Exploring Predictive-Processing Mechanisms in Embodied Creativity: Individual and Collective Creativity Among University Students

Addressing the challenge of explaining embodied higher-order cognition, the present study explored how bodily interaction may influence individual and collective creativity-related processes within a predictive-processing framework. Two experiments were conducted using an Embodied Predictive Processing Paradigm (EPPP) adapted from the mirror-game framework, with neural data collected using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Experiment 1 involved 64 university students (60 with valid fNIRS data), whereas Experiment 2 involved 120 university students organized into 60 dyads (57 dyads with valid fNIRS data). Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: consistent mirror interaction, inconsistent mirror interaction, or a no-mirror control. Creativity tasks included three stages: concept association, idea generation, and creative selection. Behavioral results suggested that bodily interaction was associated with differences in creativity-related performance. In both individual and dyadic contexts, consistent bodily interaction was generally associated with higher flexibility- and fluency-related performance, whereas originality-related effects were weaker and less consistent. Neural analyses based on fNIRS data yielded mixed and exploratory findings. In individual creativity tasks, some differences in cortical activity and functional connectivity were observed in channels approximately overlying motor-related and prefrontal cortical regions associated with SCAN-, DMN-, and ECN-related functions, although several between-group comparisons were not significant. In collective creativity tasks, low-frequency fluctuation differences were primarily observed in cortical regions approximately associated with mentalizing-related functions, whereas mirror-neuron-related regions showed less consistent effects. Exploratory inter-brain synchronization analyses suggested possible associations between premotor and supplementary motor cortical regions and collaborative idea generation, as well as between primary somatosensory cortical regions and concept association. Overall, these findings provide exploratory behavioral and neural evidence that bodily interaction may influence creativity-related cognitive and interpersonal coordination processes in ways broadly compatible with predictive-processing perspectives.