Creative thinking is an extraordinary capacity of the human mind that is advancing culture, science, economy and alike. Despite a long history of research, there are still important questions that remain open: What are the facets of creative thinking? How can it be assessed? Which aspects of personality are linked to creativity? What are the underlying neuronal mechanisms? And how can creative thinking be improved?

Creative thinking is an extraordinary capacity of the human mind that is advancing culture, science, economy and alike. The aim of this study is to further explore different facets of creative thinking, the link(s) to personality traits, and also to explore novel ways of assessing creativity. In a current experiment, a novel online assessment of divergent creative thinking is explored in which participants are required to draw pareidolias in visual images. The performance in this task is then related to different dimensions of personality (openness to experiences, fantasy, mental imagery ability, proneness to the paranormal etc.).  

In a planned study, the unconventional way of improving creative thinking by means of binaural beat stimulation and its effect on neuronal mechanisms will be explored in an EEG study. In binaural beat stimulation, two tones with a different frequency are presented to the left and right ear. The hypothesis is that certain brain activity will be tuned towards the frequency difference of the two tones, which in turn can boost creative thinking (e.g., insight, divergent thinking).

Collaborateurs

Nils Sommer
Nils Sommer Research assistant
Noelle Koenig
Noelle Koenig BSc in Psychology
Dr Aleksandra Eberhard-Moscicka
Dr Aleksandra Eberhard-Moscicka Department of Neurology and BioMedical Research, University Hospital Bern
René Müri
René Müri Department of Neurology and BioMedical Research, University Hospital Bern