Fronto-Parietal Patterns of Delta and Beta EEG Oscillations as Correlates of the Conditions of Creativity Testing

Abstract

Recently, much attention has been paid to the mechanism of cooperation between the fronto-parietal system and the default system, since their “pre-tuning” at rest and the subsequent dynamics of functional interaction are associated with an individual variety of strategies for performing tasks while creativity testing. To study the EEG correlates of such strategies, we analyzed the regional specificity of ∆- and β-oscillations in the resting-state and compared them with the results of testing of creativity and intelligence in 37 university students (18 ± 1.1 years; 27 women and 10 men). The indicators of originality of responses when testing creativity were calculated using the databases we created earlier for the subtests “Circles”, “Incomplete figures”, “Unusual use of ordinary objects” and an expert assessment of the originality of sentences made up of words belonging to distant semantic categories. The verbal and figurative components of intelligence were assessed according to the Amthauer intelligence structure subtests. Using the cluster analysis of the listed indicators of creativity and intelligence, we identified two groups of study participants: one (GRKIQ) was characterized by a combination of higher values of intelligence and originality of answers in those tasks where it was required to reject stereotypical ideas while limiting the time for their search, and the other (GRK) – relatively lower intelligence, but high originality of solving the problem in terms of testing creativity with a variety of stimuli and without time limits. These two clusters differed in the regional organization of the power of the ∆- and β2-rhythms and in the correlation patterns of these rhythms: GRKIQ is represented by wide-spread high-frequency β-activity and its correlation with low-frequency biopotentials in the frontal cortex whereas GRK is characterized by cortical mosaic of the β2-activity with its diffusely distributed correlations with the ∆-rhythm by the exception of the anterior frontal areas. The detected effects can be considered as a “pre-tuning” to the strategy of “intelligent” search for an original answer under conditions of resistance to fixation on a stereotyped idea in the GRKIQ or a solution based on a spontaneous search for distant associations in the GRK.