. Studies exploring RSFC in multiple sclerosis have produced diverse and often incongruent results. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate RSFC differences between people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and healthy controls (HC). Methods: We performed a whole-brain connectome-wide MVPA in 50 RRMS patients with expanded disability status scale ≤4 and 50 age and gender-matched HCs. Results: Significant group differences were noted in RSFC in three clusters distributed in the following regions: anterior cingulate gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, and frontal medial cortex. Whole-brain seed-to-voxel RSFC characterization of these clusters as seed ROIs revealed network-specific abnormalities, specifically in the anterior cingulate cortex and the default mode network. Conclusions: The network-wide RSFC abnormalities we report agree with the previous findings in RRMS, the cognitive and clinical implications of which are discussed herein. Impact statement This study investigated resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) people with mild disability (expanded disability status scale ≤4). Whole-brain connectome-wide multivoxel pattern analysis was used for assessing RSFC. Compared with healthy controls, we were able to identify three regions of interest for significant differences in connectivity patterns, which were then extracted as a mask for whole-brain seed-to-voxel analysis. A reduced connectivity was noted in the RRMS group, particularly in the anterior cingulate cortex and the default mode network regions, providing insights into the RSFC abnormalities in RRMS.

The purpose of this study is to apply a new evaluation tool to gifted students and to analyze the results using science book reports to evaluate creative problem-solving skills. To this end, 20 students who had read all three books and submitted book reports among students attending the Science Gifted Education Center attached to the university were evaluated by applying the creative problem solving ability evaluation tool. As a result of evaluating the book reports of gifted students, the points that gifted students acquired did not change significantly depending on the content or type of books, so it was possible to confirm the stability of the creativity evaluation tool and to analyze the creative problem-solving ability of gifted students according to the components. Generally speaking, gifted students scored high in the Based on knowledge and skills in a specific area , which represents creative problem-solving skills related to knowledge and concepts of science, but The score of the general knowledge and skill-based which represents factor the ability to solve problems using knowledge in various areas other than the science field was relatively low. We found out in the study that it is necessary to educate gifted students on strategies and insights that can solve real problems based on convergent knowledge as well as cognitive science. In addition, we compared the results by classifying them into upper and lower groups based on the total score of the evaluation results to find out that the difference in the scores between the upper and lower groups in the divergent thinking is large, so that the divergent thinking activity element can be used as an important factor in understanding creative problem solving ability. It is expected that the evaluation of the creative problem-solving ability and the analysis of the evaluation results can measure the current student s level of creative problem-solving ability, and will be an indicator in the further instruction.

On the basis of creative thinking test of students at Southeast University, characteristics of students' creative thinking and their relations to creativity are summarized in this paper. The main characteristics of students' creative thinking evaluated in the test are fluency, flexibility and elaboration. Generally speaking, marks of fluency and flexibility have direct relations to the general grade of creative thinking. Thus, it is important to train fluency and flexibility of thinking in order to develop students' creative thinking ability. The above understanding led to the reform in engineering education. First, the authors set up a course of creativity development for students. In the course known as Creative Studies or Creatology, students took part in various exercises of fluent thinking and flexible thinking, especially divergent thinking, to facilitate their creative thinking ability. Second the authors improved their teaching methods in class. The chief reform included self-comment, mutual comment, debating, discussion on special items, exercise-correcting, mutually and creativity-compensated examination, etc. The above reform in class meant an attempt of creative education. The investigation showed that most of the students increased their creativity effectively through creative education.

This chapter provides a systematic, synthesizing, and critical review of the literature related to assessments of creativity in education from historical, theoretical, empirical, and practical standpoints. We examined the assessments used in the articles focusing on education that are published from January 2010 to May 2021 in eight creativity, psychological, and educational journals. We found that the assessments of creativity in education are split between psychological and education research and have increased international participation. Additionally, these assessments are more general than specific and focus more on cognitive than noncognitive aspects. Like previous reviews of assessments of creativity in general, this review showed that creativity in education is still mainly assessed by divergent thinking or creativity tests, self-report questionnaires, and product-based subjective techniques. We analyzed the benefits and drawbacks of each approach and highlighted many innovations in the assessment. We further discussed how the major assessment approaches address race, ethnicity, class, and gender issues in education. We concluded the review with recommendations for how to better assess creativity in education and how assessments of creativity in education contribute to our understanding of the creative educational experience and democratizing education.