When faced with the need to transform an object, idea, or situation, people have a tendency to favor adding new components rather than removing existing ones. This is called the "additive bias." Previous research, along with historical and anecdotal examples, shows that this bias may significantly reduce problem-solving abilities and…

Empathy emerges as a pivotal skill in creative writing, yet previous studies lack an understanding of empathy's multidimensionality and specific impact of its facets on the capacity to generate narrative stories. This cross-sectional study delved into the various cognitive and affective empathy facets --that is, perspective-taking, online…

The process of creative problem-solving (CPS) commonly demands that individuals consciously or unconsciously integrate creative ideas from a vast array of diverse information. Using a masked priming paradigm and the Chinese remote associates test (RAT), this study provides innovative behavioral evidence for the integration of multiple unconscious…

Creativity involves generating novel and valuable ideas. While the importance of creative thinking is widely acknowledged, its cognitive basis is poorly understood, particularly in older adults. This study aimed to develop and test an explanatory model of creative thinking to elucidate its underlying cognitive functions in an elderly sample. The…

Creativity is a fundamental human accomplishment from scientific advances to composing music. The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are important metacontrol hubs in flexibility and persistence brain states, respectively. Those hubs are related to divergent thinking, insight problem-solving, and…

S.A. Mednick (1962) proposed a theory of creativity suggesting that highly creative individuals can produce more word associations to a stimulus than less creative individuals. Numerous studies have supported this theory using the Remote Associates Test (RAT) as the measure of creativity. Additionally, some studies have suggested that…