Thinking out of the Box: Divergent Thinking Is Associated with Increased Aperiodic Neural Activity

Creativity, the ability to produce novel and useful ideas, is a fascinating ability about which we know surprisingly little. Here, we asked how people manage to think “out-of-the-box”—how they generate truly novel ideas. We hypothesized that higher levels of aperiodic neural activity (often termed “neural noise”) may facilitate overcoming the constraints of prior knowledge, thus supporting novel idea generation. Participants (n = 51) performed two classical creativity tasks tapping divergent (alternative uses task) and convergent thinking (remote associates task), respectively, while EEG was recorded. Aperiodic activity was estimated from the EEG power spectrum using the FOOOF (fitting oscillations and one-over-f) toolbox. We found that engaging in divergent, out-of-the-box thinking (but not convergent thinking) was associated with a significant increase of aperiodic activity, reflected in a decreased aperiodic exponent. Moreover, individuals with more increased aperiodic activity during divergent thinking generated more novel ideas. Our findings suggest that aperiodic, “noisy” brain dynamics play a functional role in supporting divergent thinking. Aperiodic activity, which is often neglected in neuroscientific research, may be an important mechanism of human cognition.