Connectome-based evidence for creative thinking as an emergent property of ordinary cognitive operations
Kaixiang Zhuang,
Wenjing Yang,
Yu Li,
Jie Zhang,
Qunlin Chen,
Jie Meng,
Dongtao Wei,
Jiangzhou Sun,
Li He,
Yu Mao,
Xiaoqin Wang,
Deniz Vatansever,
Jiang Qiu
Affiliations
Kaixiang Zhuang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Wenjing Yang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Yu Li
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Jie Zhang
Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Qunlin Chen
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Jie Meng
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Dongtao Wei
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Jiangzhou Sun
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Li He
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Yu Mao
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Xiaoqin Wang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China
Deniz Vatansever
Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; Corresponding author at: School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China.
Jiang Qiu
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China; Southwest University Branch, Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University, Chongqing 400715, China; Corresponding author at: School of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China.
Creative thinking is a hallmark of human cognition, which enables us to generate novel and useful ideas. Nevertheless, its emergence within the macro-scale neurocognitive circuitry remains largely unknown. Using resting-state fMRI data from two large population samples (SWU: n = 931; HCP: n = 1001) and a novel “travelling pattern prediction analysis”, here we identified the modularized functional connectivity patterns linked to creative thinking ability, which concurrently explained individual variability across ordinary cognitive abilities such as episodic memory, working memory and relational processing. Further interrogation of this neural pattern with graph theoretical tools revealed both hub-like brain structures and globally-efficient information transfer paths that together may facilitate higher creative thinking ability through the convergence of distinct cognitive operations. Collectively, our results provide reliable evidence for the hypothesized emergence of creative thinking from core cognitive components through neural integration, and thus allude to a significant theoretical advancement in the study of creativity.
