Different Effects of Cognitive Shifting and Intelligence on Creativity

Novelty modulates proactive and reactive cognitive control modes: Evidence from ERP and EEG data

Novelty refers to the quality of an idea or product that is new or unusual. It has been shown to influence a broad range of cognitive processes, such as increasing arousal and facilitating working memory. However, no studies have directly investigated the effects of novelty on cognitive control, particularly on the trade-off between proactive and reactive cognitive control. The present study employed an adapted AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) combined with electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the impact of novelty on proactive and reactive control modes. The behavioral results showed that reaction times in BX trials were longer under novel conditions than common conditions, indicating that participants may rely more on reactive control and/or rely less on proactive control when influenced by novelty. The EEG results showed smaller effects of cue-P3 and cue-locked theta-ERS under novelty, suggesting that novelty might decrease proactive control, including the decreased maintenance and utilization of contextual information. Moreover, in the novel conditions, the effect of probe-locked theta-ERS was greater, while the effect of probe-P3 was smaller. This indicates that novelty may enhance reactive control, including increased conflict monitoring and reduced response inhibition cost. The findings suggest that exposure to novelty can influence how individuals balance proactive and reactive control, potentially causing a bias towards reactive control.

Empathy to Creativity: The Associations Between Empathy and Everyday Creativity

OBJECTIVE

Everyday creativity is fundamental to human existence and improved well-being. Beyond recent attention regarding how contextual, lifestyle, personality, and neurobiological differences might foster everyday creativity, empathy may also constitute an intriguing connection. However, this potential relationship has not yet been systematically assessed.

METHODS

Study 1 used multiple psychometric instruments to examine the levels of emotional and cognitive empathies and everyday creativity among different samples (n = 809). Study 2 used a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) to examine longitudinal behavioral data (n = 653 at T1, n = 413 at T2) to determine how cognitive empathy might predict everyday creativity.

RESULTS

Study 1 found that cognitive but not affective empathy exhibited a significant positive correlation with everyday creativity and domain-specific creative behaviors. Study 2 also reported a positive correlation between cognitive empathy, overall creative achievement, and certain domain-specific creative achievements. Cognitive empathy was linked to greater involvement in everyday creativity.

CONCLUSION

To our knowledge, these studies are the first to demonstrate a robust relationship between cognitive empathy and everyday creativity across different samples, measures, and longitudinal data, providing evidence of a nuanced relationship between cognitive empathy and creative achievement. Future studies should explore how creativity or empathy may foster empathic/creative development.

Relationship between Executive Functions and Creativity in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

(1) Background: Executive functions and creativity could play an important role in children's education. To date, research on the relationship between these constructs has focused on adults. The objective of this systematic review was to analyze the relationship between executive functions (EFs) and creativity in children to provide teachers with tools to improve students' abilities. (2) Methods: A total of 12 studies were identified using WOS, SCOPUS and PsycINFO, which matched the following criteria: (i) empirical studies with measures of executive functions and creativity; (ii) a sample of children or adolescents (3 to 18 years old); and (iii) in the previous decade (2012-2021). (3) Results: The results indicated a clear relationship between flexibility and creativity. Flexibility is positively correlated and inhibition is negatively correlated with creativity. There is no clear evidence that the remaining EFs, such as working memory, correlate with creativity. There was insufficient evidence on the relationship between intelligence, executive functions and creativity in a sample of children for the results to be generalized. (4) Conclusion: Future studies should consider the variability of standardized tests that measure these two constructs in order to be able to compare measurements and obtain generalizable results.

Why Am I So Exhausted?: Exploring Meeting-to-Work Transition Time and Recovery From Virtual Meeting Fatigue

OBJECTIVE

Ineffective meetings have been well-documented as presenting considerable direct (eg, salary) and indirect costs (eg, employee burnout). We explore the idea that people need meeting recovery, or time to transition from meetings to their next task. Doing so may reduce employee burnout.

METHODS

We used a quantitative survey of working adults' last meeting to determine the relationship between meeting outcomes (satisfaction and effectiveness) and meeting recovery.

RESULTS

We found that meeting outcomes are related to meeting recovery and that relationship is moderated by the degree to which the meeting was relevant to the individual. Implications for theory and practice are discussed to provide concrete recommendations for researchers, managers, and consultants.

CONCLUSIONS

This study explores virtual meeting fatigue with a focus on meeting quality and explores the need for recovery after workplace meetings.

The time course of creativity: multivariate classification of default and executive network contributions to creative cognition over time

Research indicates that creative cognition depends on both associative and controlled processes, corresponding to the brain's default mode network (DMN) and executive control network (ECN) networks. However, outstanding questions include how the DMN and ECN operate over time during creative task performance, and whether creative cognition involves distinct generative and evaluative stages. To address these questions, we used multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to assess how the DMN and ECN contribute to creative cognition over three successive time phases during the production of a single creative idea. Training classifiers to predict trial condition (creative vs non-creative), we used classification accuracy as a measure of the extent of creative activity in each brain network and time phase. Across both networks, classification accuracy was highest in early phases, decreased in mid phases, and increased again in later phases, following a U-shaped curve. Notably, classification accuracy was significantly greater in the ECN than the DMN during early phases, while differences between networks at later time phases were non-significant. We also computed correlations between classification accuracy and human-rated creative performance, to assess how relevant the creative activity in each network was to the creative quality of ideas. In line with expectations, classification accuracy in the DMN was most related to creative quality in early phases, decreasing in later phases, while classification accuracy in the ECN was least related to creative quality in early phases, increasing in later phases. Given the theorized roles of the DMN in generation and the ECN in evaluation, we interpret these results as tentative evidence for the existence of separate generative and evaluative stages in creative cognition that depend on distinct neural substrates.

Age-Related Changes and Reorganization of Creativity and Intelligence Indices in Schoolchildren and University Students

Despite the lasting interest towards the relationship between intelligence and creativity, comparably less attention is paid to its age-related changes. Our paper considers the organization of fluid intelligence and psychometric indicators of creativity and is based on the experimental data obtained for children aged 11 (n = 99) and for young adults (n = 77). We used two figural and verbal tasks with and without time limit. We found that the age-related differences in creativity are dependent on the context and the type of testing. The young adults were different from the children, having higher indicators of verbal and figurative creativity, except for the originality of the drawings created within the Incomplete Figures test, and having considerably higher test results for fluid intelligence. These age-related differences, together with the discovered closer relationship between the creativity indicators in the young adults group compared to the children, might suggest insufficient contribution of the components of the executive control of information selection (inhibition, shifting, and updating), which had not fully formed in eleven-year-olds. The comparison of the various indicators of creativity suggests that the most complex task for the children was the composition of an original sentence by joining nouns from various semantic categories.

Creativity and its relationship with intelligence and reading skills in children: an exploratory study

Creativity, intelligence, and reading skills such as phonological awareness and decoding in reading can be critical to academic success, especially during childhood. Thus, this study aimed to characterize creativity, intelligence, phonological awareness, and reading decoding and verify possible relationships between creativity and these skills. The sample consisted of 75 children divided between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades of municipal public schools in the Brazilian context. The results indicated the gradual evolution of creativity, intelligence, phonological awareness, and reading decoding in children from the 1st to the 3rd year, especially for the performance of the 3rd year. Correlations between creativity with intelligence and reading skills were also evidenced for all three classes, with the 3rd year with stronger correlations, which are promising results for these relationships. The study of creativity is still a recent field for empirical investigations and deserves future investigations for a better understanding of these constructs in this population.

Impact of Performance Lower Than Expectations on Work Behaviors: The Moderating Effect of Status Mutability and Mediating Role of Regulatory Focus

Purpose

Drawing on social cognitive theory (SCT), this research aims to test the mediation of promotion focus motivation in between performance lower than expectations and innovative work behavior under the moderation of status hierarchy mutability. Further, low performance may also lead employees to counter-productivity through prevention focus. Thus, this study examines both sides of performance lower than expectations of the employee in the organization.

Methodology

The study considered a cross-sectional study and surveyed R&D departments of manufacturing firms located in China. In total, 340 employees in 65 teams participated in the survey. This study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to test the reliability and validity of data and used hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypotheses via Mplus 7.3.

Findings

First, we reveal that employees’  performance lower than expectations is positively linked with promotion focus regulation. Second, the study’s outcomes reveal a positive indirect effect from employees’ higher status mutability in the group toward innovative work behaviour through promotion focus motivation. At last, the study identified that performance lower than expectations has a positive indirect impact on counterproductive behaviour via prevention focus.

Practical Implications

This research assists managers to understand the connection of stress between performances lower than expectations and the self-regulated motivation of the employee towards innovative behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Further, it recommends that leaders at different levels should understand that various reference groups inside and outside the organization pressurize employees’ cognition. Therefore, certain steps and policies (eg, sensitive training, annual performance appraisal, feedback) must be taken into consideration to handle such self-regulatory behaviors.

Originality

This study is the earliest to examine the performance expectations as an antecedent of innovative work behavior and counterproductive work behavior through regulatory focus.

Examples facilitate divergent thinking: The effects of timing and quality

The study investigated the effects of examples' timing and quality on divergent thinking (DT). In study 1, participants received two novel or common examples in the early or late stage of the realistic presented problem task. Results revealed higher fluency and flexibility in the late stage than that in the early stage. Moreover, originality was higher in the novel-example condition than that in the common-example condition. In study 2, participants solved alternative uses task (AUT) and received examples as in study 1. Results replicated beneficial effects of timing and quality on DT in study 1. Furthermore, in the late stage, fluency and flexibility were higher in the novel-example condition than that in the common one. These findings indicate that timing and quality affect example effect on DT, with late or novel examples facilitating DT. More importantly, in AUT, examples quality moderates the role of timing in DT's fluency and flexibility.

Clustering and switching in divergent thinking: Neurophysiological correlates underlying flexibility during idea generation

EEG alpha synchronization, especially in posterior parietal cortical regions of the right hemisphere, is indicative of high internal processing demands that are typically involved in divergent thinking (DT). During the course of DT, as ideation proceeds, ideas tend to become more creative, being more likely to be drawn from new conceptual categories through the use of the cognitive mechanism of flexibility. The present study investigated whether EEG alpha synchronization can be modulated by flexibility in DT by comparing cortical activation patterns during the switch of category (switching) and the stay in the same category (clustering). Twenty participants were required to generate alternative uses of everyday objects during EEG recording. Differential results were specifically found in the lower alpha band (8-10 Hz): whereas clustering showed synchronization typically lateralized in the right posterior parietal areas, switching induced posterior parietal synchronization over both right and left hemispheres. These findings indicate that the two distinct cognitive mechanisms subsuming flexibility (switching and clustering) are associated with a different hemispheric modulation of lower alpha activity, as switching, in comparison to clustering, is related to higher power in the lower alpha band over the left hemisphere. Switching in comparison to clustering may thus require a larger investment of cognitive resources due to the exploratory process of moving from one semantic conceptual category to another in the course of creative ideation.

An Experimental Approach to Investigate the Involvement of Cognitive Load in Divergent Thinking

Up to now, support for the idea that a controlled component exists in creative thought has mainly been supported by correlational studies; to further shed light on this issue, we employed an experimental approach. We used four alternate uses tasks that differed in instruction type ("be fluent" vs. "be creative") and concurrent secondary workload (load vs. no load). A total of 51 participants (39 female) went through all tasks and generated ideas for a total of 16 different objects; their responses were scored in terms of fluency (number of responses generated), creative quality, and flexibility. We did find, as expected, that the be-creative instruction resulted in fewer and more creative ideas, as well as more flexible idea sets, but neither of the expected interaction effects became significant. Specifically, fluency was not affected more strongly by secondary workload in the be-fluent instruction condition than in the be-creative instruction condition. Further, the performance drop evoked by the secondary workload was not stronger in the be-creative instruction condition compared to the be-fluent instruction condition when creative quality or flexibility were examined as dependent variable. Altogether, our results do not confirm that be-creative instructions involve more cognitive load than be-fluent instructions. Nevertheless, the analysis of the serial order effect and additional correlational examinations revealed some promising results. Methodological limitations which may have influenced the results are discussed in light of the inherent suspense between internal and external validity (i.e., most likely the applied self-paced dual-task approach increased external validity, but undermined internal validity) and potentially guide future research.

Revealing the Role of Divergent Thinking and Fluid Intelligence in Children's Semantic Memory Organization

The current theories suggest the fundamental role of semantic memory in creativity, mediating bottom-up (divergent thinking) and top-down (fluid intelligence) cognitive processes. However, the relationship between creativity, intelligence, and the organization of the semantic memory remains poorly-characterized in children. We investigated the ways in which individual differences in children's semantic memory structures are influenced by their divergent thinking and fluid intelligence abilities. The participants (mean age 10) were grouped by their levels (high/low) of divergent thinking and fluid intelligence. We applied a recently-developed Network Science approach in order to examine group-based semantic memory graphs. Networks were constructed from a semantic fluency task. The results revealed that divergent thinking abilities are related to a more flexible structure of the semantic network, while fluid intelligence corresponds to a more structured semantic network, in line with the previous findings from the adult sample. Our findings confirm the crucial role of semantic memory organization in creative performance, and demonstrate that this phenomenon can be traced back to childhood. Finally, we also corroborate the network science methodology as a valid approach to the study of creative cognition in the developmental population.

The Influence of Situational Cues on Children's Creativity in an Alternative Uses Task and the Moderating Effect of Selective Attention

Taking a perception-action perspective, we investigated how the presence of different real objects in children's immediate situation affected their creativity and whether this effect was moderated by their selective attention. Seventy children between ages 9 and 12 years old participated. Verbal responses on a visual Alternative Uses Task with a low stimulus and high stimulus condition were coded on fluency, flexibility, and originality. Selective attention was measured with a visual search task. Results showed that fluency was not affected by stimulus condition and was unrelated to selective attention. Flexibility was positively associated with selective attention. Originality, net of fluency and flexibility, showed a main effect of stimulus condition in an unexpected direction, as children gave more original responses in the low stimulus condition compared to the high stimulus condition. A significant moderation effect revealed that children with better selective attention skills benefitted from a low stimulus environment, whereas children with weaker selective attention performed better in a high stimulus environment. The findings demonstrate differential effects of the immediate situation and selective attention, and support the hypothesis that creativity is impacted by immediate situation and selective attention, yet in unexpected ways.

A hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility in children: Extending the relationship between flexibility, creativity and academic achievement

We conducted two empirical studies to (1) explore the latent structure of cognitive flexibility in children as measured by performance-based tasks, (2) analyze the contribution of working memory (WM) and inhibition to reactive and spontaneous flexibility, and (3) examine the contribution of the different flexibility components to academic skills (i.e., reading comprehension and writing) and creativity. In S1 (n = 112 8- to 12-year-old children), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed best fit for the two-factor solution with reactive flexibility (RF) and spontaneous flexibility (SF) as separate but related components. When considering the joint contribution of WM and inhibition to both cognitive flexibility components, it was found that WM and inhibition contributed to SF, whereas only inhibition contributed to RF. Besides, only SF proved to be a significant predictor of writing and reading comprehension by using a latent-variable structural equation approach (SEM). In S2 (n = 177 8- to 13-year-old children), hierarchical regressions and SEM models showed consistently that the flexibility component in relation to creativity deals with the ability to generate diverse responses driven by internal stimuli (i.e., spontaneous flexibility). Taken together, these results suggest that cognitive flexibility is not a unified construct. Besides, the close relationship between SF and creativity and academic skills raise the question whether considering SF as a higher-level form of cognitive flexibility (different from a lower-level shifting skill) could be an interesting approach for the study of cognitive flexibility in children.

The Contribution of Executive Functions in Predicting Mathematical Creativity in Typical Elementary School Classes: A Twofold Role for Updating

The goal of the current study was to investigate the role of executive functions in mathematical creativity. The sample included 278 primary school children (ages 8–13). Two models were compared: the starting model tested whether executive functions (shifting, updating, and inhibition), domain-general creativity, and mathematical ability directly predicted mathematical creativity. The second model, which fitted the data best, included the additional assumption that updating influences mathematical creativity indirectly through mathematical ability and domain-general creativity. Updating was positively related to mathematical creativity. Additionally, updating was positively related to mathematical ability and domain-general creativity. Inhibition, shifting, domain-general creativity and mathematical ability did not have a significant contribution to either model but did positively correlate with mathematical creativity. This study reports the first empirical evidence that updating is a predictor of mathematical creativity in primary school children and demonstrates that creativity is a higher order cognitive process, activating a variety of cognitive abilities.

Mediating role of cognition and social cognition on creativity among patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls: Revisiting the Shared Vulnerability Model

AIM

As suggested by the Shared Vulnerability Model, impairment in executive functions could lead to worse creative performance among individuals with schizophrenia. Another impaired function in schizophrenia, previously related to creativity in healthy people, is theory of mind. However, little is known about the effect of theory of mind in creativity in schizophrenia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze differences in creativity among patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls (HC) and to explore the potential role of executive functions and theory of mind as mediators of this relation.

METHODS

Forty-five patients with schizophrenia and 45 HC underwent a neuropsychological assessment, including executive functions (cognitive flexibility and working memory), theory of mind, and verbal and figural creativity.

RESULTS

As expected, patients with schizophrenia obtained lower scores in creativity, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and theory of mind compared to HC. Path analysis showed that theory of mind mediated the relation between group (schizophrenia or HC) and both figural (Z = 2.075, P = 0.037) and verbal creativity (Z = 2.570, P = 0.010). Working memory mediated the relation between group and figural creativity (Z = 2.034, P = 0.041) and was marginally significant for verbal creativity (Z = 1.930, P = 0.053). Finally, cognitive flexibility mediated between group and figural creativity (Z = 2.454, P = 0.014).

CONCLUSION

Results suggest that the lower performance in creativity among patients with schizophrenia was partly due to an impairment in executive functions and theory of mind. The involvement of theory of mind opens up a new field of research as a possible risk factor in the Shared Vulnerability Model.

Set-shifting ability is specifically linked to high-school science and math achievement in Chinese adolescents

Previous meta-analytic studies have revealed that set-shifting ability contributes to achievement in math and reading equally during childhood, but less is known about whether set-shifting ability plays an equally important role in achievement in different school subjects during high-school learning. To fill this research gap, the current study examined the association between set-shifting ability and academic achievement among 10th-grade Chinese adolescents who attended high school (N = 221). Meanwhile, we further explored the possible mechanisms underlying this association by testing the mediating role of math abilities (i.e., arithmetic and algebraic ability). Set-shifting ability was measured through a task-switching task in which participants continuously change task rules based on color and shape sets. Academic achievement was indexed by curriculum-based examination scores. Based on exploratory factor analyses, the achievement scores could be classified into two categories: (a) science and math achievement, including math, physics, chemistry, biology, and geography scores; and (b) humanities achievement, comprising Chinese, English, history, and politics scores. Arithmetic ability and algebraic ability were measured by participants' ability to perform calculations and solve algebraic equations, respectively. Correlation and regression analyses found that set-shifting ability was related to science and math achievement, but not to humanities achievement. Furthermore, the association between set-shifting ability and science and math achievement is partly mediated by algebraic ability. Together, these results suggest that set-shifting ability plays a domain-specific role in achievement. That is, set-shifting ability is specifically linked to science and math achievement in Chinese adolescents, and this specific link may be partly mediated by algebraic ability.

Graphic creativity assessment: Psychometric properties in college students from Buenos Aires

Research on creativity has acquired major development due to its relevance concerning teaching in college. Its assessment is generally conducted by means of verbal and graphic measures. A short scale to measure verbal creativity (CREA) in college students from Buenos Aires is currently available. However, right now there are no similar scales designed to assess graphic creativity. In view of that, this study will analyse psychometric features of the ECG scale locally known as Evaluación de la Creatividad Gráfica – Graphic Creativity Assessment, to be employed in the academic milieu in order to provide a complementary measure of verbal creativity. Face and construct validity evidences (converging validity analysis and confirmatory factor analysis) were examined as well as reliability, taking into account internal consistency aspects, inter-rater and test-retest stability. The resulting scale showed adequate technical features. The original version, supported by De la Torre’s model, was composed by 12 indicators. This study’s findings maintained 9 of them but, considering new analyses, only 4 of the original ones were retained. This 4-indicator model obtained a better fit to empirical data and good indexes of correlation with a verbal creativity measure, as well as good reliability indicators (internal consistency, inter-rater and test-retest). Findings are discussed taking into account theoretical basis.