The Influence Of Working Memory Span And Central Executive Function On Undergraduates' Creativity

Creativity is defined as the ability that produces the thoughts (original ,valuable mental ) and the fitness (useful ,suits specific need ). In recent years,research on creativity has become hot in psychology research.The research indicated that creativity is the interactional result of cognitive ability ,personality,environment, and cultural factors. But there are not many researches on creativity from the cognition psychology angle. There are few researches on the relation between creativity and working memory. This study discusses creativity from the point of working memory , discussing the influence on creativity from working memory span and the central executive function separately. The experimental results obtained are consistent with previous results of similar studies.Experiment 1 , take two working memory span dimensions : verbal working memory span (VWMS) and spatial working memory span (SWMS) as the experimental variable effects of different experimental groups (high, low group) to study the situation of creativity. The result found that the correlation between working memory span and creativity is significant , but the correlation between SWMS and creativity is more closer and universal than that correlation between VWMS and creativity. On the creativity result , the high VWMS group influents creativity apparently more than the low VWMS group ,and the high SWMS group influents creativity apparently more than the low SWMS group, the variance analysis result is remarkable.In Experiment 2 , on the basis of experiment 1 further examine the distribution of 3 central executive functions to result on the creativity. The result found that the correlation between central executive function and creativity are significant , and the correlation between inhibition function and creativity is more closer and universal than that correlation between updating function and creativity, the correlation between switching function and creativity are not significant. On the creativity result , the high inhibition function group and the low inhibition function group were significant different ,and the high updating function group and the low updating function group were also significant different , , the high group influents creativity apparently more than the low group ,the variance analysis result is remarkable. The high and low switching function group is tried not to exist the significance difference.Generally,the working memory span and central executive function have significant influence on creativity. Between these , creativity resulted from central executive function weighs heaviest.In the 3 components of central executive function, inhibition function influents creativity apparently more than updating function and switching function.Through experiment 1 and experiment 2 of this study ,we reached the following conclusions:working memory span and central executive function influent creativity apparently. The distribution SWMS to creativity is more significant than VWMS; The inhibition function, updating function, switching function of central executive function have the different distribution to the creativity. The distribution of inhibition function is more significant than updating function to the creativity, switching function variance analysis result is not significant.