Creative Thinkers: Want Control of Your Brain? Be Interested in What You're Doing

Why am I not surprised at this?  But new research suggests that creative people do not excel in cognitive control.

I believe that's thinking. Well, as the scientists put it, the mind’s ability to override impulses and make decisions based on goals, rather than habits or reactions.

According to newswise.com, University of Arkansas researcher, Darya Zabelina, assistant professor of psychology, has found that people who have creative achievements do not engage in any more or less cognitive control than less creative people.
Zabelina and co-author Giorgio Ganis of Plymouth University set out to compare the cognitive processes of people who have achieved creative success in their lives with those of people who scored well on laboratory tests of creativity. 
Laboratory tests had previously relied on laboratory tests, rather than real-life achievements, to measure creativity.
In one study, a "divergent thinking test," 15 participants were asked to write a list of problems that might arise from being able to walk on air or fly without being in an airplane.
After taking this test, participants then completed a task designed to measure cognitive control. They were shown small letters arranged to form larger letters, and asked to indicate when a target letter appeared — either as an arrangement of smaller letters, which happened frequently — or as smaller letters arranged to make a different letter, which happened more rarely. 
Researchers then looked at the response times of the participants to the frequent targets compared to their response to the rare targets. They found that participants who scored higher on the divergent thinking test also exhibited better cognitive control, as measured by their response times and EEG data.
In a second test, researchers found that participants who scored well on the divergent thinking test once again exhibited greater cognitive control. On the other hand, participants with higher real-world creative achievements did not necessarily score well on the divergent thinking tests, nor did they exhibit greater cognitive control. These findings suggest that laboratory tests of creativity and real-life creative achievement are associated with different cognitive processes.
“The creative participants weren’t bad at cognitive control,” Zabelina explains. “Maybe they’re just better at it when the task is interesting or they’re involved with the task.”
They didn't have to do research on this.  I could have told them.  Completing something creative in real life can never be measured the same as doing it in a laboratory.  Duh.


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