Noradrenergic Modulation of Creativity: Evidence from Pupillometry

Abstract

Creative people regulate their own attentional flexibility and focus in response to creative task demands in a way that favors the emergence of original and effective solutions. So far, not much is known about the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie such abilities. Here, the function of the locus coeruleus noradrenaline (LC-NA) system in creativity was explored using pupillometry. Two studies experimentally tested whether tonic pupil dilation (as a proxy for measuring tonic LC-NA activity) and phasic pupil dilation (as a proxy for measuring phasic LC-NA activity) predicted performance on divergent and convergent thinking using both psychometric (study 1) and real-world creativity tasks (study 2). During divergent thinking, it was consistently found that tonic pupil dilation predicted the generation of original ideas in both creativity tasks, and phasic pupil dilation predicted the generation of effective ideas only in the real-world creativity task. However, during convergent thinking, tonic and phasic pupil dilation did not predict creative task performance in both creativity tasks. Therefore, this study was the first to provide experimental evidence that suggests that tonic and phasic LC-NA activity differentially predict the generation of original and effective ideas during creative tasks that require divergent thinking.

Notes

¹ Note that there is some debate about the necessity of divergent and convergent thinking during different steps in the creative process. See Mumford, Medeiros, and Partlow (2012) for a review.

² Note that, although the precise mechanisms underlying the association between pupil size and LC-NA activity are currently unknown, it is in many studies assumed to be a reliable indicator of activity in the projections of the LC-NA into the cortex (Reimer et al., 2016); and subsequently its role in the regulation of flexible and focused attention (Aston-Jones & Waterhouse, 2016). In this study, the same assumptions hold.

³ The data for study 1 were collected as part of a larger study. Therefore, the procedure and sample are identical to studies that used other eye-tracking data than pupil dilation and constriction data. See, for example, de Rooij and Vromans (2018).

⁴ In study 2, the second part of the creative task is referred to as one that specifically involves convergent thinking. This is done to achieve consistency in the terminology used for describing study 1. However, this task requires both convergent thinking and idea elaboration. Idea elaboration may, therefore, also be seen as a suitable label for the second part of the creative task used in study 2.