A Research On The Influence Of Prototype Representation On Elicitation Effect In Creative Problem Solving

Creativity can be effected by many factors, such as cognitive factor, biological factor, context factor, character factor, motive factor and knowledge factor, on which the views are much divided. The heuristic theory of prototypal matters argues that prototype elicitation is the main way to solve insight problems. Prototype is the existed knowledge that have heuristic effect on creative problems. The heuristic theory of prototypal matters has revealed the relationship between the creative thinking and knowledge to a certain degree. This study, based on the heuristic theory of prototypal matters, selected scientific inventions-creations problems as the material to explore the cognitive and neural mechanisms of the influence of prototype representation on elicitation effect in creative problem solving.In experiment1, we selected thirty-two problems from the Library of Scientific Inventions-creations Problems as the material and adopted the"8vs8"learning and testing experimental paradigm to explore the cognitive mechanism of the influence of prototype representation on elicitation effect in creative problem solving through manipulating the two conditions of prototype learning (with marks vs. without marks and with illustrations vs. without illustrations). In experiment2, we selected forty problems from the Library of Scientific Inventions-creations Problems as the material and adopted the"20vs20"learning and testing experimental paradigm to explore the neural mechanism of the influence of prototype representation on elicitation effect in creative problem solving through manipulating the three levels(baseline level, mark level and illustration level).The result in experiment1showed that:1) the activation rate of prototypal events was effected evidently by the presence of marks on the level without illustrations, and it was higher with the presence of marks, the activation rate of prototypal events was not effected evidently by the presence of marks on the level with illustrations; the activation rate of prototypal events was effected evidently by the presence of illustrations, and it was higher with the presence of illustrations.2) the accuracy of problem solving was effected evidently by the presence of marks, and it was higher with the presence of marks; the accuracy of problem solving was effected evidently by the presence of illustrations, and it was higher with the presence of illustrations.3) the interaction effects of marks and illustrations were significant on the activation rate of prototypal events and the accuracy of problem solving. This result showed that the thinking process of prototype elicitation was flexible to a certain degree. The result in experiment2showed that:Both the mark level and the illustration level activated some brain regions more than the baseline level. In the problems solved correctly, the mark level activated left Precuneus more than the baseline level. And the illustration level activated right Middle Occipital Gyrus, right Precentral Gyrus and left Middle Frontal Gyrus more than the baseline level.