The Knowledge Representation In Creative Problem Solving

Creativity is a cornerstone of what makes us human, yet the neural mechanisms underlying creative thinking are poorly understood. Our study sought to clarify further the functional anatomy of knowledge representation in creative problem solving. What kind of knowledge representation is conductive to creative thinking? The theory of the Prototype Heuristic point out that human usually solve problem with the information which is extract from knowledges and experience of previous problems succeeded solved. The prototypical knowledge which is obtained in everyday's probem solving, provided the key heuristic methods to solving the current problem. The key to successfully solving the problem is to activate the appropriate prototype, and get inspired information from the prototypical knowledge. The Prototype Heuristic Theory has a high ecological validity, and more in line with real-life characteristics of creative thinking (Qiu Jiang,2007).The Prototype Heuristic Theory reveals, to a certain extent, the relationship between existed knowledge representation and creative thinking. We attempted to examine the changes of creative thinking in problem solving between the levels of knowledge representation according to The theory of Prototype Heuristic. In experiment 1, we investigated the cognitive mechanism of the prototype elicitation effect in scientific creative problem solving. Forty-five problem situations were selected from the Scientific Inventional Experimental Problems of Library, and each prototypical knowledge was edited with two identities(the identity pointing to object of the prototypical knowledge and the identity pointing to the principle of prototypical knowledge). The relationship between the different levels of knowledge representation and creative problem solving was studied by adopted "five to five" two-stage model for learning-testing. Results showed that the activation of prototypal matters was effected by the different learning styles and leaning prototypical knowledge with the identity pointing to the principle could facilitate participants to resolve the scientific inventional problem. In experiment 2, the same experimental paradigm was adoped to investigated the neural mechanism of the prototype identity elicitation effect in scientific problem solving using fMRI methodology.The main conclusions of the present study were as follows:1) Identities guided the knowledge representation effectively. Prototypical knowledge with identities pointing to the principle or object, was more easily to be activated in problem-solving process. The principle representation was more conducive to the success of creative problem solving, and in the condition of no identities more efforts were needed to complete the problem-solving.2) Knowledge representation and creative problem solving are related to the involvement of multiple brain regions, no identity conditions with a broader area in brain activation than the identities conditions. compared to the condition of leaning prototypical knowledge with the identity pointing to principle, the condition of leaning prototypical knowledge with the identity pointing to object activated some brain regions including the left Lingual Gyrus during successful problem-solving.