Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving under Stress

High levels of acute and chronic stress are known to impair problem-solving and creativity on a broad range of tasks. Despite this evidence, we know little about protective factors for mitigating the deleterious effects of stress on problem-solving. Building on previous research showing that self-affirmation can buffer stress, we tested whether an experimental manipulation of self-affirmation improves problem-solving performance in chronically stressed participants. Eighty undergraduates indicated their perceived chronic stress over the previous month and were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation or control condition. They then completed 30 difficult remote associate problem-solving items under time pressure in front of an evaluator. Results showed that self-affirmation improved problem-solving performance in underperforming chronically stressed individuals. This research suggests a novel means for boosting problem-solving under stress and may have important implications for understanding how self-affirmation boosts academic achievement in school settings. © 2013 Creswell et al

Connect 4: a novel paradigm to elicit positive and negative insight and search problem solving.

This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permissionResearchers have typically defined insight as a sudden new idea or understanding accompanied by an emotional feeling of Aha. Recently, examples of negative insight in everyday creative problem solving have been identified. These are seen as sudden and sickening moments of realisation experienced as an Uh-oh rather than Aha. However, such experiences have yet to be explored from an experimental perspective. One barrier to doing so is that methods to elicit insight in the lab. are constrained to positive insight. This study therefore aimed to develop a novel methodology that elicits both positive and negative insight solving, and additionally provides the contrasting experiences of analytic search solving in the same controlled conditions. The game of Connect 4 was identified as having the potential to produce these experiences, with each move representing a solving episode (where best to place the counter). Eighty participants played six games of Connect 4 against a computer and reported each move as being a product of positive search, positive insight, negative search or negative insight. Phenomenological ratings were then collected to provide validation of the experiences elicited. The results demonstrated that playing Connect 4 saw reporting of insight and search experiences that were both positive and negative, with the majority of participants using all four solving types. Phenomenological ratings suggest that these reported experiences were comparable to those elicited by existing laboratory methods focused on positive insight. This establishes the potential for Connect 4 to be used in future problem solving research as a reliable elicitation tool of insight and search experiences for both positive and negative solving. Furthermore, Connect 4 may be seen to offer more true to life solving experiences than other paradigms where a series of problems are solved working towards an overall superordinate goal rather than the presentation of stand-alone and un-related problems. Future work will need to look to develop versions of Connect 4 with greater control in order to fully utilise this methodology for creative problem solving research in experimental psychology and neuroscience contexts

Neuropsychiatry of creativity.

In this paper, we review in brief the development of ideas that over time have tried to explain why some individuals are more creative than others and what may be the neurobiological links underlying artistic creativity. We note associations with another unique human idea, that of genius. In particular, we discuss frontotemporal dementia and bipolar, cyclothymic mood disorder as clinical conditions that are helping to unravel the underlying neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of human creativity. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Epilepsy, Art, and Creativity"

Асинхронный электропривод винтового компрессора

Объектом исследования является винтовой компрессор для подачи сжатого воздуха в пневмооборудовании. В данной работе произведён расчет по выбору электропривода и преобразователя частоты для управления винтовым компрессором. Обоснован выбор способа управления, рассчитаны механические и электромеханические характеристики. Методом имитационного моделирования на ЭВМ исследованы переходные процессы, сделаны выводы и обобщения по результатам моделирования и расчета.The object of the study is a screw compressor for supplying compressed air in pneumatic equipment. In this paper, the choice of the electric drive and the frequency converter for controlling the screw compressor was calculated. The choice of the control method is substantiated, mechanical and electromechanical characteristics are calculated. The method of simulation on a computer studied transient processes, conclusions and generalizations based on the results of modeling and calculation

On sense and reference: examining the functional neuroanatomy of referential processing

In an event-related fMRI study, we examined the cortical networks involved in establishing. reference during language comprehension. We compared BOLD responses to sentences containing referentially ambiguous pronouns (e.g., "Ronald told Frank that he..."), referentially failing pronouns (e.g., "Rose told Emily that he...") or coherent pronouns. Referential ambiguity selectively recruited media[ prefrontal regions, suggesting that readers engaged in problemsolving to select a unique referent from the discourse model. Referential failure elicited activation increases in brain regions associated with mo rp ho -syntactic processing, and, for those readers who took failing pronouns to refer to unmentioned entities, additional regions associated with elaborative inferencing were observed. The networks activated by these two referential problems did not overlap with the network activated by a standard semantic anomaly. Instead, we observed a double dissociation, in that the systems activated by semantic anomaly are deactivated by referential ambiguity, and vice versa. This inverse coupling may reflect the dynamic recruitment of semantic and episodic processing to resolve semantically or referentially problematic situations. More generally, our findings suggest that neurocognitive accounts of language comprehension need to address not just how we parse a sentence and combine individual word meanings, but also how we determine who's who and what's what during language COmprehension. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Background Music Stints Creativity: Evidence from Compound Remote Associate Tasks

Background music has been claimed to enhance people’s creativity (Ritter & Ferguson, 2017). In three experiments we investigated the impact of background music on performance of Compound Remote Associate Tasks (CRATs), which are widely thought to tap creativity. Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics (Experiment 1), instrumental music without lyrics (Experiment 2), and music with familiar lyrics (Experiment 3) all significantly impaired CRAT performance in comparison to quiet background conditions. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that background music impaired CRAT performance regardless of whether the music induced a positive mood or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music. The findings challenge the view that background music enhances creativity, and are discussed in terms of an auditory distraction account (interference-by-process; Jones & Tremblay, 2000) and the processing disfluency account (Mehta et al., 2012)

Deconstructing Insight: EEG Correlates of Insightful Problem Solving

Background: Cognitive insight phenomenon lies at the core of numerous discoveries. Behavioral research indicates four salient features of insightful problem solving: (i) mental impasse, followed by (ii) restructuring of the problem representation, which leads to (iii) a deeper understanding of the problem, and finally culminates in (iv) an “Aha!” feeling of suddenness and obviousness of the solution. However, until now no efforts have been made to investigate the neural mechanisms of these constituent features of insight in a unified framework. Methodology/Principal Findings: In an electroencephalographic study using verbal remote associate problems, we identified neural correlates of these four features of insightful problem solving. Hints were provided for unsolved problems or after mental impasse. Subjective ratings of the restructuring process and the feeling of suddenness were obtained on trial-by-trial basis. A negative correlation was found between these two ratings indicating that sudden insightful solutions, where restructuring is a key feature, involve automatic, subconscious recombination of information. Electroencephalogram signals were analyzed in the space×time×frequency domain with a nonparametric cluster randomization test. First, we found strong gamma band responses at parieto-occipital regions which we interpreted as (i) an adjustment of selective attention (leading to a mental impasse or to a correct solution depending on the gamma band power level) and (ii) encoding and retrieval processes for the emergence of spontaneous new solutions. Secondly, we observed an increased upper alpha band response in right temporal regions (suggesting active suppression of weakly activated solution relevant information) for initially unsuccessful trials that after hint presentation led to a correct solution. Finally, for trials with high restructuring, decreased alpha power (suggesting greater cortical excitation) was observed in right prefrontal area. Conclusions/Significance: Our results provide a first account of cognitive insight by dissociating its constituent components and potential neural correlates

Facilitate Insight by Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation

Our experiences can blind us. Once we have learned to solve problems by one method, we often have difficulties in generating solutions involving a different kind of insight. Yet there is evidence that people with brain lesions are sometimes more resistant to this so-called mental set effect. This inspired us to investigate whether the mental set effect can be reduced by non-invasive brain stimulation. 60 healthy right-handed participants were asked to take an insight problem solving task while receiving transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the anterior temporal lobes (ATL). Only 20% of participants solved an insight problem with sham stimulation (control), whereas 3 times as many participants did so (p = 0.011) with cathodal stimulation (decreased excitability) of the left ATL together with anodal stimulation (increased excitability) of the right ATL. We found hemispheric differences in that a stimulation montage involving the opposite polarities did not facilitate performance. Our findings are consistent with the theory that inhibition to the left ATL can lead to a cognitive style that is less influenced by mental templates and that the right ATL may be associated with insight or novel meaning. Further studies including neurophysiological imaging are needed to elucidate the specific mechanisms leading to the enhancement