A Study on EEG Activities in Artistic and Engineering Thinking during the Creative Process

Background and Research Motivation

Creativity is universally regarded as the ability to imagine new and valuable things. Researchers have identified two types of creative thinking: growth mindset and fixed mindset. Growth mindset creativity can improve skills through time and practice, while fixed mindset creativity believes that creative skills are unchangeable. Education plays a crucial role in nurturing creativity, and studies have shown significant differences in the performance of students in creative tasks between the arts and engineering fields.

Source of Research

This study titled “An EEG study on artistic and engineering mindsets in students in creative processes” was authored by Yuan Yin, Ji Han, and Peter R. N. Childs, from the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London and the Department of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Exeter. The paper was published in the 2024 Volume 14 Issue 13364 of the journal Scientific Reports.

Research Process

Subjects and Methods

The study recruited 15 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students from the Visual Arts program and 15 Master of Engineering (MEng) students from the Engineering Design program, all aged between 22 to 25 years. During the experiment, students wore a 16-channel EEG device to complete alternative use tasks, which required them to think of an uncommon use for an everyday object and record their EEG activity.

Equipment and Data Processing

The study used the Neurofax EEG-9200 system to record EEG signals and analyzed them with MathWorks’ MATLAB R2022b and the EEGLAB plugin. All signals were processed through multiple filters and problematic data was removed using an automatic noise marking tool. The analysis involved Event-Related Potentials (ERP), Power Spectral Density (PSD), and brain state series.

ERP Results

ERP reflects the brain’s response in small voltages to specific cognitive events or stimuli. In this study, the highest ERP value for MFA students during the creative process was 1710 milliseconds, while for MEng students it was 1451 milliseconds, indicating that engineering students responded more quickly in the creative process.

Power Spectral Density Results

PSD analysis showed that for students with artistic thinking, the frequencies of 6Hz, 10Hz, and 22Hz displayed strong activity in the prefrontal area (FP1). For students with engineering thinking, FP1 and FP2 exhibited high levels of activity in all three frequency bands, suggesting that the active brain regions for engineering-minded students involve multiple regions including the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes.

Brain State Series

Brain state series analysis demonstrated the dynamic changes in brain activity. Results showed that the F3 brain area of artistic thinking students remained active throughout the creative process, peaking around 1800 milliseconds. In contrast, engineering-minded students had more active brain regions, with the C3 area being most active at 1500 milliseconds.

Research Findings

Main Findings

1. Response Speed: Engineering-minded students generate creative ideas faster than artistic-minded students.
2. Active Brain Regions: While both groups exhibited Theta, Alpha, and Beta wave activity during the creative process, the active brain regions differed. Artistic-minded students mainly showed activity in the prefrontal and occipital regions, while engineering-minded students showed activity across the entire brain including the prefrontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital regions.
3. Brain Activity Level: Throughout the creative process, the overall brain activity level of artistic-minded students was higher than that of engineering-minded students.

These findings fill gaps in existing research and provide more scientific evidence of brain activity in different thinking modes during the creative process.

Conclusions and Applications

This study not only reveals cognitive differences in the creative tasks of different thinking modes but also provides new insights for educators on how to more effectively stimulate student creativity. Specifically:

1. Implications for Educators: Understanding the impact of different thinking modes on the creative process can help educators develop more suitable teaching strategies. For example, since engineering-minded students focus more on creativity’s originality, educators might guide them to consider creativity’s value more.
2. Interdisciplinary Collaboration: This research highlights the visual communication strengths of artistic-minded students and the originality inclination of engineering-minded students. By learning from each other, students can compensate for their own deficiencies in collaboration and achieve higher levels of creative results.

Research Highlights

1. Fast Thinking and Slow Thinking: The quick response of engineering-minded students during the creative process supports some existing views that engineering education emphasizes the creativity and practicality of products, while art education focuses more on personal creativity.
2. Activity of Brain Areas: The study provided detailed analysis of the active brain areas among different thinking students across various frequency bands, offering a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms.
3. Combination of Theory and Practice: This study addresses gaps in existing research regarding ERP, PSD, and brain state series analysis and applies theory to specific educational practices, which holds significant guiding value.

Research Limitations and Future Directions

Though this study offers many valuable findings, it has some limitations, such as a small sample size and potential biases due to the selected professional backgrounds of the students. Future research could expand sample sizes and include participants from different cultures, ages, and backgrounds. Additionally, combining participants’ actual creativity scores and behavioral performances could further verify the specific performance of different thinking modes in the creative process.

Conclusion

This study explored the brain activity differences between artistic and engineering thinking students in the creative process using EEG technology and found many valuable conclusions. Future research can build upon these findings to explore deeper, revealing the neural mechanisms behind creativity and providing more references for educational practice.