Poster Session 2

Thursday, May 22 5:00 - 6:30 PM

ICM Lobby

1.0: Intuitive Insight: Fast Associative Processes Drive Sound Creative Thinking

Jérémie Beucler, Université Paris Cité
Wim De Neys, Université Paris Cité

Convergent thinking, the ability to find a single optimal solution to a well-defined problem, is considered a core component of creativity. Popular dual-process theories assert that this requires an evaluative phase relying on deliberation. We tested this dual-process approach using the Compound Remote Associates (CRA) test, where participants have to find a word that connects three seemingly unrelated words (e.g., “RIVER, NOTE, ACCOUNT”; solution: “BANK”). We implemented a two-response paradigm wherein participants provided an initial, intuitive response (under cognitive load and time constraints to minimize deliberation), followed by a final, deliberate response. Our findings reveal that, in most cases, deliberation was not necessary for sound responding—correct final responses were typically preceded by accurate intuitive responses. By using large language models and semantic network modeling, we found that items with a smaller semantic search space are better solved intuitively, and that participants with a more efficient and flexible semantic memory structure display higher intuitive performances on the CRA. These results suggest that effective problem-solving in creative tasks may often rely on fast, automatic processes within semantic memory rather than on slow, deliberate thinking.

2.0: What do we mean when we talk about insight?

Wendy Ross, London Metropolitan University
Thomas C Ormerod, University of Sussex

Insight problem solving refers to a particular form of problem solving. Traditionally, it was associated with the solution of problems which deliberately present participants with a situation designed to elicit impasse, but more recently it has been used to denominate the feeling that occurs on successful solution of a range of problems. We determine whether a participant has experienced insight by asking them. In this experiment, 118 people were presented with a traditional vignette describing the feeling of insight and flow before being asked to rewrite them in their own words. An analysis of the self-generated response showed that 33.1% of participants were wholly incorrect on their definition of insight and 22% were only partially correct. This contrasts with the definitions of flow where 63% were coded as correct and 23% partially correct. A close analysis of the data revealed that the incorrect participants did not describe a feeling of suddenness associated with representational change but instead a feeling of gradual revelation. This has implications for how cognitive and neuroscientists identify an insight experience and the inferences they draw about its relationship with problem-solving processes.

3.0: The Impact of Distraction on Problems that are Solved Through Insight versus Analysis

Linden J. Ball, University of Central Lancashire
Zoe D. Hughes, University of Central Lancashire & Liverpool John Moores University
Ut Na Sio, University of Sheffield
Melissa E. Barker, University of Central Lancashire
Beth H. Richardson, University of Central Lancashire
John E. Marsh, University of Central Lancashire & Luleå University of Technology

Previous research has demonstrated that solving problems that purportedly require insight may be facilitated, rather than impaired, by distraction. The present study sought to provide further understanding of this apparent facilitatory effect by comparing people’s performance on problem-solving tasks that required either an insightful or non-insightful solution when attempted in the presence of distraction (i.e., task-irrelevant speech). The results suggest that distraction appears to benefit insight problem solving in terms of faster solution times, while having a detrimental effect on the accuracy of non-insight problems. These findings support the view that problem solving that involves insight appears to draw upon distinct, and seemingly non-conscious processes, when compared to problem solving that involves the application of analytic processes.

4.0: The Heart of Creative Exploration and Exploitation

Francesca Torno Jimenez, Goldsmiths, University of London
Caroline Di Bernardi Luft, Brunel University of London
Joydeep Bhattacharya, Goldsmiths, University of London

Creative ideation involves alternating between exploring novel ideas and exploiting familiar ones, demanding significant cognitive flexibility. Emerging evidence suggests that cardiac signals are integral to regulating attentional and cognitive states, yet its role in directing ideational strategies remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated how cardiac activity – specifically, heart rate and cardiac phase dynamics – modulates ideational strategies during divergent thinking tasks. Participants completed two versions of a classical divergent thinking task: a spontaneous condition and a directed condition, while their cardiac activity was recorded. Our findings reveal that cardiac phases significantly predicted ideational strategies: exploratory ideation was enhanced during diastole, a phase characterized by reduced baroreceptor signaling, supporting broad associative processes. In contrast, exploitative ideation was facilitated during systole, when baroreceptor signaling promotes focused cognitive engagement. Further, slower heart rates were associated with exploratory ideation, reflecting a relaxed state conducive to associative thinking, while faster heart rates, indicative of heightened arousal, promoted exploitative ideation. Finally, cardiac deceleration, often linked to cognitive effort, predicted longer response times during ideation but did not correlate with the quality of the generated ideas. These findings demonstrate the role of interoceptive signals in shaping creative ideation, advancing an embodied framework of creative cognition, providing evidence for the dynamic interplay between interoceptive signals and ideational strategies.

5.0: Navigating semantic memory in search of creative ideas: a goal-directed process

Julie Tang, Paris Brain Institute (ICM), Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Paris Psychiatrie et Neurosciences, Sainte-Anne hospital, Université Paris Cité, Service Hospitalo-Universitaire, Sorbonne Université UPMC Paris VI
Shivekiar Tashchioglu, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)
Gino Battistello, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)
Sarah Moreno-Rodriguez, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)
Emmanuelle Volle, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)
Fabien Vinckier, Paris Brain Institute (ICM), Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Paris Psychiatrie et Neurosciences, Sainte-Anne hospital, Université Paris Cité, Service Hospitalo-Universitaire
Alizée Lopez-Persem, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)

(The two first authors contributed equally to this work.)

Creativity is defined as the ability to produce ideas that are both original and contextually adequate. Traditionally, creativity is viewed as involving a spontaneous generative and a goal-directed evaluative process. Our study challenges this view, proposing that the generative process also relies on goal-directed mechanisms. We hypothesize that search trajectories during creative idea generation are driven by creativity-relevant dimensions, i.e., originality and adequacy. To test this, we created a fluent version of a creativity task, the Free Generation of Associates Task (FGAT), in which participants produced associations in response to cue words under three conditions: 1) spontaneous (non-creative, non-goal directed), 2) creative (creative, goal-directed), and 3) positive (non-creative, goal-directed). Participants verbalised each word that came to mind before providing a final response and rated their responses for adequacy, originality, valence, and likeability across two experiments (online, n=157; on-site, n=45). We replicated findings that goal-relevant dimensions (originality, adequacy) explained participants’ likeability ratings. Adequacy decreased across response rank similarly in the spontaneous and creative conditions, while originality increased faster in the creative condition. Preliminary analyses revealed that transitions between responses are partly driven by originality and adequacy in the creative but not in the spontaneous condition. These results support a goal-directed process in creative idea generation and validate an experimental framework to study goal-directed search in semantic memory, including in clinical populations like schizophrenia.

6.0: The role of semantic memory in the creative process

Campidelli Lorenzo, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste
Giovanni Emanuele Corazza, University of Bologna, Marconi Institute for Creativity
Todd Lubart, Universitè de Paris and Univ.Gustave Eiffel, LaPEA
Margaret Mangion, University of Malta, The Edward de Bono Institute for Creative Thinking and Innovation
Sergio Agnoli, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Marconi Institute for Creativity

The emergence of network models allowed researchers to investigate and better define the structure of semantic memory. Recent studies have highlighted that highly creative people are characterized by more flexible, condensed, and connected semantic networks compared to individuals with low creativity. The aim of this paper is to assess whether more flexible semantic networks are associated with higher performance in different phases of the creative process. To understand this, a new performance task was developed: the Creative Process Task (CPT). CPT was designed to simulate and investigate three specific states of the process: 1) information processing (particularly information selection); 2) idea generation; 3) idea evaluation. Specifically, 137 participants were asked to execute, along with a series of verbal production tasks, the CPT task, which requires generating an original story from a main stimulus (e.g., a pen). Before the story production (idea generation), participants had to select three items from a set of stimuli pre-tested for their semantic distance from the main stimulus to use in their story (information selection). After the generation, they were asked to rate the originality of the story (evaluation). In line with previous literature that focused on the only generative phase, the hypothesis we anticipate that more flexible semantic memory networks are associated with: 1) higher semantic distance of the selected stimuli in the information processing and selection phase; 2) higher originality of the story; 3) lower originality evaluation of the story. Currently, data collection is complete and data analysis is underway.

7.0: The Neural Basis of Creative Search: Insights from computational modeling, functional and structural MRI

Roey Schurr, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yuval Hart, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

While creativity is a highly sought-after cognitive process, still many of the neural mechanisms underlying creative search are unknown. Here we take a computational approach to uncover these mechanisms using a scale-invariant model of creative search as a bridge between the creative behavior and brain neuroimaging data. We used the Creative Foraging Game (CFG), a computerized task we previously developed in which participants create shapes they find interesting or beautiful. This paradigm enables a quantitative study of the creative process above and beyond the products of creative search. We scanned participants (N=83) with fMRI while they performed the CFG. In addition, we collected anatomical and diffusion MRI data to examine structural connectivity features. Our key findings are: 1. Creative search involves dynamic reconfiguration of brain networks. Compared to fixation and a control task, CFG performance was associated with increased functional connectivity among the default mode, cognitive control, and salience networks. 2. Individual differences in creative search have distinct neural signatures. Participants typically switch between exploration and exploitation of visual categories during the shape creation. Using our model, we found that individual differences in switching rate and exploitation tendency were associated with variability in both functional connectivity (primarily in default, control, and salience networks) and cortical surface area in specific brain regions. Our findings reveal that creative search is supported by dynamic interactions between large-scale brain networks, shaped by individual cognitive strategies.

8.0: Microstates of ideas

Ewa Katarzyna Ratajczak, Nicolaus Copernicu University in Toruń

Analysing neurodynamic responses to individual creative ideas poses a challenge for creativity neuroscience. In this study, young healthy participants generated alternative uses for five objects: umbrella, shoe, soap, pen, and brick. The EEG signal corresponding to the individual ideas was subjected to EEG microstate analysis. The originality of each idea was assessed by two human raters an the Ocsai online software based on Chat GPT 4.O. activity related to idea generation was described by 8 EEG microstate classes, matched to functional microstates previously reported in the literature (Tarailis et al., 2023; Koenig et al., 2023). For each class 3 parameters were calculated: occurrence (the number of times a given class is dominant per second), duration (the average time lapse a given class is dominant), and coverage (the percent of total recording time a given class is dominant). Originality score was approximated by microstate parameters via linear regression. 4 microstate classes explained variance in idea originality. More analysis will be done shortly.

9.0: Externalizing Imagery: Exploring the Phenomenology of Outsight

Frederic Vallee-Tourangeau, Kingston University
Wendy Ross, London Metropolitan University

We adapted Irving’s (2014) Image Control and Recognition Task (ICRT) to explore a phenomenon we term outsight. The ICRT is a visual synthesis task: Participants construct a mental image of an object following stepwise instructions. They are then asked to name and subsequently draw the imagined object. We focus on trials when participants fail to name their mental image, until after they have drawn it. In this exploratory study, such outsight recognition occurred on 29% of the ICRT trials. In addition, outsight recognition is accompanied by some of the phenomenological markers associated with aha! experiences. We offer some reflections on the importance of reified imagery for creativity.

10.0: The role of exploration and exploitation behavior in overcoming fixation effect in creative problem solving and divergent thinking

Alizée Trichet, ISMM, Paris Cité University
Mathieu Cassotti, LaPsyDE, Paris Cité University
Anaëlle Camarda, ISMM, LaPEA, Paris Cité University

Research has led to the identification of one of the main cognitive biases linked to creativity : functional fixedness. Overcoming this process could help generate more creative ideas. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the evolution of this phenomenon through different ages and whether this ability can be relied to exploration or exploitation strategies when solving a problem. To investigate this question, adolescents aged from 11 to 14 years old (n=60) and young adults aged between 19 and 24 years old (n=80) participated to this experiment. They were asked to solve a divergent thinking task named the “egg task” in which fixation effect can be determined in a situation where no good answer exist, and the emblematic creative problem solving task named the “candle task” (Adamson, 1952), in which finding the good answer require to overcome fixation effect. In this last, participants were randomly assigned to two conditions : i) The priming condition, expected to reinforce functional fixedness, and ii) a control condition. The ability to overcome fixation was measured in both task, as well as qualitative measures based on video analysis of exploration and exploitation behaviors. Three main results appears: 1) control group show better performances than experimental group ; 2) explore-exploit shift was observed from adolescence to adulthood ; 3) There is a positive correlation between exploration behaviors and the ability to overcome fixation effect in a divergent thinking task. The results will be discussed later regarding creative cognitive theories, in particularly the double processus (Cassotti et al., 2016) and the exploit-explore theory (Gopnik et al., 2020)

11.0: How the “Be creative” Instruction Shapes Semantic Memory Search

Lucie Vigreux, Sorbonne University, FrontLab at Paris Brain Institute
Mathias Benedek, Institute of Psychology - University of Graz
Yoed Kenett, Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Emmanuelle Volle, Sorbonne University, FrontLab at Paris Brain Institute

The “Be creative” instruction has been demonstrated to increase the originality and creativity of the products generated in creativity tasks. However, the mechanisms underlying the “Be Creative” effect remain unclear. As creative ideas likely arise from searching and combining semantic memory knowledge, we hypothesized that the “Be creative” instruction (setting the goal to be creative), compared to a “Be fluent” one (to produce as many responses as possible), impacts memory search processes. To examine memory search mechanisms, Ovando-Tellez et al. (2023) developed an associative fluency task based on polysemous words (PolyFT) that distinguishes a Clustering component (exploiting a given meaning) and a Switching component (changing for another meaning). These components were then segregated into fast and slow based on inter-response time. This distinction was found relevant to creative and executive abilities (Ovando-Tellez & Vigreux, et al., under review). The current study takes advantage of this task to examine the impact of instruction on memory search. Fifty French-native participants underwent the PolyFT under “Be Fluent” and “Be Creative” conditions (12 trials each). Compared to the “Be fluent” condition, the creativity of the responses (measured by the averaged semantic distance to the cue, the semantic diversity of the responses, and rarity) increased in the “Be creative” condition, whereas fluency decreased, replicating prior findings. The instruction also impacted the pattern of fast and slow clustering and switching responses. These results replicate and extend prior findings, revealing how the goal of being creative impacts memory search processes.

12.0: More Than Just Choices: How We Generate Our Own Solutions in Moral and Causal Judgment

Mathieu Cassotti, Université Paris Cité
Anaëlle Camarda, Institut supérieur Maria Montessori, Université Paris Cité

In the field of creativity, the ability to generate new ideas and explore original solutions is a fundamental process, extensively documented in the literature. However, in other areas of cognition, these generative processes appear to be much less present. This is particularly true for moral judgment, causal attribution, and risk-taking, where the concept of generativity is rarely discussed. Traditionally, the scientific approach in psychology follows a decision-making paradigm, seeking to understand cognitive functioning based on the choices individuals make when presented with predefined options. But where do these options come from? In laboratory settings, they are typically provided by the experimenter. Yet, in real-world situations, isn’t it reductive to conceive of cognition solely through the lens of decision-making? Through a series of experimental studies conducted in domains where generativity is rarely considered, we will demonstrate that individuals are not just decision-makers but, above all, designers capable of generating their own solutions. While cognitive fixation strongly constrains their generative abilities, often leading them to select conventional and stereotypical options, we will show that, when given the opportunity, they can break out of these constraints and propose more original alternatives. Finally, we will explore how adapting decision-making paradigms—particularly in moral judgment and causal attribution—to incorporate this generative step can lead to a reconsideration of certain conclusions previously drawn from constrained choice scenarios. This perspective opens new avenues for understanding cognitive mechanisms beyond mere decision.

13.0: There are no stupid questions, only ones we think are stupid: The accuracy of self-judgement of question complexity and creativity

Tuval Raz, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Yoed N. Kenett, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Question-asking is a crucial yet understudied skill with significant implications for learning, information-seeking, and cognitive development. To ask effective questions, we must first assess whether we are asking the right ones. Prior research identifies question complexity as a key predictor of question creativity and problem-solving ability. However, little is known about how accurately individuals assess their own question complexity. We address this gap by having participants generate questions and then self-rate their own question complexity and creativity. We then compare their self-ratings to those from a specifically trained large language model (LLM). In Study 1, self-rated question complexity showed a weak but significant correlation with model ratings (r = 0.151). Study 2 replicated and strengthened these findings (r = 0.206) and revealed a stronger correlation for question creativity ratings (r = 0.321). We also found a bias effect for complexity: participants underestimated the complexity of their high-level questions and overestimated that of their low-level ones. Interestingly this wasn’t found for question creativity. In Study 3, participants read a complexity training brief before rating their questions. This significantly improved accuracy in self-assessing complexity (r = 0.453) and creativity (r = 0.487). Our study fills a gap in the literature on self-perceived question complexity and creativity, demonstrating both the biases in self-assessment and the ease with which accuracy in assessing these skills can be improved. It also highlights the need for further research on question-asking and self-perception in cognition, learning, and education.

14.0: A Novel Pareto-Optimality Taxonomy to Creative Search

Shir Nehamkin, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Creativity is a complex cognitive process marked by a tension between exploration and exploitation, and the balance of uniqueness versus comprehensibility. Traditionally, creativity is assessed by end products, often reducing individuals to a single axis of low to high creativity. However, this approach overlooks the diverse search strategies used to achieve creative outcomes. To address this, we propose a multidimensional model that analyzes both search strategies and their resulting products. In our study, participants played the Creative Foraging Game, where they created interesting shapes by navigating a network of shapes. We measured various aspects of their search processes, including fluency, originality, flexibility, uniqueness, their explore-exploit switching rate, and their exploration-to-exploitation tendency. We then employed Pareto analysis on this high-dimensional dataset. Pareto analysis identifies key strategies by examining trade-offs individuals make while optimizing task performance. We identified 6 core search strategies that drive individual differences in creative search: 1) commonality detection, 2) exploration, 3) non-biphasic search, 4) efficient search, 5) high coverage search, and 6) originality detection. To further characterize these strategies, we evaluated an additional cohort of ~800 participants, who played the Creative Foraging Game and completed cognitive tasks assessing memory, intelligence, inhibition, planning, and other cognitive abilities. Taken together, our findings reveal the characterizations of the core computations underlying creative search, offering a principled framework to understand individual differences in creativity.

15.0: Memory Search Entropy Correlates with Creativity

Jakub Jedrusiak, University of Wroclaw
Maciej Karwowski, University of Wroclaw

Creative thinking involves multiple cognitive processes, including navigating semantic memory. The recently proposed Entropy Modulation Theory (EMT) (Hills & Kenett, 2024) offers a computational framework for modeling this process. We have replicated the original framework’s findings with Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) corpora, thus enabling the simulation of tasks scored with semantic distance. We adapted EMT to simulate the Forward Flow (FF) task – a measure of flexibility in memory retrieval – by repeating the search process with the retrieved word as the new cue, resulting in a chain of associations. A simulation based on 121 distinct sets of EMT parameters with known entropy produced 24,200 FF results. A Gradient Boosting model was then fitted and used to estimate entropy in 575 real forward-flow responses from public datasets. These initial trials with a single LSA corpus resulted in the entropy-creativity correlation being over twice as large (r = .12) as the FF-creativity correlation (r = .05), while the entropy-FF correlation was low (r = .08). The findings support EMT and suggest that entropy estimation is a promising future direction, as it may serve as a quick and independent metric of memory search in creative ideation.

16.0: The effect of critical feedback on students’ creative thinking and EEG alpha activity

Adriana R. Miller, Pennsylvania State University
Daisy Lei, Penn State University
Danielle S. Dickson, Pennsylvania State University
Rafał Jończyk, Adam Mickiewicz University
Zahed Siddique, University of Oklahoma
Gül E. Kremer, Iowa State University
Roger E. Beaty, Pennsylvania State University
Janet G. van Hell, Pennsylvania State University

Creative thinking is a vital skill in many educational and workplace environments; however, it can be influenced by social dynamics such as critical feedback from a role model. In this study, university students completed two creative ideation tasks (Alternate Uses and Utopian Situations Tasks). We recorded EEG to examine task-related power changes in the alpha frequency band (8-12Hz) from pre-stimulus reference intervals to activation periods before each idea was given aloud. Increases in alpha power from reference to activation (i.e. event-related alpha synchronization) is typically seen in tasks requiring creativity. Critically, midway through the experiment, a professor gave either supportive or regular feedback on participants’ creative performance. We predicted that supportive feedback would more positively influence creativity than regular feedback. Specifically, we predicted that those in the supportive feedback condition would have greater idea originality and fluency as well as a greater EEG alpha power increases post- compared to pre-feedback. Behaviorally, we found that participants produced fewer but more highly creative responses post- compared to pre-feedback, in both the supportive and regular feedback conditions. Furthermore, greater EEG alpha power increases were observed post- relative to pre-feedback for both feedback conditions. This was a quadratic rather than linear effect, indicating that greater alpha increases post-feedback were due to feedback rather than a linear increase over time. Combined, these results indicate that feedback, regardless of whether it is supportive or regular, influences creative ideation at the behavioral and neural level.

17.0: The Neural Correlates of Creative Thinking: Insights from EEG Alpha Activity during the Alternate Uses Task

Alyse Finch, University of Arkansas
Darya Zabelina, University of Arkansas

Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying creative thinking remains a critical challenge in cognitive neuroscience. Using the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) as a measure of divergent thinking, our study investigates the relationship between EEG alpha power and creativity across varying task durations. Participants completed the AUT under 20-second and 300-second conditions while EEG data were recorded. Our findings revealed a significant association between decreased absolute alpha power and enhanced AUT performance, with this effect observed exclusively in the 300-second condition (p < .05). Topographic analyses of alpha power demonstrated distinct neural activation patterns associated with prolonged creative thought, suggesting that the mechanisms facilitating divergent thinking require extended engagement to manifest. These results align with and extend previous research, indicating that sustained cognitive effort may play a critical role in creative ideation (Rominger et al., 2019). This study contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the role of alpha activity in creativity, supporting the hypothesis that reduced alpha power reflects a heightened state of cognitive engagement. By elucidating the temporal dynamics of neural processes during creative tasks, our findings offer valuable insights for enhancing creativity through targeted cognitive interventions.

18.0: Creative Evaluation and Semantic Memory Structure

Amit Skurnik,
Rakefet Ackerman,
Yoed N. Kenett,
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Creativity is a fundamental cognitive skill enabling the generation of original and effective ideas. While research has focused on idea generation, relatively little is known about creative idea evaluation, particularly from a metacognitive perspective. Understanding how knowledge structures influence metacognitive processes in creativity may provide insights into how individuals assess their creative ideas. This study investigates the influence of semantic memory structure on creative performance and originality judgments. Participants' (N = 106) semantic memory networks (SemNets) were constructed using the relatedness judgment task, and key network metrics capturing network integration, local connectivity, community structure, and importance, were analyzed. These metrics were related to participants' performance in the alternative uses task (AUT), from which subjective and objective creativity measures were computed. Objective creative performance was predicted by SemNets that were broadly connected and less compartmentalized. In contrast, originality judgments were predicted by SemNets that were highly integrated and efficient. This suggests a dissociation between objective creative performance and individuals’ self-assessments of originality. Finally, the number of ideas generated in the AUT consistently and strongly predicted both creative performance and individuals’ self-assessments of originality. Thus, our findings reveal how different aspects of semantic memory organization contribute uniquely to creative thinking and metacognitive judgments.

19.0: A Vision of Tomorrow: How Creativity Can Change Our Brains and the World

Anastasia Vanden Berghe, University of Luxembourg
Alla Gubenko
Claude Houssemand, University of Luxembourg

Emerging neuroscientific research reveals that creativity enhances emotional and physical well-being and actively shapes—and is shaped by—neuroplastic changes in the brain. Yet, despite its benefits, creativity remains undervalued in various facets of everyday life, where it is often relegated to casual hobbies rather than woven into daily routines. Educational policies frequently deprioritize fields closely tied to creative practice and instead focus resources on traditional "hard science" subjects. Many workplaces stifle creative potential by enforcing rigid structures and discouraging experimentation. Clinical contexts likewise mostly rely on conventional interventions, sometimes overlooking creative engagement's therapeutic potential. This poster examines prevailing attitudes toward creativity across four key domains—everyday life, education, work, and clinical settings—and explores potential ways of integrating creativity-based approaches in each context. Envisioning a future 50 years from now, it illustrates the long-term impact of these implementations if policymakers, educators, clinicians, and industry leaders systematically embed creative endeavors throughout all facets of society. Highlighting this work's collaborative and interdisciplinary nature, an artist will create four original paintings that depict visions of this potential future for each domain. Through these descriptive visual narratives, attendees are invited to dream, discuss, and forge partnerships, ultimately envisioning and building a future where creativity plays a leading role in enriching human experience across all sectors of society.

20.0: Revisiting the serial order effect in creative ideation: an intra-individual lens.

Baptiste Barbot, UCLouvain
Sameh Said-Metwaly, KULeuven

The serial-order effect (SOE) in creative ideation is often described as one of the most robust findings in creativity research. According to the SOE, as individuals generate more ideas in divergent thinking (DT) tasks, their level of creativity tends to increase. Contrasting with this established group-level effect, a closer examination of individual ideation trajectories suggests that this pattern is not universal—many people exhibit random fluctuations, and in some cases, originality even declines with increased iterations. This study investigates the SOE with an intra-individual lens. Using a large dataset of 3,800 adolescents who completed one to four DT measurement occasions, we analyzed over 8,000 DT protocols and more than 110,000 responses coded for infrequency as a proxy for originality. We performed a multilevel regression model, where response frequency was regressed on response order while controlling for task, rater, and school effects, and accounting for the nesting of observations within participants. Next, we conducted individual-level regression analyses to examine individual trends. Group-level findings indicate that, a quadratic (u-shaped) function (more pronounced in female) fits better the data than a linear function, suggesting that the classic SOE could be followed by a third ideation stage, where more typical responses resurface at the end of the sequence. Importantly, intra-individual analyses showed that a vast majority of the sample did not show a significant SOE, and that individual slopes are not stable over time. These findings challenge the universality of the SOE and prompts further examination of individual’s ideation patterns.

21.0: Role of metacognition in creativity: a developmental study

Barbara Ozkalp-Poincloux1, Anaëlle Camarda2, 3, 4, Elsa Berthet5, Émilie Salvia1 & Mathieu Cassotti1

1 Université́ de Paris, LaPsyDÉ, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France
2 Institut Supérieur Maria Montessori (ISMM), France
3 Université Paris Cité and Univ Gustave Eiffel, LaPEA
4 Psychology and Educational Sciences, UCLouvain, Belgium
5 USC Résilience, Centre d’Études Biologiques de Chizé (INRAE)

Research among children and adults revealed that creative ideation is hindered by a cognitive bias, called the fixation effect, that limits idea generation to common and non-creative solutions. Recent research emphasizes the role of metacognitive control at the response level (MCC-R; Benedek & Lebuda, 2024) in evaluating idea creativity and guiding subsequent generation as the ability to elaborate or discard potential ideas. However, little is known about how MCC-R develops and its relationship with the fixation effect. We thus conducted a study using the Egg Task (find solutions to prevent a fallen egg from breaking) to investigate the development of MCC-R among children (M = 9.95 years), young adolescents (M = 12.9 years), and middle adolescents (M = 15.3 years). Participants had to generate ideas and evaluate the creativity of each idea with a 7-point Likert scale. An MCC-R score was computed by subtracting participants' evaluations from the actual creativity level of their ideas (evaluated by experts). Higher MCC-R values indicate an over-evaluation of the level of creativity. Results show age-related development in MCC-R, with children exhibiting higher metacognitive scores than young adolescents, who, in turn, scored higher than middle adolescents. Additionally, metacognitive scores correlated positively with the number of ideas within the fixation effect and negatively with the number of ideas outside it. This suggests that participants who evaluate more accurately the creativity of their ideas generate more creative ideas, reinforcing the role of metacognition in creative ideation also in children and adolescents.

22.0: Cerebral correlates of divergent thinking in science and the arts

Cecilia Segatta1, Paolo Bernardis1, Lorenzo Campidelli1, Kirill G. Miroshnik1, Giovanni Emanuele Corazza2,3, Angela Faiella2,3, Marco Zanon4, Sergio Agnoli1,2

1Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy;
2Marconi Institute for Creativity (MIC), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;
3Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi”, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;
4Neuroscience Area, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy.

The present study aims to explore the temporal dynamics associated with the production of ideas through divergent thinking (DT) in participants from artistic and scientific domains. A total of 40 participants were enrolled: 20 scientists, biology students at the University of Trieste, and 20 artists, music students at the Tartini Conservatory of Trieste. Specifically, the study investigated the modulation of cerebral activity in the alpha and beta frequency bands during the sequential generation of four alternative uses for domain-specific, domain-unspecific, and domain-general objects, using a structured Alternative Uses Task (AUT; Guilford, 1967). Participants were presented with a total of 27 objects, forming an original dataset consisting of nine common objects (e.g., a brick, a pen, a cup), nine scientific objects (e.g., a test tube, a slide, a pipette), and nine musical objects (e.g., a tambourine, maracas, a diapason). We expect to replicate and extend a pattern observed in a previous study by Agnoli et al. (2020): (1) in terms of cerebral activity, we expect alpha and beta task-related power increase across the four responses especially in the parietal regions, which will be related to performance outcomes (i.e., originality) in the three different stimulus domains. Finally, for the first time, we will explore the role of knowledge domain in the AUT task: (2) the behavioral performance and cerebral activity of artists and scientists will be compared to identify potential differences and similarities in the temporal brain dynamics associated with the generation of alternative ideas for domain-specific vs. domain-unspecific vs. domain-general stimuli.

23.0: From memory to creativity: Using survival scenarios to enhance design thinking

Deana Vitrano, Western New England University
Mary Avery, University at Albany, SUNY
Deniz Leblebici-Basar, University of New Haven
Jeanette Altarriba, University at Albany, SUNY

Research has consistently shown that memory is enhanced when information is processed in a survival context (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010). However, the benefits of survival processing beyond memory remain underexplored. Previous research suggests that survival contexts promote elaborative encoding (Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011), which may, in turn, foster creativity. In support of this explanation, Wilson (2016) found that participants in a grasslands survival condition exhibited greater divergent thinking than those in other scenario-based conditions. In contrast, Altarriba and Avery (2021) found no significant differences in survival effects between individuals who naturally engage in more divergent thinking and those with lower creative tendencies. The current study aimed to further investigate the role of survival processing in creativity, to determine if this advantage can enhance creative output. Participants, recruited from a design program, were assigned to one of three groups: survival with predators, survival without predators, or a moving (control) group. In both survival groups, participants were asked to imagine that they were stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land and needed to find supplies, food, and water to survive. In the predator version, participants also imagined that they had to protect themselves from predators. In all three conditions, participants were asked to design a camping bag that they could use in their given scenario. Data collection is underway, and the data will be analyzed to determine differences in design creativity across the three groups. Findings contribute to the literature on creativity as well as memory and cognition.

24.0: Cognitive Kintsugi of Creativity: How research of deficits illuminates the foundation of a complex phenomenon

Anastasiya Nekhamkin, Haifa University

Creativity is a complex cognitive process involving multiple mechanisms, yet most research focuses on typical populations. Studying neurodevelopmental, mental, or learning disorders offers a unique lens into creativity's cognitive components. For example, intellectual disabilities inform the creativity-IQ relationship, while executive function impairments (e.g., ADHD, dyslexia) help disentangle attention, working memory, flexibility, and inhibition in creativity. Dyslexia—a reading disability—provides insights into verbal and figural aspects of divergent and convergent thinking. This study compared adults with and without dyslexia across cognitive and creative measures. Despite lower scores in reading, rapid automatized naming (RAN), working memory, and verbal convergent thinking (Remote Associates Test, RAT), adults with dyslexia performed similarly to typical readers in IQ, inhibition, figural convergent thinking, and all divergent thinking sub-scores. These findings challenge assumptions about working memory's role in creativity, suggesting divergent thinking operates independently while verbal convergent thinking may rely on it. Methodologically, our results highlight the need for refined convergent thinking assessments, particularly in its figural domain. Theoretically, this study raises fundamental questions about convergent thinking's nature and its verbal and figural components, emphasizing the need for precise testing tools to advance creativity research.

25.0: Investigating the influence of weather conditions on creativity and mood

Emma Smith, Georgetown University
Danny Holzman, Georgetown University
Dr. Adam Green, Georgetown University

Our external environment has been consistently linked to mood and cognitive performance, yet little research has explored how specific weather characteristics influence creative cognition. This study examines the effects of different weather conditions on creativity, executive functioning, and mood. Participants completed a battery of tasks, including assessments of divergent and convergent creative thinking, attention, working memory, and mood. They also report on weather conditions such as temperature, weather descriptives (e.g., sunny, cloudy, rainy), visibility, humidity, and air quality, alongside questionnaires on affinity for nature and time spent outdoors. To date, 80 participants have completed the study, with a target of 120. Planned analysis will be conducted to determine links between different weather characteristics and creativity, executive functioning, and mood. We hypothesize that warmer temperatures, sunny conditions, and positive weather perceptions will be associated with enhanced creativity, executive function, and mood, whereas colder temperatures, rainy conditions, poor air quality, and negative weather perceptions will predict lower scores. Additionally, we expect time spent outdoors to positively correlate with cognitive performance and mood, but only in warm, sunny, or positively perceived weather conditions. Exploratory analyses will also examine if improvements in mood mediate effects that weather variables have on cognitive performance. We anticipate that these findings will expand our understanding of how weather components shape cognition and mood, potentially guiding the optimization of environments for well-being and mental performance.

26.0: Learning Preferences and Fixation to Pictorial Examples in Design Problem Solving

Evangelia G. Chrysikou, Drexel University
Alexandra E. Kelly, Drexel University
Leah Downie, Drexel University
Dong Ho Kim, Northwestern University
John Gero, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Using pictures as examples during problem solving can lead to fixation, wherein solvers tend to replicate the solutions included in the examples even when they involve errors or are clearly suboptimal. Despite the significance of this finding for many educational and professional contexts, very little research has examined the neurocognitive bases of this phenomenon. In this study, we hypothesized that individual differences in learning tendencies may contribute to the likelihood of a participant experiencing fixation during design problem solving. We predicted that exemplar learners—who tend to approach learning tasks by memorizing specific examples—may be more prone to fixation, relative to abstraction learners—who tend to approach learning tasks by extracting general principles or rules and applying them to different situations. We administered healthy young adults learning tasks that classified them as either exemplar or abstraction learners, and design problem solving tasks that either included a pictorial example or did not include an example. We evaluated participant solutions for evidence of fixation and creative problem solving, per established procedures. Participants’ perceptual, executive function, and creative abilities were also assessed. Analyses by learner and task type offered preliminary support for our predictions, showing that exemplar learners are more susceptible to design fixation than abstraction learners, with individual differences in perceptual and executive function abilities partially accounting for the observed effects. We discuss the implications of these findings for creative problem solving, as well as education more broadly.

27.0: Are DT tasks good at measuring Creative Thinking? Imma say ‘no’.

Kristin Lansing, NeoWise
Garrett Jaeger, winded.vertigo

Divergent Thinking (DT) tasks are often used as a tool to measure a range of creative thinking skills or as a proxy for creative thinking itself. We did a deep dive into a variety of approaches for divergent thinking tasks to determine which creative thinking skills DT tasks are actually good at measuring, and which creative thinking skills might be better measured using other task types. Our study looked at the same set of four stimuli across four different creative thinking task prompts designed to isolate specific creative thinking skills: the ability to generate diverse ideas, using two different task prompts; and the ability to generate unconventional ideas, using two different task prompts. Findings highlight the value of specific task types and their prompts for the explicit elicitation of specific creative thinking skills, as well as support the use of skill-specific task types for the measurement of skills over measuring multiple skills using a single task type.

28.0: How is mood related to creative idea evaluation?

Gino Battistello(1,5), Julie Tang1(4,5), Fabien Vinckier(2,3,4), Alizée Lopez-Persem(1,3,5)
1. FrontLab (Team LEVY), Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France
2. MBB (Motivation Brain & Behavior), Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France
3. INSERM, Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, Paris, France
4. AP-HP, Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, Paris, France
5. Sorbonne University - ED158 Brain, Cognition, Behavior, Paris, France

Are individuals with mood disorders more creative? This question sits at the intersection of cognitive science and psychiatry but remains unresolved. Creative ideation involves two phases: generation and evaluation. Recent studies suggest that evaluation involves two sub-processes: a monitoring phase, where ideas are assessed based on goal-relevant dimensions, i.e., adequacy and originality of ideas, and a valuation phase, where a subjective value is assigned to candidate ideas, based on a combination of these two dimensions. This study aims to identify which processes involved in creativity are impacted by depression. We recruited 35 depressed patients and 35 healthy controls, who completed a free generation of associates task followed by subjective likeability, adequacy, and originality ratings. Preliminary results show that patients’ responses were more negative in valence. The more negative the responses, the more creative they were, based on external assessment. Yet, no significant differences were found between groups in creative performance. Despite a tendency to generate more creative responses, patients fail to outperform significantly healthy controls. This discrepancy suggests a potential impairment in evaluation rather than generation. Further analyses will explore differences between groups in terms of mechanisms underlying creative ideation. Specifically, we will compare monitoring and valuation mechanisms between groups to determine which of these processes is impacted in patients. Altogether, this study will shed light on the relationship between creativity and mood disorders through a mechanistic description of the underlying cognitive processes.

29.0: The neural mechanisms of asking creative questions

Ilana Shinder, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Tuval Raz, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Roger E. Beaty, Pennsylvania State University
Yoed N. Kenett, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Creativity relies on the dynamic interplay of brain networks, and how these networks reconfigure during specific tasks can vary widely. Traditionally, the Alternative Uses Task (AUT)—generating alternative uses for objects—has been used to study creativity-related brain activity, revealing the coupling of hubs from the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and executive control network (ECN). Recently attention has focused on question-asking as a driver of creativity, fostering both problem-finding and idea generation. Specifically, question asking is empirically investigated via the Alternative Questions Task (AQT), where participants generated unique questions about objects. However, the neural mechanisms realizing question asking, and their overlap with divergent thinking, remains unknown. To explore this, we conducted an fMRI study (N = 37) while participants underwent the AUT and AQT. We then applied functional connectivity analysis to compare the overlap in the connectivity between the DMN, ECN, and SN related to question asking and uses generation. While we find that both AUT and AQT relate to DMN-ECN-SN coupling as expected, a specific ECN-DMN connectivity pattern differentiates both tasks: AQT revealed connectivity between the ECN (Posterior Parietal Cortex, Lateral Prefrontal Cortex) and DMN (Lateral Parietal, Posterior Cingulate Cortex), emphasizing a dynamic interplay of task-directed control and internally focused ideation, integrating attention, memory, and cognitive flexibility to support creative question-asking and problem exploration. Thus, our findings shed novel light on the neural mechanisms that relate to creative question asking.

30.0: The role of alpha oscillations in free- and goal-directed semantic associations

Ioanna Zioga, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Yoed N. Kenett, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Anastasios Giannopoulos, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Caroline Di Bernardi Luft, Brunel University London, United Kingdom

Alpha oscillations are known to play a central role in several higher-order cognitive functions, especially selective attention, working memory, semantic memory, and creative thinking. Nonetheless, we still know very little about the role of alpha in the generation of more remote semantic associations, which is key to creative and semantic cognition. Furthermore, it remains unclear how these oscillations are shaped by the intention to “be creative,” which is the case in most creativity tasks. We aimed to address these gaps in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we compared alpha oscillatory activity (using a method which distinguishes genuine oscillatory activity from transient events) during the generation of free associations which were more vs. less distant from a given concept. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings and also compared alpha oscillatory activity when people were generating free associations versus associations with the instruction to be creative (i.e. goal-directed). We found that alpha was consistently higher during the generation of more distant semantic associations, in both experiments. This effect was widespread, involving areas in both left and right hemispheres. Importantly, the instruction to be creative seems to increase alpha phase synchronisation from left to right temporal brain areas, suggesting that intention to be creative changed the flux of information in the brain, likely reflecting an increase in top-down control of semantic search processes. We conclude that goal-directed generation of remote associations relies on top-down mechanisms compared to when associations are freely generated.

31.0: Predictors of Creative Metacognitive Monitoring: Creativity, Personality, and Task-Related Factors

Izabela Lebuda, University of Wrocław
Gabriela Hofer, University of Graz
Mathias Benedek, University of Graz

The assessment of one’s own cognitive processes during creative endeavors, known as creative metacognitive monitoring (CMC-M), can manifest in various forms. This includes evaluating task-related processes and performance (the performance level) as well as assessing the quality of ideas generated (the response level). These evaluations play a crucial regulatory role by guiding how the creative process is managed. To date, research on CMC-M has predominantly focused on predicting the accuracy of creative self-assessment, with less emphasis on factors predicting high versus low self-assessments and how they deviate from actual performance (over- and underestimation). Therefore, we conducted an online study (N = 425) investigating the predictors of self-assessments of creative performance and ideas, including creative ability, real-life creativity (creative activities and achievements), core personality traits (intellect, openness, narcissism), surface personality characteristics (creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity, creative self-concept), and task-related factors (motivation and prior task experience). We found that creative metacognitive monitoring at the response and performance levels reflect related but distinct abilities. Each group of variables—creative potential, real-life creativity, core and surface personality characteristics, and task-related factors—significantly contributed to explaining the variance in self-assessments of both performance and ideas, as well as biases in self-assessment at both levels of CMC-M, though in distinct ways. The findings are discussed within the context of a systematic framework for creative metacognition.

32.0: Eye-behavior dynamics in internally vs. externally directed cognition during creative and non-creative face-to-face tasks

Jessica Weit, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Örjan de Manzano, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

Perceptual decoupling refers to the process of disengaging from external stimuli, as when trying to avoid distracting visual stimuli by blinking or gaze aversion. Such visual decoupling may also happen spontaneously when individuals engage in introspective thinking, for instance during mind wandering, but also when engaging in creative tasks. This study aimed to explore differences in eye behaviors between externally directed cognition (EDC) and internally directed creative cognition (IDC) during a sentence continuation task (SCT) performed face-to-face. Participants listened to and generated creative continuations to unfinished sentences given by the experimenter, thus switching between EDC and IDC in each trial. Eye-tracking results showed that gaze aversion and fixation rates were higher and fixation durations shorter during IDC. However, individual differences in these outcomes did not correlate with human or AI creativity ratings. A control experiment was conducted with two additional non-creative tasks: number sequence generation (NT) and a visual description task (VT). Results showed that gaze aversion was similar when switching to IDC across all three tasks. Interestingly, blinks were significantly longer during the SCT compared to both control tasks. Fixation rates and durations were greater in the SCT and VT compared to the NT, potentially related to visual imagery. In summary, the results suggest that most eye behaviors during IDC are not explicitly related to creative cognition, but may nonetheless indicate such depending on the task. Blink duration, perhaps the strongest form of decoupling, remains a measure of specific interest.

33.0: Shifting Attention: An Externally Oriented Paradigm of a Creative Thinking Task

Kent F Hubert, University of Arkansas
Darya L Zabelina, University of Arkansas

Mentally ideating during creativity-related tasks often elicits internally directed attentional states due to the cognitive demands of the task itself. Internally-directed attention refers to the state of focusing on one’s own mental representations and mental simulations rather than on sensory inputs from external environment, and is often represented as higher EEG alpha power at frontal and parietal regions. Current tasks measuring creative thinking, however, lack an external focus in which attention can be shifted like it happens in the real world. Specifically, creative thinking task paradigms do not typically account for the possible attentional shifting between internal and external attention, and this limitation challenges the ecological validity of our understanding of creative cognition. The present study aims to establish a digitally enhanced version of the Creative Mental Synthesis Task (CMST) that can be used to test the prevalence of both internal and external attention during a creative thinking task. In the present study, participants completed either the traditional paradigm of the CMST task, or the digitally enhanced version of the CMST task, while continuous EEG data were recorded. We anticipate to find lower levels of alpha power during the digitally enhanced version of the task compared to the traditional paradigm, which implies the importance of ecological task design. Data collection and analysis are currently underway. Future studies will use this new paradigm to test for temporal attentional shifting between internal and external attention during the course of the creativity task.

34.0: Functional Contributions of Semantic Knowledge and Fluid Reasoning in Professional Creative Problem-Solving: Insights from Chefs

Pedro M. Paz-Alonso, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia, Spain; IKERBASQUE – Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbo, Spain;
Manuel Carreiras, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia, Spain; IKERBASQUE – Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbo, Spain;
Maddi Ibarbia, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia, Spain.

Creativity, often assessed through divergent thinking tasks, is thought to arise from two key cognitive mechanisms: associative thinking, which operates spontaneously and without control, and cognitive control, which depends on executive functions such as flexibility and fluency. Neuroimaging studies have linked creativity to activity in the caudal and rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (rlPFC), parietotemporal regions, and the default mode network. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural basis of creative problem-solving in both general and specialized (culinary) contexts. We recruited 21 professional chefs and matched control counterparts, hypothesizing that domain-specific creativity would be shaped by both semantic knowledge (general and specialized) and fluid reasoning. To explore this, we included three fMRI localizer tasks designed to assess semantic knowledge, fluid reasoning and problem solving. Our results show that creative problem-solving engaged frontoparietal regions, along with the inferior frontal gyrus, ventral temporal cortex, and rlPFC—brain areas also activated in the localizer tasks. Notably, in chefs compared to controls, functional connectivity between these regions was stronger when solving domain-specific (culinary-related) problems than when addressing more general challenges. These findings suggest that expertise-based semantic knowledge and fluid reasoning are at the base of creative problem-solving, reinforcing our proposed framework for understanding creativity.

35.0: Transcranial magnetic stimulation of frontoparietal control network and default mode network modulates attentional flexibility

Kristin Yung, Georgetown University
Danny Holzman, Georgetown University
Oded Kleinmintz, Georgetown University
Brian Kim, Drexel University
Apoorva Kelkar, Drexel University
Kelly Michaelis, Georgetown University
Lizzie Kaplan, Georgetown University
Melanie Collier, Georgetown University
John Medaglia, Drexel University
Adam Green, Georgetown University

Understanding the interplay of the frontoparietal control network (FPCN) and default mode network (DMN) is integral to explaining how the brain functions in both creativity and executive cognition. Prior evidence indicates that and FCPN and DMN, which are typically anticorrelated, exhibit increased interconnectivity during creative processing, with FPCNb and DMN becoming positively associated. The present study broadly aims to elucidate the interplay of FPCN-DMN interactions in modulating individual attentional performance through utilizing multi-session transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the FPCN and DMN, with intra- and inter-network connectivity assessed using parcellation of fMRI data. Part of this study focuses on attentional flexibility (AF), a cornerstone of executive function which may support semantic flexibility and divergent thinking. AF was evaluated using the Navon Low and High tasks, which evaluate attentional switching. The data presented here, from a linear mixed-effect model, demonstrate decreased reaction time in all sessions stimulating FPCN and an increased reaction time with DMN-only stimulation. This model also indicates varying improvements in reaction time depending on baseline FPCN connectivity, highlighting the potential for personalized neuromodulation interventions. These findings implicate a role for personalized stimulation in optimizing attentional performance and creativity with TMS, suggesting future applications in tailoring TMS protocols to maximize efficacy for each individual.

36.0: Rewarding Creativity: The Influence of Altruistic Motivation on Insight Problem-Solving

Larissa Richter1, John Kounios2 and Carola Salvi1

1Department of Psychological and Social Sciences, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy.
2Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Despite advancements in understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind creativity, effective ways to motivate it remain unclear, particularly regarding the influence of intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards. In this study, we examined the effects of different rewards on creativity, focusing on how these rewards impact Aha! moments (insight-driven solutions). Three hundred and thirty participants were divided into four groups, each receiving different incentives, and attempted to solve 116 Language Independent Remote Associate (LI-RAT) problems. Participants were told that if they solved correctly more than 70% of problems they would have: 1. Contributed to providing one meal for people in poverty (altruism group); 2. Received a certificate of excellence (ego boost group); 3. Received a $10 food gift card (food group). No incentives were given to participants in the control group. Results showed that participants in the altruism group were more insightful compared to the other conditions (p <.05 across conditions; p < .05 post hoc comparison: altruism vs. food conditions). We speculate that intrinsic rewards such as altruism might activate dopamine pathways, fostering below-awareness integrative processes that are essential for creativity, while external rewards such as food may disrupt these processes by increasing cognitive control.

37.0: The Serial Order Effect in Creative Confidence: Changes in Performance and Self-Perception Over Time

Lidia Wojtycka, University of Wroclaw
Aleksandra Zielińska, University of Wrocław
Maciej Karwowski, University of Wrocław

The serial order effect shows that ideas become more creative over time. But is this change in ideas’ originality related to people’s self-perception? That seems likely, given that creative ability is among the building blocks of creative confidence. In the present preregistered study, participants (n = 601) solved the Alternative Uses Task in three blocks, providing two ideas per block and responding to the task and trait creative confidence items. Surprisingly, we were unable to replicate the serial order effect; instead, the dynamics of participants’ creative performance followed one of the three different trajectories: the smallest “increasing” (14%, i.e., following the serial order effect), larger “decreasing” (29%, following the reverse serial order), and the largest “stable” (57%, with similar originality across blocks). Notably, participants’ creative confidence—dynamic: task-related, and more general: trait-related—increased across all trajectories. Thus, although people felt more and more creative as their ideas progressed, the majority of them (“decreasing” and “stable” trajectories, 86% of the total sample) suffered from metacognitive inaccuracy. We discuss the potential reasons and theoretical and practical consequences of those findings.

38.0: Associative Thinking and Creative Ability in Older Adulthood

Abigail L. Cosgrove, The Pennsylvania State University
Michele T. Diaz, The Pennsylvania State University
Paul V. DiStefano, The Pennsylvania State University
Yoed N. Kenett, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology
Roger E. Beaty, The Pennsylvania State University

Successful problem-solving and enhanced creative ability may improve physical health, cognitive well-being, and overall independence of older adults. In general, older adults who are more creative, may be better able to cope with cognitive decline and navigate everyday tasks. While previous research on creative performance in older adulthood showed age-related stability, open questions remain regarding the specific underlying cognitive basis for this invariability across the lifespan. Forward flow is a metric for the progression of associative thinking, which could serve as a potential mechanism for preserved creative thinking in aging. Yet, typical age-related declines in executive function may affect semantic search processes and therefore it could also be that older adults show poorer performance on forward flow measures. The present study examined age-related differences in creativity, measured through a divergent thinking task, and associative thinking, measured by forward flow metrics. There were diverging effects of age such that creative performance remained stable for older adults, while there were age-related declines in associative abilities. Mediation analyses showed that intelligence measures served as underlying cognitive mechanisms for the stability of creative thinking in older age. The broader implications of these findings provide insight into the complex relationships supporting age-related preservation in creativity.

39.0: Revisiting the serial order effect in creative ideation: an intra-individual lens.

Baptiste Barbot, UCLouvain
Sameh Said-Metwaly, KULeuven

40.0: Perceptual and semantic maps in individual humans share structural features that predict creative abilities

Jonas Elpelt, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
Johannes P.-H. Seiler, Gutenberg University Mainz
Aida Ghobadi, Gutenberg University Mainz
Matthias Kaschube, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
Simon Rumpel, Gutenberg University Mainz

Building perceptual and associative links between internal representations is a fundamental neural process, allowing individuals to structure their knowledge and combine it to enable creative behavior. Representational similarity between pairs of entities reflects their associative linkage at different sensory processing levels, from lower-order perceptual to higher-order semantic levels. While specific structural features of semantic representational maps have recently been linked to individual creativity, it remains unclear if similar features are also shared by lower-level representational maps reflecting perceptual similarities without higher semantic meaning. To address this, we presented human subjects with psychophysical scaling tasks using two distinct sets of independent, qualitatively different stimuli probing the auditory perceptual and higher-order semantic domain individually. Quantifying individual representational relations with graph-theoretical measures in both modalities revealed robust positive correlations of representational structures in the auditory and semantic modality. We delineate these shared representational features to predict multiple verbal standard creativity measures, suggesting that both semantic and auditory representational maps reflect creative abilities. Together, our findings indicate that an individual’s modality-overarching representational geometry may underpin the organization of associative spaces and creative thought. In the future, non-verbal perceptual approaches could simplify experimental frameworks for assessing creativity in humans and even other model organisms.

nan: The role of complexity, openness to experience, and musical expertise in evaluations of musical improvisations

Kanthida van Welzen, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Ana Clemente, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Fredrik Ullén, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Örjan de Manzano, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

Advances in verbal creativity research have shown that objective, automated measures align with creativity ratings. However, applying such measures to musical creativity remains underexplored. In a previous study, we found that musical expertise related to the Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) of musical improvisations created in the Musical Divergent Thinking Test. The present study further explores LZC as an objective measure of musical improvisation quality by examining its relationship with liking and creativity ratings. In addition, we explored if raters’ openness to experience and musical expertise moderate the relationship between LZC and ratings. We recruited 495 participants with at least 5 years of musical experience via Prolific. In an online PsyNet study, participants rated improvisations from our previous study on liking, originality, and appropriateness. They also completed the Big Five Inventory openness to experience scale and provided information about their musical expertise. Originality ratings and LZC showed a positive correlation. Liking and appropriateness ratings exhibited a non-linear (inverted U-shape) relation with LZC, suggesting an optimal level of complexity for these aspects. While openness to experience did not significantly influence ratings, participants with more musical expertise rated professional improvisations higher on liking and appropriateness but rated improvisations lower overall, highlighting a role of expertise in evaluation. These results suggest that objective measures, such as LZC, have potential for assessing musical creativity. Future research could develop measures that capture even more of the musical quality of improvisations

nan: The factor structure of the Short Scale of Creative Self (SSCS): Why is general creative self-efficacy poorly distinguishable from creative personal identity?

Kirill Miroshnik, University of Trieste
Tiziana Pozzoli, University of Padua
Giulia Fusi, University of Bergamo
Andrea Greco, University of Bergamo
Sergio Agnoli, University of Trieste

The Short Scale of Creative Self (SSCS) is a widely applied creativity measure distinguishing aspects of creative personal identity (CPI) and creative self-efficacy (CSE). Despite a common interpretation of psychometric evidence in favor of the two-factor structure, there were almost no attempts to understand the nature of the consistently high correlation between factors of CPI and CSE. Does a high correlation between factors imply a tight dynamic relationship between CPI and CSE or indicate neglected problems in the local model–data fit? The present study used datasets collected on the samples of Italian preadolescents (N = 1335) and adults (N = 952) to challenge the support for the two-factor structure of SSCS in favor of the unidimensional structure. Multiple issues with local model fit, such as low factor loadings, moderate residual covariances, and moderate cross-loadings from the CPI factor, revealed strong wording effects in both samples, distorting the expected two-factor structure for Italian SSCS. With access to additional data, we demonstrated that similar problems appeared to some extent in English, German, and Polish versions of SSCS, extending the generalizability of our findings. Moreover, we found no support for the control of careless responding or method of data collection as potential explanations for discrepancies in the factor structure. Overall, CSE and CPI appear to be indistinguishable when CSE is assessed with domain-general and context-independent items. Implications of our findings are limited to the factor structure of the SSCS and have no consequences for disproving the theoretical distinction between CPI and CSE