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Culture-related differences in visual creativity were investigated, comparing Italian and Japanese participants in terms of divergent (figural completion task) and product-oriented thinking (figural combination task). Visual restructuring ability was measured as the ability to reinterpret ambiguous figures and was included as a covariate. Results showed that in divergent thinking, Italians only outperformed Japanese participants in elaboration and in product-oriented thinking in terms of originality of products. Visual restructuring ability was found to play a key role both in originality and practicality of products. Both groups scored the same in terms of fluency, originality, and flexibility of visual divergent thinking, as well as in term of practicality of creative products. These findings are consistent with the idea that Italians and Japanese have the same creative potential, although from the early stages of the design Japanese seem to show a greater tendency to take practicality constraints into account when creating in the visual domain.

Adaptive rewiring provides a basic principle of self-organizing connectivity in evolving neural network topology. By selectively adding connections to regions with intense signal flow and deleting underutilized connections, adaptive rewiring generates optimized brain-like, i.e. modular, small-world, and rich club connectivity structures. Besides topology, neural self-organization also follows spatial optimization principles, such as minimizing the neural wiring distance and topographic alignment of neural pathways. We simulated the interplay of these spatial principles and adaptive rewiring in evolving neural networks with weighted and directed connections. The neural traffic flow within the network is represented by the equivalent of diffusion dynamics for directed edges: consensus and advection. We observe a constructive synergy between adaptive and spatial rewiring, which contributes to network connectedness. In particular, wiring distance minimization facilitates adaptive rewiring in creating convergent-divergent units. These units support the flow of neural information and enable context-sensitive information processing in the sensory cortex and elsewhere. Convergent-divergent units consist of convergent hub nodes, which collect inputs from pools of nodes and project these signals via a densely interconnected set of intermediate nodes onto divergent hub nodes, which broadcast their output back to the network. Convergent-divergent units vary in the degree to which their intermediate nodes are isolated from the rest of the network. This degree, and hence the context-sensitivity of the network's processing style, is parametrically determined in the evolving network model by the relative prominence of spatial versus adaptive rewiring. Author summary: Context-sensitivity plays an important role in neural signal processing. A type of network structure supporting context-sensitive processing is known as a convergent-divergent unit. Convergent-divergent units can give rise to sensory neurons that respond to local features but are also modulated, in their activities, by long-range contextual information. These units can arise through self-organization in neural networks according to adaptive rewiring, a principle used to optimize network structure for information processing. Two spatial rewiring principles, distance minimization and topographic alignment, are also considered important in shaping network connectivity structure, but their role in the formation of context sensitivity is unknown. We asked whether these spatial rewiring principles can facilitate adaptive rewiring in the formation of convergent-divergent units. Using weighted digraphs, we found that the proportion of rewiring based on distance minimization improves context-sensitivity, as shown by the increased robustness of the convergent-divergent units, while the subtler effects of the alignment principle depend on the shape of the topographic map that network connections align with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threshold theory predicts a positive correlation between IQ and creativity scores up to an IQ level of 120 and no correlation above this threshold. Primary school children were tested at beginning (N = 98) and ending (N = 70) of the school year. Participants performed the standard progressive matrices (SPM) and the Test of Creative Thinking--Drawing Production (TCT-DP). Each child with IQ = 120 was grade-and-gender matched to a child with IQ < 120. Results in accordance with the threshold theory were found only for female children in the highest grade level (Grade 4). Longitudinal analysis implies that a subgroup of children goes down in IQ and creativity simultaneously, possibly due to motivational issues. Their correlated scores may be a source of evidence for the threshold theory. The relationship between intelligence and creativity is not straightforward and depends on a combination of factors including grade level and gender.

Background: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a substantial public health burden, but current treatments have limited effectiveness. The aim was to investigate the safety and potential antidepressant effects of the serotonergic psychedelic drug 5-MeO-DMT in a vaporized formulation (GH001) in adult patients with TRD. Methods: The Phase 1 part (n = 8) of the trial investigated two single dose levels of GH001 (12 mg, 18 mg) with a primary endpoint of safety, and the Phase 2 part (n = 8) investigated an individualized dosing regimen (IDR) with up to three increasing doses of GH001 (6 mg, 12 mg, and 18 mg) within a single day, with a primary endpoint of efficacy, as assessed by the proportion of patients in remission (MADRS = 10) on day 7. Results: Administration of GH001 via inhalation was well tolerated. The proportion of patients in remission (MADRS = 10) at day 7 was 2/4 (50%) and 1/4 (25%) in the 12 mg and 18 mg groups of Phase 1, respectively, and 7/8 (87.5%) in the IDR group of Phase 2, meeting its primary endpoint (p < 0.0001). All remissions were observed from day 1, with 6/10 remissions observed from 2 h. The mean MADRS change from baseline to day 7 was -21.0 (-65%) and - 12.5 (-40%) for the 12 and 18 mg groups, respectively, and - 24.4 (-76%) for the IDR. Conclusion: Administration of GH001 to a cohort of 16 patients with TRD was well tolerated and provided potent and ultra-rapid antidepressant effects. Individualized dosing with up to three doses of GH001 on a single day was superior to single dose administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We recently proposed the Creative Reasoning Test (CRT), a test for reasoning in ill-defined problem spaces. The test asks children who first performed the Standard Progressive Matrices test (SPM) to next generate an SPM-style test item themselves. The item is scored based on different aspects of its complexity. Here we introduce a method to provide separate sub scores for convergent and divergent production. A sample of 205 children from Grades 1 to 4 performed in both SPM and CRT, followed by a standard creativity test, the Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP). We considered developmental aspects of the CRT scores as well as how they relate to classical reasoning and creativity test scores. Whereas the convergent production sub score of the CRT correlated with the SPM, the divergent production sub score correlated with the TCT-DP and no correlation was observed between both sub scores of the CRT. We concluded that convergent and divergent abilities in creative production can be assessed independently, within the same knowledge domain as classical problem solving. (Contains 7 tables and 2 figures.)

Novice designers produced a sequence of sketches while inventing a logo for a novel brand of soft drink. The sketches were scored for the presence of specific objects, their local features and global composition. Self-assessment scores for each sketch and art critics' scores for the end products were collected. It was investigated whether the design evolves in an essentially random fashion or according to an overall heuristic. The results indicated a macrostructure in the evolution of the design, characterized by two stages. For the majority of participants, the first stage is marked by the introduction and modification of novel objects and their local and global aspects; the second stage is characterized by changes in their global composition. The minority that showed the better designs has a different strategy, in which most global changes were made in the beginning. Although participants did not consciously apply these strategies, their self-assessment scores reflect the stages of the process.

We compared problem‐solving in four sets of classical insight and analytic problems in the verbal and spatial domains, and examined the impact of externalization (verbalization or sketching). In a within‐participants factorial design, we presented 24 classical insight and analytic problems, half verbal and half spatial. Participants solved these problems either while thinking aloud, while sketching, or in a baseline condition where neither was allowed. Higher solving accuracy was found in the analytic problems than in the insight ones as well as in the verbal problems than in the spatial ones. The verbal problems were also found to be solved faster than were spatial ones; in particular, verbal‐insight problems were solved faster than spatial‐insight and verbal‐analytic ones. Therefore, spatial‐insight problems stand out as particularly hard among the ones typically found in the literature. Surprisingly, no effects of externalization were found on problem‐solving speed or accuracy. We discuss the implications of our results for the theses that insight problems involve special processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer-aided design (CAD) systems have advanced to become a critical tool in product design. Nevertheless, they still primarily rely on the traditional mouse and keyboard interface. This limits the naturalness and intuitiveness of the 3D modeling process. Recently, a multimodal human–computer interface (HCI) has been proposed as the next-generation interaction paradigm. Widening the use of a multimodal HCI provides new opportunities for realizing natural interactions in 3D modeling. In this study, we conducted a literature review of a multimodal HCI for CAD to summarize the state-of-the-art research and establish a solid foundation for future research. We explore and categorize the requirements for natural HCIs and discuss paradigms for their implementation in CAD. Following this, factors to evaluate the system performance and user experience of a natural HCI are summarized and analyzed. We conclude by discussing challenges and key research directions for a natural HCI in product design to inspire future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, participants have commonly been instructed to report their conscious content. This, it was claimed, risks confounding the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) with their preconditions, i.e., allocation of attention, and consequences, i.e., metacognitive reflection. Recently, the field has therefore been shifting towards no-report paradigms. No-report paradigms draw their validity from a direct comparison with no-report conditions. We analyze several examples of such comparisons and identify alternative interpretations of their results and/or methodological issues in all cases. These go beyond the previous criticism that just removing the report is insufficient, because it does not prevent metacognitive reflection. The conscious mind is fickle. Without having much to do, it will turn inward and switch, or timeshare, between the stimuli on display and daydreaming or mind-wandering. Thus, rather than the NCC, no-report paradigms might be addressing the neural correlates of conscious disengagement. This observation reaffirms the conclusion that no-report paradigms are no less problematic than report paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]