Brain Activities in Creative Thinking Tasks

Brain Activities in Creative Thinking Tasks The project rises in a cooperation between the Lulea Technology University, the Polyechnic of Turin and the University of Turin. The aim is to investigate the role of the creative cognitive processes that comes into play during the product development phase in industrial design. This can be done in a multidisciplinar environment that involves Management Engineering, Technic Design and Neuroscience. More precisely, the most important thing is to recognize neurocognitive and physiological patterns that can be detected through devices such as Electroencephlogram (EEG) and Eye Tracker. These devices allow to have a closer and more detailed view on what happens in the brains when we are requested to "be creative", recording our subconscious physiological responses. Particular interest is into finding possible differences of activation between two distinct cognitive processes involved in creative ideation, namely Convergent and Divergent thinking. This is done by observing people performing a revised version of the Alternative Uses test, designed by J.P. Guilford in 1967. This test requires finding alternative/uncommon uses for everyday objects. So far, this field has been weakly investigated, and strong evidences are still lacking. Moreover, there is not a clear definition of the construct of creativity, nor a standardized procedure for its investigation from a neurophysiological point of view. With this work, the goal is to contribute in framing both these issues: defining specifical creative processes and testing an analysis pipeline that can be replicated by further studies. Thus, it can bring benefits on two sides: it could extend the knowledge about creativity and give a precise replicable methodology for its investigation. In future, the results (if any) could bring to the possibility of using this knowledge in order to facilitate those specific brain activities that happen during creative ideation, for example through environmental manipulation or direct brain stimulation. Having a clear view on creativity can help in exploiting it in an industry level in order to ameliorate the efficiency and effectiveness of ideas, taking into account a multidisciplinarity that in recent times is always more and more required.