The Effect Of Alcohol On Creativity Problem Solving And Its Brain Mechanism

Creativity refers to generate new ideas or form novel associations among existing concepts. Speaking of how to create new ideas, some scholars put forward the theory of prototype heuristics: the automatic activation of a prototype in mind which is useful to the problem is an effective way to promote insight. Different states of consciousness, Such as sleep, dreams, defocused attention, all have an effect on creative thinking. Studies on the influence of alcohol on creative thinking have been mixed, and so far there is no research exploring the brain mechanism. Based on the theory of prototype heuristics, Problems with high ecological validity were used as experimental material. This study explores how alcohol affects the prototype inspired thinking process and the effect of brain mechanism.First, a behavioral experiment was carried out to study the influence of alcohol on scientific invention problem solving. Specifically: the study use ’prototype learning-creative problem testing’ paradigm and20scientific invention problems were selected as experiment material. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups (alcohol group and the placebo group, control group), and the expectancy of whether alcohol can improve creativity were also collected. The activation rate and reaction time to solve the problem were used as the dependent variable. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to investigate whether alcohol and expectations can effect scientific invention problem solving. The results did not show any main effect or interaction effect. The blood alcohol concentration test and the subjective test show that the experimental manipulation is reliable. So we discussed with the result, analyzed the cause and revised study plan of experiment2.Next, on the basis of the experimental one, Experiment2used fMRI to examine the brain mechanisms of alcohol on creative thinking process. Specifically:36scientific invention problems were selected as the experimental task and29routine problems as a baseline. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups (alcohol group, control group), participants were asked to learn the65(36scientific problems and29normal problems) prototype knowledge on the first day, the next day in the MRI scanner they were asked to solve the65randomly presented problems. Faced with a problem, the automatically activation of a counterpart prototype knowledge is the process of prototype inspired thinking process. By comparing the differences of the brain mechanisms between alcohol group and control group, the influence of alcohol on prototype inspired thinking process can be revealed. The experimental results show that interactions appeared on the level of activation in the brain, alcohol group were found with greater activation in superior frontal cortex, middle frontal cortex and inferior parietal lobule when solving scientific problems. These brain areas are responsible for the process of the control to high-level cognitive activity, the break of the mindset and the forming of novel associations. Behavior analysis also showed that alcohol group solves more scientific problems than the control group.Combining with the experiments we conclude that, first, moderate drinking can improve the ability of scientific problem solving; second, the enhanced ability in scientific problem solving is associated with enhanced activity in the superior frontal cortex, middle frontal cortex and inferior parietal lobule. This study for the first time found that alcohol promotes problem solving through prototype inspired and explores the brain mechanism of this role. These findings are of great significance to understand the essence of creative thinking, as well as to cultivate and stimulate creativity behavior.