Abstract:Previous studies found that performance on the remote associates test (RAT) improves after a period of incubation and that increased alpha brain waves over the right posterior brain predict the emergence of RAT insight solutions. We report an experiment that tested whether increased alpha brain waves during incubation improve RAT performance. Participants received two blocks of RAT items (RAT1 and RAT2), with the second block consisting of items that were not solved during the first block. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups, which were matched for their number of RAT1 solutions. Participants in an alpha-up neurofeedback group aimed to increase their alpha brain waves over the right posterior brain in between the two blocks, whereas participants in an alpha-down neurofeedback group aimed to decrease these same brain waves. A third group of participants did not perform neurofeedback and proceeded immediately from the first to the second block of RAT items. We found evidence for more RAT2 solutions in participants who interrupted their RAT performance with neurofeedback, especially in ones who showed high alpha brain waves during neurofeedback. These results are consistent with the notion that an alert but relaxed mental state, indexed by alpha brain waves, may aid the read out of an implicitly activated memory network of weak associates.

The generation of highly original ideas in divergent thinking tasks has been found to be associated with task-related changes in the alpha band. The goal of the current study was to determine if exposure to brainwave entrainment (BWE) at the alpha centre frequency before and during performance of a divergent thinking task would result in increases in task-related, event-related synchrony and the production of more highly original ideas. We found that alpha entrainment interfered with the oscillatory dynamics associated with divergent thinking such that only the control group showed greater right hemispheric engagement. Furthermore, the control group showed greater self-rated originality. These findings provide confirmation of the importance of hemispheric asymmetry in alpha power to successful divergent thinking and indicate that refinements are required in order for BWE to be used effectively to improve divergent thinking performance.

The goal of the present research was to increase understanding of the neural oscillatory signature of originality in verbal divergent thinking by determining if event-related synchronization (ERS) in frequency bands other than alpha predicts originality. EEG was recorded while participants performed the insight task in which they were presented with a brief scenario and asked to generate as many explanations as possible during a three minute period. After the EEG session, participants were asked to rate the originality of each idea they produced. Analyses revealed that high originality was associated with decreases in the high beta ERS and with hemispheric asymmetry in the low beta band, immediately prior to idea generation. These results suggest the neural signature of originality extends beyond hemispheric asymmetries in the alpha band and provide important insights into the neural underpinnings of verbal creativity.

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