Capturing Creative Imagination in the Adolescent Brain: Development of a Novel fMRI Task

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Adolescence is a pivotal time for developing creative imagination. To advance knowledge about the neural underpinnings of creative imagination during this critical developmental phase, a task capable of eliciting meaningful creative imagination that could be used during functional magnetic neuroimaging (fMRI) in adolescents was designed with input from adolescents. The task shows a series of images (photographs) together with different verbal prompts to either mentally imagine something about or beyond what is seen in the image (“Imagine”) or to mentally describe specific aspects of each image (“Describe”). Fourteen adolescents completed the fMRI procedure and provided feedback in the scanner and afterward. Whole brain activation analyses revealed that “Imagine” involved greater recruitment of several key regions within the default mode network than “Describe.” In-scanner ratings indicated that participants actively engaged in the task and easily followed the instructions. Thematic analysis on participants’ written recollections of their thoughts during “Imagine” identified various themes of creative imagination elicited by the task. Psycholinguistic comparisons showed that whereas thoughts during “Imagine” were characterized by greater authenticity, “Describe” showed more analytical thinking. The Imagination fMRI task is a novel tool that may be used to advance the study of creative imagination in the adolescent brain.