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Inter- and intrahemispheric functional organization of brain cortex in artists during creative process
International Journal of Psychophysiology 94 (2014) 120–261
Spontaneous creativity: Its theoretical and neurocognitive framework Joydeep Bhattacharyaa, Geraint Wigginsb Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom b Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom
a
Creativity, the hallmark of human cognition, is behind all innovations, discoveries, and ideas that have shaped human lives and civilizations. But what cognitive processes and neural mechanisms give rise to creation? How is something novel, surprising and functionally useful triggered and/or evolved and how does this lead us to the proverbial spark of creative insight or the moment of inspiration? Despite the advent of neuroimaging techniques, our scientific understanding of creative processes is still quite limited. Surprisingly, empirical research on creativity is mostly dominated by popular beliefs like “right brain thinking”, “divergent thinking”, “altered states” and so on, yet most of them are more myth than reality. Our principal aim here is to propose a computational and neurocognitive account of ‘spontaneous creativity’ that some people call it as creative inspiration that happens spontaneously without any conscious volition. Earlier this kind of creativity is associated with generation of language and music; we propose that this type of creativity reflects spontaneous thinking and therefore represents a mechanism for domain-general creativity. Our framework is based on Baars' Global Workspace Theory, enhanced with mechanisms based on Shannon's Information Theory. Our principal argument is that pre-conscious creativity happens prior to conscious creativity and the proposed computational model may provide a mechanism by which this transition is managed. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.704
The structure of functional brain EEG network is sensitive to genre specific musical creativity: A study on jazz and classical piano music performance Ernesto Peredaa, Shama Rahmanb, Joydeep Bhattacharyac Department of Industrial Engineering, Univ. of La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain b Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom c Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom
a
Creative thinking is doubtless one of the highest achievements of complex human cognition, yet the network characteristics of human brain in creative action are not well understood. Studying musical creativity offers an outstanding opportunity to tackle this issue, as it allows investigating brain dynamics during creative performance. Classical music and jazz are the two main genres of music in the Western world, often associated with different forms of creativity. Thus, our main objective was to characterise cortical network patterns associated with genre specific musical creativity. We recorded electrical activities (EEG) of eight professional pianists while they were engaged with creative musical tasks equally on musical extracts from both genres (10 for each genre). For four standard EEG frequency bands, theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–16 Hz), beta (16–30 Hz), and gamma (30– 50 Hz), bivariate phase synchronization was estimated by means of the phase locking value (PLV), and subsequently used as the strengths of links in an adjacency matrix forming a connected network. We further calculated three network measures: strength, clustering and efficiency, at both local (the node) and global (the network) levels. Additionally,
161
we also studied the sensitivity of these measures across different thresholds of the links in the adjacency matrix. At the global level, we found significant differences, robust across different thresholds, between the two types of musical excerpts, and the effects were largest for the beta frequency band. The overall cortical network was found to be more synchronised, efficient and integrated during classical improvisation as compared to jazz improvisation. At the sensor level, these differences were mainly centered over fronto-central brain regions, with a clear right hemispheric lateralization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence of the association between genre specific musical creativity and cortical network. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.705
Inter- and intrahemispheric functional organization of brain cortex in artists during creative process Igor Sergeevich Dikiy, Liudmila Alexandrovna Dikaya, Viktoriya Viktorovna Karpova Southern Federal University, Russia There are insufficient researches devoted to studying the brain correlates of nonverbal creativity. At the same time such kinds of nonverbal activity as art, design, and music differ by a highly creative component. The dynamics of brain activity at different stages of nonverbal creative process in individuals is not studied nowadays too. So the objective of our research is to study inter- and intrahemispheric functional organization of brain cortex in artists at different stages of nonverbal (figurative) creative process. Ninety-five right-handed artists aged 18–29 took part in our research (52 females and 43 males). They were asked to work with monotypies (sheets of paper with color prints on them). Participants were offered to create mentally an artistic image or a picture on the basis of any of monotypies. Carrying-out of this task is closely connected with insight. EEG signals were recorded at a resting state and at the stages of creative process — a preparation, insight and verification stages from 21 scalp electrodes according to the International 10-20 System. We analyzed EEG coherence for each subject for the following frequency bands: theta-1 (4.00–6.00 Hz), theta-2 (6.00–8.00 Hz), alpha-1 (8.00–10.5 Hz), alpha-2 (10.5–13.00 Hz), beta-1 (13.00–24.00 Hz) and beta-2 (24.00–35.00 Hz). For statistical analysis we used 3-way ANOVA and post hoc analysis to compare the features of brain cortex functional organization in artists at different stages of creative process. As a result we revealed a high EEG synchronization in lowfrequency bands and a low synchronization in the high-frequency bands at preparation stage. So participants have general brain cortex activation as a neurophysiological precondition of a nonverbal creative problem solving. The insight stage of creative process in comparison with the resting state is characterized by an increase in force of long functional connections in participants (p ≤ 0.05). And at the low-frequency bands reflecting a functional state of the central nervous system a strong interhemispheric interaction is revealed in subjects right before insight. And at high-frequency bands relative to the very cognitive activity an intrahemispheric interaction between anterior and posterior brain cortical regions is revealed. But we didn't reveal interhemispheric connections at high frequency bands. Hence, while insight solving of nonverbal creative problem, artists are characterized by independent and parallel functioning of brain hemispheres. Whereas strong coherence is revealed in these individuals during the preparation and verification stages at high frequency bands. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.706
Spontaneous creativity: Its theoretical and neurocognitive framework Joydeep Bhattacharyaa, Geraint Wigginsb Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom b Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom
a
Creativity, the hallmark of human cognition, is behind all innovations, discoveries, and ideas that have shaped human lives and civilizations. But what cognitive processes and neural mechanisms give rise to creation? How is something novel, surprising and functionally useful triggered and/or evolved and how does this lead us to the proverbial spark of creative insight or the moment of inspiration? Despite the advent of neuroimaging techniques, our scientific understanding of creative processes is still quite limited. Surprisingly, empirical research on creativity is mostly dominated by popular beliefs like “right brain thinking”, “divergent thinking”, “altered states” and so on, yet most of them are more myth than reality. Our principal aim here is to propose a computational and neurocognitive account of ‘spontaneous creativity’ that some people call it as creative inspiration that happens spontaneously without any conscious volition. Earlier this kind of creativity is associated with generation of language and music; we propose that this type of creativity reflects spontaneous thinking and therefore represents a mechanism for domain-general creativity. Our framework is based on Baars' Global Workspace Theory, enhanced with mechanisms based on Shannon's Information Theory. Our principal argument is that pre-conscious creativity happens prior to conscious creativity and the proposed computational model may provide a mechanism by which this transition is managed. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.704
The structure of functional brain EEG network is sensitive to genre specific musical creativity: A study on jazz and classical piano music performance Ernesto Peredaa, Shama Rahmanb, Joydeep Bhattacharyac Department of Industrial Engineering, Univ. of La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain b Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom c Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom
a
Creative thinking is doubtless one of the highest achievements of complex human cognition, yet the network characteristics of human brain in creative action are not well understood. Studying musical creativity offers an outstanding opportunity to tackle this issue, as it allows investigating brain dynamics during creative performance. Classical music and jazz are the two main genres of music in the Western world, often associated with different forms of creativity. Thus, our main objective was to characterise cortical network patterns associated with genre specific musical creativity. We recorded electrical activities (EEG) of eight professional pianists while they were engaged with creative musical tasks equally on musical extracts from both genres (10 for each genre). For four standard EEG frequency bands, theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–16 Hz), beta (16–30 Hz), and gamma (30– 50 Hz), bivariate phase synchronization was estimated by means of the phase locking value (PLV), and subsequently used as the strengths of links in an adjacency matrix forming a connected network. We further calculated three network measures: strength, clustering and efficiency, at both local (the node) and global (the network) levels. Additionally,
161
we also studied the sensitivity of these measures across different thresholds of the links in the adjacency matrix. At the global level, we found significant differences, robust across different thresholds, between the two types of musical excerpts, and the effects were largest for the beta frequency band. The overall cortical network was found to be more synchronised, efficient and integrated during classical improvisation as compared to jazz improvisation. At the sensor level, these differences were mainly centered over fronto-central brain regions, with a clear right hemispheric lateralization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence of the association between genre specific musical creativity and cortical network. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.705
Inter- and intrahemispheric functional organization of brain cortex in artists during creative process Igor Sergeevich Dikiy, Liudmila Alexandrovna Dikaya, Viktoriya Viktorovna Karpova Southern Federal University, Russia There are insufficient researches devoted to studying the brain correlates of nonverbal creativity. At the same time such kinds of nonverbal activity as art, design, and music differ by a highly creative component. The dynamics of brain activity at different stages of nonverbal creative process in individuals is not studied nowadays too. So the objective of our research is to study inter- and intrahemispheric functional organization of brain cortex in artists at different stages of nonverbal (figurative) creative process. Ninety-five right-handed artists aged 18–29 took part in our research (52 females and 43 males). They were asked to work with monotypies (sheets of paper with color prints on them). Participants were offered to create mentally an artistic image or a picture on the basis of any of monotypies. Carrying-out of this task is closely connected with insight. EEG signals were recorded at a resting state and at the stages of creative process — a preparation, insight and verification stages from 21 scalp electrodes according to the International 10-20 System. We analyzed EEG coherence for each subject for the following frequency bands: theta-1 (4.00–6.00 Hz), theta-2 (6.00–8.00 Hz), alpha-1 (8.00–10.5 Hz), alpha-2 (10.5–13.00 Hz), beta-1 (13.00–24.00 Hz) and beta-2 (24.00–35.00 Hz). For statistical analysis we used 3-way ANOVA and post hoc analysis to compare the features of brain cortex functional organization in artists at different stages of creative process. As a result we revealed a high EEG synchronization in lowfrequency bands and a low synchronization in the high-frequency bands at preparation stage. So participants have general brain cortex activation as a neurophysiological precondition of a nonverbal creative problem solving. The insight stage of creative process in comparison with the resting state is characterized by an increase in force of long functional connections in participants (p ≤ 0.05). And at the low-frequency bands reflecting a functional state of the central nervous system a strong interhemispheric interaction is revealed in subjects right before insight. And at high-frequency bands relative to the very cognitive activity an intrahemispheric interaction between anterior and posterior brain cortical regions is revealed. But we didn't reveal interhemispheric connections at high frequency bands. Hence, while insight solving of nonverbal creative problem, artists are characterized by independent and parallel functioning of brain hemispheres. Whereas strong coherence is revealed in these individuals during the preparation and verification stages at high frequency bands. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.706