Creative Thinking in an Emotional Context: Specific Relevance of Executive Control of Emotion-Laden Representations in the Inventiveness in Generating Alternative Appraisals of Negative Events

Although divergent thinking ability in different domains may largely rely on the same basic executive functions, domain-specific functions may also be important, in particular when it comes to more real-life creativity demands. This study investigated if functional executive control of emotion-laden representations may be specifically relevant in cognitive reappraisal, which implies being creative in an affective context. In a sample of 88 healthy individuals, the relation between the participants’ inventiveness in generating positive reappraisals of adverse events (Reappraisal Inventiveness Test) and in generating novel ideas without emotional component (conventional divergent thinking test) to their executive functioning in tasks without (Mittenecker Pointing Test) and with emotional contribution (humor processing task) was studied. In line with hybrid models of creative thinking, poorer basic inhibition skills were found to be associated with poorer fluency performance in both divergent thinking tasks. Relations applied more specifically to reappraisal inventiveness when it came to executive processes with a more prominent emotional component. Creative performance in both tasks may have been hampered by time limits. The results support the notion that, in addition to basic executive functioning, more specific cognitive control functions are implicated in more real-life creative performance, according to related domain-specific demands.     

The role of prior exposure in the capture of attention by items in working memory

The Biased Competition Model (BCM) suggests both top-down and bottom-up biases operate on selective attention (e.g., Desimone & Duncan, 1995). It has been suggested that top-down control signals may arise from working memory. In support, Downing (2000) found faster responses to probes presented in the location of stimuli held vs. not held in working memory. Soto, Heinke, Humphreys, and Blanco (2005) showed the involuntary nature of this effect and that shared features between stimuli were sufficient to attract attention. Here we show that stimuli held in working memory had an influence on the deployment of attentional resources even when: (1) It was detrimental to the task, (2) there was equal prior exposure, and (3) there was no bottom-up priming. These results provide further support for involuntary top-down guidance of attention from working memory and the basic tenets of the BCM, but further discredit the notion that bottom-up priming is necessary for the effect to occur.     

Beyond the heritability of life satisfaction – The roles of personality and twin-specific influences

In a behavior genetic design, we investigated individual differences in life satisfaction and its relation to personality with respect to both internal and external influences. We questioned the absence of shared environment and examined the specific contribution of additive and non-additive genetic influences. We also tested for twin-specific environmental influences in a total sample of 1308 dyads including identical and fraternal twins, siblings, mother–child and grandparent–child pairs. The results showed substantial shared environmental influences on life satisfaction that varied between twins and non-twins, supporting twin-specific environmental influences. Additive and non-additive genetic influences on life satisfaction were completely shared with personality. The remaining variance could be explained by unique non-shared environmental influences for life satisfaction independent of personality.     

Eye movements during scene inspection: A test of the saliency map hypothesis

Both attentional difficulties and rapid processing deficits have recently been linked with dyslexia. We report two studies comparing the performance of dyslexic and control teenagers on attentional tasks. The two studies were based on two different conceptions of attention. Study 1 employed a design that allowed three key components of attention--focusing, switching, and sustaining--to be investigated separately. One hypothesis under investigation was that rapid processing problems--in particular impaired ability to switch attention rapidly--might be associated with dyslexia. However, although dyslexic participants were significantly less accurate than their controls in a condition where they had to switch attention between two target types, the nature of the deficit suggested that the problem was not in switching attention per se. Thus, in Study 2, we explored an alternative interpretation of the Study 1 results in terms of the classic capacity-limited models of "central" attention. We contrasted two hypotheses: (1) that dyslexic teenagers have reduced cognitive resources versus (2) that they suffer from a general impairment in the ability to automatise basic skills. To investigate the automaticity of the shape recognition component of the task a similar attention paradigm to that used in Study 1 was employed, but using degraded, as well as intact, stimuli. It was found that stimulus degradation led to relatively less impairment for dyslexic than for matched control groups. The results support the hypothesis that dyslexic people suffer from a general impairment in the ability to automatise skills--in this case the skill of automatic shape recognition.     

The Generality Constraint and Categorial Restrictions

We should not admit categorial restrictions on the significance of syntactically well formed strings. Syntactically well formed but semantically absurd strings, such as 'Life's but a walking shadow' and 'Caesar is a prime number', can express thoughts; and competent thinkers both are able to grasp these and ought to be able to. Gareth Evans' generality constraint, though Evans himself restricted it, should be viewed as a fully general constraint on concept possession and propositional thought. For (a) even well formed but semantically cross-categorial strings often do possess substantive inferential roles; (b) hearers exploit these inferential roles in interpreting such strings metaphorically; (c) there is no good reason to deny truth-conditions to strings with inferential roles.     

Gender Role Self-Concept and Gender-Typed Communication Behavior in Mixed-Sex and Same-Sex Dyads

The focus of this study was the relation between both gender role self-concept and gender role attitudes with gender-related behavior of interacting partners. We observed gender-typed communication behaviors of mixed-sex and same-sex dyads and measured gender role self-concept and gender role attitudes. Thirty mixed-sex dyads, 19 women dyads, and 15 men dyads participated in a behavior observation study. The results revealed that the activation of gender role self-concept varies depending on the gender of the interacting people. Furthermore, we found that context and gender of the interacting persons moderated the relation between self-concept and behavior. Participants' gender role attitudes did not correlate with their own behaviors but did with their partners' behaviors.     

Creative ways to well-being: Reappraisal inventiveness in the context of anger-evoking situations

Neuroscientific studies in the field of creativity mainly focused on tasks drawing on basic verbal divergent thinking demands. This study took a step further by investigating brain mechanisms in response to other types of creative behavior, involving more “real-life” creativity demands in the context of emotion regulation and well-being. Specifically, functional patterns of EEG alpha activity were investigated while participants were required to generate as many and as different ways as possible to reappraise presented anger-eliciting situations in a manner that reduces their anger. Cognitive reappraisal involves some of the same cognitive processes as in conventional verbal creativity tasks, inasmuch as it requires an individual to inhibit or disengage from an emotional event, to shift attention between different perspectives, and to flexibly adopt new solutions. To examine whether alpha oscillations during cognitive reappraisal are different from those during conventional creative ideation, the EEG was also assessed during performance of the Alternative Uses task, requiring individuals to generate as many and as original uses of an object as possible. While cognitive reappraisal was associated with a similar pattern of alpha power as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation, the former yielded significantly stronger alpha power increases at prefrontal sites, along with lower alpha increases at more posterior cortical sites, indicating higher cognitive control and less spontaneous imaginative thought processes in the generation of effective strategies to regulate an ongoing negative emotional state.