Cognitive Neural Mechanisms By Which Motivation Affects Creative Processes

On the road of innovation,you must have the right people.The cultivation of innovative talents is the core competitiveness of national development.Motivation has been the mainstream research problem in psychology,and it is also one of the core factors,and is one of the core factors affecting creativity.Therefore,it is the core pursuit of creativity research to explore the cognitive neural mechanism of motivation’s influence on creativity and to seek an effective intervention path.In recent years,researchers have explored in depth the core mechanisms of motivation affecting creativity mainly from three fields:cognitive psychology,neural mechanisms and educational psychology.Although many researchers have a deeper understanding of the dimensions and hierarchies of motivation,they also realize that fragmentation in different fields limits the comparison and integration of motivational results and theories.Further research,especially in cognitive neuroscience and interdisciplinary fields,needs to be conducted within an integrated framework to systematically compare the patterns and mechanisms of motivation affecting creativity.This study integrated theoretical models of previous motivations and examined the behavioral manifestations and neural mechanisms of motivational sources,directions and intensities that influence the creative idea generation and creative idea evaluation under different motivational contextual hierarchies（global,domain and situational motivation）.The following scientific questions are sought to be addressed:（1）Does motivation affect the different cognitive stages（creative idea generation and creative idea evaluation）of creativity differently?（2）Do motivations affect different fields of creativity differently?（3）Do different sources,directions,and intensity motivations interact effect with each other in the creative cognitive process?（4）What are the neural mechanisms that motivate creative cognitive processing?Three studies（seven experiments）were conducted to examine the cognitive neural mechanisms by which motivation affects creative processes in terms of global,domain and situational motivation,respectively.Study 1（Experiment 1）built a predictive model of creativity via deep neural network in the global motivation hierarchy,and explained the mechanism through path analysis.The results showed that the depth neural network model with creativity production ability and creativity evaluation ability as dependent variables has higher predictive power than the traditional regression model.Based on the Williams creativity aptitude test,the score of need for cognition may partially mediate the effect of approach motivation on creativity,while avoidance motivation may have other effects.Study 2 examined the effects of the scientific domain（Experiment 2）and artistic domain motivation（Experiment 3）on scientific creativity and artistic creativity respectively in the domain motivation hierarchy.The results showed that compared to the promotion focus state,scientific creativity under the prevention focus state was more conducive to the originality in the generation phase,involving activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal and right superior temporal gyrus.In the evaluation phase,the results were reversed and for the rating originality score of the problem,only the intrinsic source group of scientific motivation was manifested in the blood oxygen activity of the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left supplementary motor area.For artistic creativity,in the generation phase,originality and flexibility were consistent with the scientific creativity findings,and the prevention focus state was more conducive to artistic creativity than the promotion focus state.In contrast,in the elaboration dimension,not only was the achievement of extrinsic sources of artistic motivation higher than intrinsic sources obtained,but the prevention focus state also showed less artistic creativity performance than the promotion focus state.The process of artistic creativity generation successfully activated the left supplementary motor area,the left frontal pole and the left middle temporal gyrus area,involved in the selection of artistic motivation goals.It was concluded that individuals with extrinsic sources of artistic motivation had significantly higher functional connectivity in the left superior temporal gyrus and right inferior frontal gyrus than individuals with intrinsic sources of artistic motivation.Study 3 examined the contextual hierarchy of motivation,first examining the effects of different intensities of approach（Experiment 4）and avoidance（Experiment 5）motivation on creative cognitive processes,and then adding the source of motivation to examine the effects of different sources and intensities of approach（Experiment 6）and avoidance（Experiment 7）motivation on creative cognitive processes.The results showed that low intensity of approach/avoidance motivation helped to enhance individual creative performance in the stage of creative idea generation.For approach motivation,the finding showed the activation at the bilateral frontal,and changed the functional connectivity between the left frontal lobe and the left superior temporal gyrus.However,avoidance motivation improved the fluency performance with the activation of bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus.Furthermore,frontal correlations with time may be a central mechanism for sustained neurocognitive processing in avoidancemotivation intensity regulation during creative thinking.In the stage of creative idea evaluation,low intensity approach motivation resulted in lower individual sensitivity,showing significant deactivation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.But there was no difference in creative idea evaluation by different intensities of avoidance motivation.In terms of the effects of different sources,intensities,and direction of motivation on the process in the stage of creative idea generation,for approach motivation,stimulating individuals with low approach motivation was more conducive to creative idea generation only in the context of intrinsic motivation.This may be due to the gain effect of low approach motivation with intrinsic motivation,reflected in the bilateral temporal parietal junction,right superior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus.For avoidance motivation,motivating individuals with low avoidance motivation was more conducive to creative idea generation only in the context of extrinsic motivation.In the stage of creative idea evaluation,for approach motivation only stimulating individuals with low approach motivation in an extrinsic motivational context was more conducive to the creative evaluation,and activation of the left supplementary motor area was significantly lower for low approach motivation than for the control group,indicating the complexity responsible for selecting the appropriate behavior and determining the task to be performed.For avoidance motivation,there were no significant differences in the results for either extrinsic or intrinsic sources.Furthermore,with regard to the effect of different sources,intensities and direction of motivation on the internalization of external motivation during creative activity,the low approach motivation group showed higher internalization scores in the intrinsic motivation source context compared to the control group.In the context of extrinsic motivation sources,the high avoidance group showed lower internalization scores compared to the control group.Therefore,from the behavioral-brain level,with the help of deep neural network models,task-state brain imaging analysis,and resting-state functional connectivity analysis,we verify and explore the dynamic processing mechanisms of motivationinfluenced creativity from multidimensional results,and provide comprehensive and systematic objective evidence to explain the specific action paths of motivationinfluenced creative processing mechanisms at different levels and predict creative behaviors.