EEG alpha activity during imagining creative moves in soccer decision-making situations

Abstract

This study investigated task-related changes of EEG alpha power while participants were imagining creative moves in soccer decision-making situations. After presenting brief video clips of a soccer scene, participants had to imagine themselves as the acting player and to think either of a creative/original or an obvious/conventional move (control condition) that might lead to a goal. Performance of the soccer task generally elicited comparatively strong alpha power decreases at parietal and occipital sites, indicating high visuospatial processing demands. This power decrease was less pronounced in the creative vs. control condition, reflecting a more internally oriented state of information processing characterized by more imaginative mental simulation rather than stimulus-driven bottom-up processing. In addition, more creative task performance in the soccer task was associated with stronger alpha desynchronization at left cortical sites, most prominently over motor related areas. This finding suggests that individuals who generated more creative moves were more intensively engaged in processes related to movement imagery. Unlike the domain-specific creativity measure, individual's trait creative potential, as assessed by a psychometric creativity test, was globally positively associated with alpha power at all cortical sites. In investigating creative processes implicated in complex creative behavior involving more ecologically valid demands, this study showed that thinking creatively in soccer decision-making situations recruits specific brain networks supporting processes related to visuospatial attention and movement imagery, while the relative increase in alpha power in more creative conditions and in individuals with higher creative potential might reflect a pattern relevant across different creativity domains.

Brain and soccer: Functional patterns of brain activity during the generation of creative moves in real soccer decision‐making situations

“…Higher creative potential was associated with stronger activation differences between both conditions in the left middle temporal gyrus and in the left postcentral gyrus, that is the higher the creative potential of the participants the higher is the activation of the control relative to the creative condition (or the lower the activation of the creative condition relative to control, respectively). This finding adds further evidence to the common view of domain‐specificity of creativity and nicely complements the result pattern found in the related EEG study by Fink et al (). This study revealed that the creative potential of the individuals was globally positively associated with alpha power at all cortical sites, while the soccer‐specific creativity score was associated with rather specific effects at motor related sites.…”

“…A similar finding has been observed during musical improvisation in jazz pianists (Limb & Braun, ). Likewise, this study suggested that with increasing creative soccer task performance the processing of sensorimotor and somatosensory information becomes increasingly important—quite similar to the result pattern obtained in the related EEG study (Fink et al, ), which revealed that more creative soccer task was associated with activation at motor related cortical sites.…”

“…In the domain of soccer, for instance, Memmert et al () found that better task performance was associated with more original, flexible, and adequate solutions in promotion‐oriented (focus on accomplishments and aspirations) relative to prevention‐framed (focus on safety and responsibility) soccer athletes. More recently, Fink et al () employed the soccer decision‐making task in a sample of hobby to amateur soccer players while task‐related power changes in the EEG alpha band were assessed. This study revealed that the soccer task generally elicited comparatively strong alpha power decreases (relative to a pre‐stimulus baseline) at parietal and occipital sites, indicating high visuospatial processing demands during the processing of the complex soccer scenarios.…”

“…The specific aim of this study was to further assess neurocognitive mechanisms associated with creative solutions in realistic soccer decision‐making situations, and to compare these findings with existing functional imaging findings on creativity (Boccia, Piccardi, Palermo, Nori, & Palmiero, ; Gonen‐Yaacovi et al, ). Along with the related EEG study (Fink et al, ), this functional imaging study sought to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the manifold neurocognitive mechanisms involved in the generation of creative solutions in this domain. The employed soccer decision‐making task requires participants to focus their attention on specific conditions of the soccer scenario (positions of teammates and opponents), to anticipate the behavior of other players (players emerging unexpectedly, etc.…”

“…On the basis of these findings, we expect that functionally more specialized networks that support movement related imagery may likewise play a crucial role in generating creative solutions in soccer decision‐making situations (cf. Fink et al, ).…”