Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: Selective versus leaky sensory gating in divergent thinkers and creative achievers

Zabelina, Darya L.; O’Leary, Daniel S.; Pornpattananangkul, Narun; Nusslock, Robin; Beeman, Mark

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.01.034

Cited by 92 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Although the present experiments did not test this directly, such a mechanism is compatible with our recent data showing that divergent thinking is linked with an increased ability to filter out "irrelevant" sensory information (Zabelina et al, 2015). Considering the manner in which divergent thinking tests are typically administered (limited time and emphasis on the number of responses), selective attention would appear to facilitate successful performance on divergent thinking tests.…”

Section: Congruent Trial Incongruent Trialsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…In direct contrast to creative achievement, divergent thinking is associated with increased ability to filter out "irrelevant" sensory information, as assessed by the P50 ERP (Zabelina et al, 2015). Specifically, we find that high divergent thinkers are more likely to filter out sensory stimuli than their less divergent counterparts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Some prior evidence suggests that certain forms of creativity may be associated with the leaky attention filter (Ansburg & Hill, 2003;Carson et al, 2003;Neçka, 1999;Rowe et al, 2007). Previously we found that creative achievement, but not divergent thinking, is associated with the reduced ability to filter our "irrelevant" sensory information (Zabelina et al, 2015). Experiment 2 examined whether attentional flexibility associated with divergent thinking is supported by leaky attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Prior empirical investigations have suggested a link between creative achievement and a leaky attentional filter (Carson et al, 2003;Zabelina et al, 2015), which may facilitate a wide focus on the weakly activated stimuli, leading to unusual and creative associations. This is akin to the remote association theory, which describes creativity as the ability to utilize non-dominant remote associations of problem elements in order to discover nonobvious solutions to a problem (Mednick, 1962).…”

Section: Creative Achievement and Leaky Attention Filtersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, neurophysiological evidence suggests that people with high real-world creative achievements have the reduced ability to filter out "irrelevant" sensory information, as assessed by the P50 event-related potential (ERP; Zabelina, O'Leary, Pornpattananangkul, Nusslock, & Beeman, 2015). Additionally, they do it involuntarily, as this happens very early in the processing stream -only 50 ms after the onset of the sensory stimulus.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Flexible or leaky attention in creative people? Distinct patterns of attention for different types of creative thinking

Zabelina¹,

2015

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Creativity has been putatively linked to distinct forms of attention, but which aspects of creativity and which components of attention remains unclear. Two experiments examined how divergent thinking and creative achievement relate to visual attention. In both experiments, participants identified target letters (S or H) within hierarchical stimuli (global letters made of local letters), after being cued to either the local or global level. In Experiment 1, participants identified the targets more quickly following valid cues (80 % of trials) than following invalid cues. However, this smaller validity effect was associated with higher divergent thinking, suggesting that divergent thinking was related to quicker overcoming of invalid cues, and thus to flexible attention. Creative achievement was unrelated to the validity effect. Experiment 2 examined whether divergent thinking (or creative achievement) is related to "leaky attention," so that when cued to one level of a stimulus, some information is still processed, or leaks in, from the non-cued level. In this case, the cued stimulus level always contained a target, and the non-cued level was congruent, neutral, or incongruent with the target. Divergent thinking did not relate to stimulus congruency. In contrast, high creative achievement was related to quicker responses to the congruent than to the incongruent stimuli, suggesting that real-world creative achievement is indeed associated with leaky attention, whereas standard laboratory tests of divergent thinking are not. Together, these results elucidate distinct patterns of attention for different measures of creativity. Specifically, creative achievers may have leaky attention, as suggested by previous literature, whereas divergent thinkers have selective yet flexible attention.

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Section: Congruent Trial Incongruent Trialsupporting

confidence: 84%

mentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Creative Achievement and Leaky Attention Filtersmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flexible or leaky attention in creative people? Distinct patterns of attention for different types of creative thinking

Zabelina¹,

2015

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Background music stints creativity: Evidence from compound remote associate tasks

Threadgold

Marsh

McLatchie

et al. 2019

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Background music has been claimed to enhance people's creativity. In three experiments, we investigated the impact of background music on performance of Compound Remote Associate Tasks (CRATs), which are widely thought to tap creativity.Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics (Experiment 1), instrumental music without lyrics (Experiment 2), and music with familiar lyrics (Experiment 3) all significantly impaired CRAT performance in comparison with quiet background conditions. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that background music impaired CRAT performance regardless of whether the music induced a positive mood or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music. The findings challenge the view that background music enhances creativity and are discussed in terms of an auditory distraction account (interference-by-process) and the processing disfluency account.

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Bilingualism and Creativity: Towards a Situated Cognition Approach

Dijk

Kroesbergen

Blom

et al. 2018

Journal of Creative Behavior

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In this paper, the association between bilingualism and creativity is investigated. In the first part, the results of a literature review are reported. Previous research predominantly found that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on creativity tasks, which was explained by bilinguals’ enhanced executive functioning compared to monolinguals, and their experience with multiple cultures. Most previous research has examined the relationship between bilingualism and creativity within a psychological trait framework, which does not take into account that cognitive processes are regarded to be situated‐embodied, meaning that they are influenced by environmental factors, and by a person's perceptions of and actions towards these environmental factors. In the second part, we discuss an alternative approach, in which creativity can be defined as the emerging skill of an individual to discover affordances, to come up with creative ideas and products. Recommendations for future research are discussed as well.

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Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: Selective versus leaky sensory gating in divergent thinkers and creative achievers

Cited by 92 publications

References 51 publications

Flexible or leaky attention in creative people? Distinct patterns of attention for different types of creative thinking

Flexible or leaky attention in creative people? Distinct patterns of attention for different types of creative thinking

Background music stints creativity: Evidence from compound remote associate tasks

Bilingualism and Creativity: Towards a Situated Cognition Approach

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