Divergent and Convergent Thinking Abilities in Multiple Sclerosis Patients

This study investigates neural mechanisms of divergent and convergent thinking in the verbal knowledge domain while taking into account activation related to working memory (WM). Divergent thinking was assessed using the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and convergent thinking using the Compound Remote Associates task (RAT). We analyzed upper alpha band (10–12 Hz) oscillatory activity, in which we accounted for the temporal dynamics of both thinking processes by investigating three different time points during each trial for both tasks. We subtracted WM-related oscillatory activity measured by a serial recall task within the same knowledge domain and by using highly similar stimulus material as in both divergent and convergent thinking tasks. Our results show a strong upper alpha synchronization during divergent relative to convergent thinking, most pronounced at fronto-parietal electrodes. Moreover, we observed highest synchronization towards the middle (in contrast to the beginning and end) of each trial during both thinking processes. The results of the present study extend previous findings in the visuo-spatial knowledge domain, using a highly similar analytical approach to investigate divergent and convergent thinking. Together, these findings provide theoretical implications on how divergent and convergent thinking interact beyond WM across different knowledge domains by emphasizing their complex interplay.

Metacontrol of human creativity: The neurocognitive mechanisms of convergent and divergent thinking

: The present experiment was designed to determine differential effects if any, on high- and low-creative Ss' need for novelty after being satiated with experiences requiring convergent and divergent thinking. High- or low-creative Ss were identified by the remote associates test. The S was assigned to either a divergent satiation thinking condition or to a convergent satiation thinking condition and performed the requisite tasks in each. Following satiation, the S performed a task which enabled E to identify differences in Ss responsiveness to novelty. The general hypothesis of the study was that high-creatives who were satiated with convergent thinking tasks would choose significantly more words of the class (nouns or nonnouns) of words which lead to novel associations than would high-creatives who were satiated with divergent thinking tasks. Among the low-creatives, those Ss who were satiated with convergent thinking experiences were hypothesized to choose more words of the class of words which led to novel associations than the low-creatives who were satiated with divergent thinking experiences.

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.

BackgroundCreativity requires both divergent and convergent thinking. Previous research established that divergent thinking relates to mathematics performance, but generally ignored the role of convergent thinking and, hence, leaves it unclear how both might interact when children work on mathematical tasks. This study addressed this paucity in the research literature, with the goal of improving our understanding of the role of creative thinking in primary school mathematics.AimsThis study examined how divergent and convergent thinking contribute to mathematics performance, both directly and jointly, on single‐ and multiple‐solution tasks.SampleThe study was conducted with 229 Dutch fifth graders of 12 primary schools.MethodDivergent and convergent thinking were measured with a visual and verbal task. Path analysis was used including verbal and visual divergent and convergent thinking tasks in relation to single‐ and multiple‐solution mathematics task performance. Working memory was included as a covariate.ResultsVerbal convergent thinking positively predicted single‐ and multiple‐solution task performance. Verbal divergent and convergent thinking interacted in relation to single‐solution task performance, while visual divergent and convergent thinking interacted in relation to multiple‐solution task performance.ConclusionsChildren’s mathematics performance mainly relies on convergent thinking. The role of divergent thinking is twofold: it complements convergent thinking on multiple‐solution tasks and compensates convergent thinking on single‐solution tasks.

BackgroundPatients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been reported to exhibit unusual bouts of creativity (e.g., painting, writing), in particular in the context of treatment with dopaminergic agents. Here we investigated divergent and convergent thinking thought to underlie creativity. In addition we assessed cognitive estimation.MethodTwenty PD patients and 20 matched healthy control participants were subjected to the Guilford Alternate Uses task (divergent thinking), the remote associates task (convergent thinking) and two tests of cognitive estimation.ResultsNo group differences were found for the convergent thinking task, while the Guilford Alternate Uses task revealed a decreased number of correct responses and a reduced originality for PD patients. Originality in PD was correlated to total daily dose of dopaminergic medication. Moreover, both tasks of cognitive estimation showed an impairment in PD.ConclusionOnly minor effects were found for psychometric indices of subprocesses of creative thinking, while estimation, relying on executive functioning, is impaired in PD. We suggest to take a product oriented view of creativity in further research on altered creative processes in PD.

P082 The functional anatomy of creativity does not involve the cerebellum

Creativity-related cognitive processes and personality traits are not often examined together in educational contexts, particularly when discussing high-achieving subgroups of medical students. This study investigated these predictors of academic performance among high-achieving and typical-achieving medical students within a problem-based learning (PBL) environment of a medical school. Data were collected from 274 Doctor of Medicine students at Arabian Gulf University during the 2024–2025 academic year. Participants completed assessments of convergent thinking (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices and Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal), divergent thinking (Alternative Uses Test and Figural Divergent Thinking Test), and openness to experience (NEO-FFI). Students’ grade point averages (GPAs) were obtained from institutional records. Hierarchical regression analyses and moderation tests were performed, controlling for age and sex. Convergent thinking (β = 0.20, p < .001) and divergent thinking (β = 0.25, p < .001) emerged as modest-to-moderate positive predictors of GPA, whereas openness to experience showed a small negative association (β = −0.13, p = .026). Achievement status, defined as high-achieving versus typical-achieving GPA, significantly moderated the effects of both convergent and divergent thinking, such that the academic benefits of higher thinking skills were meaningfully stronger among high-achieving students, while these associations were weaker among their typical-achieving peers. No moderating effect was observed for openness to experience. Convergent and divergent thinking independently enhance academic performance in medical students, with amplified effects for high-achieving students. In contrast, openness to experience was negatively linked with GPA, reflecting the complex interplay between personality traits and structured medical training. These findings underscore the need for medical curricula that balance convergent reasoning with creative problem-solving while considering diverse student cognitive and personality profiles.

This study aims to determine differences in student learning outcomes between divergent and convergent thinking styles. The sample of research is the fourth semester students in the Department of Physics Education IKIP Mataram. The experimental design uses a pre-test-post-test one-group design. The data analyzed is the result of cognitive learning and questionnaire of students' thinking character. The research hypothesis was tested by using t test statistic. The result of data analysis can be concluded that there is no difference between learning achievement with convergent and divergent thinking style.

Beyond alpha-band: The neural correlate of creative thinking

Effects of the interaction between exercising self-control and PhoPhiKat on divergent and convergent thinking

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effects of risk-taking, exploitation, and exploration on creativity by taking a model-based computational approach to both divergent and convergent thinking as primary ingredients of creativity. We adopted a reinforcement learning framework of Q learning to provide a simple, rigorous account of behavior in the decision-making process and examined the determinants of divergent and convergent thinking. Our findings revealed that risk-taking has positive effects on divergent thinking, but not related to convergent thinking. In particular, divergent thinkers with a high learning capacity were more likely to engage in risk-taking when facing losses than when facing gains. This risk-taking behavior not only contributes to the rapid achievement of learning convergence, but is also associated with high performance in divergent thinking tasks. Conversely, both exploitation and exploration had no significant effects on creativity once these risk attitudes were considered. Moreover, while convergent thinking relied on personality characteristics, it was not associated with risk-taking, exploitation, or exploration.

The essential role of creativity has been highlighted in several human knowledge areas. Regarding the neural underpinnings of creativity, there is evidence about the role of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) on divergent thinking (DT) and convergent thinking (CT). Transcranial stimulation studies suggest that the left DLPFC is associated with both DT and CT, whereas left IFG is more related to DT. However, none of the previous studies have targeted both hubs simultaneously and compared transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and random noise stimulation (tRNS). Additionally, given the relationship between cognitive flexibility and creativity, we included it in order to check if the improvement in creativity may be mediated by cognitive flexibility. In this double-blind, between-subjects study, 66 healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (N = 22) that received a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), or sham for 20 min. The tDCS group received 1.5 mA with the anode over the left DLPFC and cathode over the left IFG. Locations in tRNS group were the same and they received 1.5 mA of high frequency tRNS (100–500 Hz). Divergent thinking was assessed before (baseline) and during stimulation with unusual uses (UU) and picture completion (PC) subtests from Torrance Creative thinking Test, whereas convergent thinking was evaluated with the remote association test (RAT). Stroop test was included to assess cognitive flexibility. ANCOVA results of performance under stimulation (controlling for baseline performance) showed that there were significant differences in PC (F = 3.35, p = 0.042, = 0.10) but not in UU (F = 0.61, p = 0.546) and RAT (F = 2.65, p = 0.079) scores. Post-hoc analyses showed that tRNS group had significantly higher scores compared to sham (p = 0.004) in PC. More specifically, tRNS showed higher performance in fluency (p = 0.012) and originality (p = 0.021) dimensions of PC compared to sham. Regarding cognitive flexibility, we did not find any significant effect of any of the stimulation groups (F = 0.34, p = 0.711). Therefore, no further mediation analyses were performed. Finally, the group that received tDCS reported more adverse effects than sham group (F = 3.46, p = 0.035). Altogether, these results suggest that tRNS may have some advantages over tDCS in DT.

Creative thinking is needed to thrive in our fast‐changing world. It has been shown that creative thinking skills can be enhanced through training. Whereas previous research has mainly focused on examining the overall effectiveness of comprehensive creativity training programs, this study examined the effectiveness of four cognitive‐based training techniques (SCAMPER, random connection, schema violation, and simple ideation), each with the aim of training specific cognitive processes underlying creativity. The effectiveness of the four techniques was tested using a pre–posttest between‐subjects design. The participants were assigned to one of the four creativity training conditions or a control condition and practiced each training technique for approximately 20 min. Before and after training, the participants’ creative performance was measured with divergent thinking (Alternative Uses Task; fluency, flexibility, originality, creativity, usefulness) and convergent thinking (Remote Associates Test) tasks. The results showed marginal to significant improvements on several key indicators of divergent thinking, but none of the techniques led to improvement in convergent thinking. Specifically, the SCAMPER technique targeting conceptual expansion marginally improved idea originality, while the random connection technique targeting conceptual combination and the schema violation technique targeting cognitive flexibility seemed to facilitate idea fluency and idea flexibility. No improvement was observed for the simple ideation technique and the control condition.

Creative divergent thinking involves the generation of unique ideas by pulling from semantic memory stores and exercising cognitive flexibility to shape these memories into something new. Although cognitive abilities decline with age, semantic memory tends to remain intact. This study aims to utilize that memory to investigate the effectiveness of a brief cognitive training to improve creative divergent thinking. Older adults were trained using a semantic retrieval strategy to improve creativity in the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and the Divergent Association Task (DAT). Participants were tested on the AUT and DAT across three time points: before the strategy was introduced (T0 and T1) and afterward (T2). Results showed that the strategy enhances idea novelty in the AUT; additionally, participants that initially scored lowest on the AUT showed the greatest increase in AUT performance. This finding suggests that older adults can use a semantic retrieval strategy to enhance creative divergent thinking.