EEG alpha power and creative ideation

Abstract

Neuroscientific studies revealed first insights into neural mechanisms underlying creativity, but existing findings are highly variegated and often inconsistent. Despite the disappointing picture on the neuroscience of creativity drawn in recent reviews, there appears to be robust evidence that EEG alpha power is particularly sensitive to various creativity-related demands involved in creative ideation. Alpha power varies as a function of creativity-related task demands and the originality of ideas, is positively related to an individuals' creativity level, and has been observed to increase as a result of creativity interventions. Alpha increases during creative ideation could reflect more internally oriented attention that is characterized by the absence of external bottom-up stimulation and, thus, a form of top-down activity. Moreover, they could indicate the involvement of specific memory processes such as the efficient (re-)combination of unrelated semantic information. We conclude that increased alpha power during creative ideation is among the most consistent findings in neuroscientific research on creativity and discuss possible future directions to better understand the manifold brain mechanisms involved in creativity.

Keywords: Alpha; Creativity; Divergent thinking; EEG; ERD; ERS; Internal attention; Synchronization; Top-down control.

Fig. 1

Task-related changes in EEG alpha power (upper alpha band, 10–12 Hz) during the generation of creative/original uses in the Alternative Uses (AU) task. Blue regions indicate increases in alpha power relative to rest. AF: anteriofrontal; F: frontal; FC: frontocentral; CT: centrotemporal; CP: centroparietal; PT: parietotemporal; PO: parietooccipital. Participants’ task was to generate alternative uses of conventional everyday objects such as “umbrella”, “pencil” or “vase of flowers”, etc. Based on the originality of ideas, the total sample was divided into a group of lower (n = 25) and into a group of higher originality (n = 22). Both groups showed comparatively strong increases in alpha power (relative to a pre-stimulus reference interval) over anteriofrontal sites. Higher original individuals exhibited a hemispheric asymmetry with respect to alpha activity, with stronger increases in alpha in the right than in the left hemisphere, while in lower original individuals no hemispheric differences emerged. Figure redrawn from Fink et al. (2009a), Human Brain Mapping, 30, 734–748.