Acta Psychologica ©2020 Chinese Psychological

2020, Vol. 52, No. 11, 12531265 https://dx.doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.01253

The neural basis of scientific innovation problem finding

1,2 3 1 2 2 2 2
TONG DanDan , LI WenFu , LU Peng , YANG WenJing , YANG Dong , ZHANG QingLin , QIU Jiang
1
( School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Key Laboratory of Behavioral and
Mental Health of Gansu Province, Lanzhou 730070, China)
2
( School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China)
3
( Department of Mental Health, Jining Medical University, Jining 272067, Shandong Province, China)

Abstract
Creative thinking, which refers to the process by which individuals produce a unique, valuable product based on existing knowl-
edge, experience, and multi-perspective thinking activities, is the cornerstone of human civilization and social progress. As an im-
portant part of the creative field, scientific inventions, in particular, require individuals to break the existing state and build
new things in the process of creating them. Therefore, the use of real-life examples of scientific inventions to explore the cognitive
neural mechanism of creative thinking has become a focus of recent research. There have been many studies of creative problem
solving, especially regarding its neural mechanisms. However, less attention has been paid to the issue of problem finding. Hence, the
present study employed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and scientific invention problem-finding
materials to identify the neural substrates of the process of scientific innovation problem finding.
In the present study, nine scientific innovation problem situations were selected as materials. Each problem consisted of
three parts: (paradoxical) problem situation, (misleading) old problem, and heuristic prototype. The modified learning-testing
paradigm was used to explore the brain mechanisms of problem finding. Participants were asked to find a new problem based on the
given problem situation and old problem in the testing phase after learning all the heuristic prototypes in the learning phase. A total of
104 undergraduates (mean age = 19.26 ± 0.99) were enrolled in the final experiment. The rs-fMRI data were acquired using an echo
pla- nar imaging (EPI) sequence from a 3-T Siemens Magnetom Trio scanner (Siemens Medical, Erlangen, Germany) at the MRI
center of Southwest University. We used both the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and resting-state functional
connectivity (RSFC) to measure the local properties of rs-fMRI signals, and then investigated the relationship between ALFF/RSFC
and individ- ual differences in scientific problem finding.
After controlling for age and sex, the results of multiple regression analysis showed that individuals with a high rate of useful
problems had higher spontaneous brain activity in the left medial prefrontal cortex (L-mPFC) and cerebellum. Functional connec-
tivity analysis further found a significant positive correlation between the rate of useful problems and the mPFC-Cuneus functional
connectivity.
Based on these results, we infer that: (1) The mPFC plays an important role in the process of scientific innovation problem finding.
It might be responsive to two aspects: one involved in breaking the thinking set and forming a novel association and another associ-
ated with the extraction and processing of working memory. (2) The cerebellum and the cuneus might be separately involved in the
inter-semantic allocation of attentional resources and divulging.
Key words creativity, scientific innovation problem finding, mPFC, AlFF, RSFC

Adey, 2010). Problem finding is a precursor to problem solving,

1 Introduction
Creative thinking refers to the process in which individuals,
on the basis of prior knowledge and experience, make use
of multi-angle thinking activities to produce products with
novel and unique characteristics and use value, which is the
corner- stone of human civilization and the driving force of
social pro- gress (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Jung et al.,
2013; Stern- berg & Lubart, 1993). Asking questions is the
beginning of innovation, so a growing number of
researchers believe that being good at asking questions is
an important and critical component of creative thinking
(Alabbasi & Cramond, 2018; Alabbasi, Paek, Cramond, &
Runco, 2020; Hu, Shi, Han, Wang, &
which determines how individuals approach problems and whe-
ther they can successfully solve them (Gilhooly, Fioratou,
& Henretty, 2011; Holman, 2018). Getzels also stresses the
impo- rtance of problems being identified and presented in a way
that produces solutions and argues that creative
achievements are derived from creative problem-finding
rather than problem- solving (Getzels, 2011). A large
number of researchers have explored the cognitive neural
mechanisms of problem-solving from behavioral and
neuroscience perspectives (Aziz-Zadeh, Kaplan, & Iacoboni,
2009; Huang, Fan, & Luo, 2015; Jung-Bee- man et al., 2004;
Kounios & Beeman, 2013; Qiu et al., 2010; Subramaniam, 2008;
Wu, Knoblich, & Luo, 2013; Xue, Lu, &

Received Date: December 20, 2019

This work was supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (31470981; 31771231), the humanities and social sciences research project
of the Ministry of Education (19XJC1900001), the social science planning project of Gansu Province (19YB026), and the “Youth Innovation and tech-
nology program” project of Shandong Province (2019RWF003).
Corresponding author: ZHANG Qinglin, E-mail: zhangql@swu.edu.cn; QIU Jiang, E-mail: qiuj318@swu.edu.cn
The original article is in Chinese, translated by Lingocloud and proofread by the author. The Chinese version shall always prevail in case of any discrepancy
or inconsistency between the Chinese version and its English translation.
 Acta Psychologica Sinica
Hao, 2018; Zhao et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2018). However, the
research presented in the problem-finding is not sufficient
to some extent, and the study of brain mechanism has
received limited attention from researchers (Alabbasi &
Cramond, 2018; Reiter- Palmon & Robinson, 2009; Tong et
al., 2013; Hu & Han, 2015).
Cognitive processing of creative thinking is one of the basic
problems in creative research, and many researches have been
carried out on the issue of creative problem-finding (Dietrich &
Kanso, 2010; Zhou & Shi, 2005). The most common approach
is to identify the key elements of problem finding by presenting
the question material with different characteristics. Such as pre-
senting and discovering Problem Situations (Runco & Okuda,
1988), familiar problem situations and unfamiliar problem situ-
ations (Wu & Zhang, 2005), real problem situations
and non-real problem situations (Runco, Illies, &
Reiterpalmon,
2005), object materials and verbal materials (Chen et al., 2006),
well-structured problem situations and poorly structured prob-
lem situations (Lee & Cho, 2007), ambivalent problem
situa- tions and latent problem situations (Chen & Zheng,
2011), open-ended problem situations and closed-ended
problem situ- ations (Cheng, Hu, Jia, & Runco, 2016) were
compared. The result shows that the problem situation is
the key factor in problem-finding, and interactions such as
hemispheric level of interaction, level of knowledge, and
explicit instruction effect had an impact on creative problem
finding (Cheng et al., 2016; Lee & Cho, 2007; Wang et al.,
2017). In addition, cognitive inhibition (Hu et al., 2015),
personality traits (Li et al., 2010; Paletz & Peng, 2009),
mood and motivation (Chen, Hu, & Plucker, 2016; Hu &
Zhou, 2010), and school environment (Han et al., 2010; Jia
et al., 2017) are also important internal and external factors
for creative problem finding.
The cognitive process of creative problem finding has been
described in detail, but there are still some problems. For exa-
mple, most of the existing experimental materials are divergent
thinking tests evaluated from the dimensions of uniqueness,
flexibility, and fluency (Hu & Adey, 2002; Hu et al.,
2010; Shen et al., 2002; Torrance, 1966), and lack of the
discussion on validity. In addition, there have been more studies
on crea- tive problem finding processes based on a limited
number of simple objects, text images, or artificial problem
situations (Chen & Zheng, 2011; Runco et al., 2005;
Runco & Okuda,
1988; Torrance, 1966). However, less real-world experimental
material was used to measure the problem finding. Validity is
one of the most essential characteristics of creative
thinking and a good indicator of creative ability (Sternberg
& Lubart,
1993; Wu et al., 2008), and, compared to the standard divergent
thinking test, the real-world questions finding is a better
pre- dictor of individual creativity (Okuda, Runco, & Berger,
1991). Therefore, to explore the cognitive process and brain
mecha- nism of creative problem-finding, it is necessary to use
experi- mental materials which are more suitable to the nature
of crea- tive thinking and have more ecological validity.
The study of scientific problems is the most typical and
creative activity of human beings, and the field in which
the creative thinking is most fully embodied and
concentrated is the scientific field (Qian, 1999). Scientific
creativity is the con- crete expression of general creativity in
scientific disciplines, and its core is scientific creative
thinking, that is, scientific thinking activities with novelty
and value (Hu & Han, 2015). Besides, problem finding is
an important stage in scientific
creativity (Hu et al., 2010). Ward argues that using examples of
real-life scientific inventions to study creative thinking has
a higher ecological validity because it is close to the
reality of scientific inventions (Ward, 2007). Zhang has also
compiled scientific invention experiment materials to measure
scientific creativity based on real-life examples of scientific
inventions (Zhang et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2011). Based on this,
this study suggests that we can combine scientific creativity
with prob- lem-finding and use examples of creative thinking in
the field of science to develop a measurement tool with high
ecological validity.
According to the theory of “representation transition”, people
tend to make representations in the way suggested by the prob-
lem situation and search in the corresponding wrong
problem space. If the method cannot be found in the problem
space for a long time, it is necessary to search for the proper
representation in the meta-level space, enter the correct
problem space, and finally solve the problem (Kaplan &
Simon, 1990). The theory of “prototype activation” holds that
when a problem solver encounters a mental set, he can
break the original thought deadlock under the inspiration of
seemingly unrelated but in- ternally semantically connected
prototype materials, and apply the heuristic information to
scientific problems to get into the right problem space (Zhang
et al., 2012). Therefore, Tong (2017), based on the theory of
“representation transformation” and “prototype elicitation”,
collects examples of recent scien- tific inventions in the
scientific field from the perspective of “novelty” and
“validity” by using the method of measurement and interview.
Then, a series of experiments were carried out to compile the
materials of creative scientific problems with more ecological
validity, which were more in line with the nature of creative
thinking and have many indexes such as difficulty, intensity
of setting, quantity of inspiration. Besides, the validity of the
experimental materials and paradigms is verified.
Creative problem solving has proved to be a complex cogni-
tive process involving the whole brain, with the functional
colla- boration involving different brain regions (Aziz-Zadeh
et al.,
2009; Jung-Beeman et al., 2004; Kounios & Beeman,
2013; Luo & Niki, 2003; Qiu et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2013; Fan
et al.,
2014; Li et al., 2016). In the field of creative problem finding,
Wang (2013) used electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis to
find that mixed-handedness individuals had higher scores
on creative scientific problem finding and more α waves in
the frontal and middle frontal regions, which suggested that
crea- tive scientific problems arose from the involvement of key
brain regions such as the frontal lobe, which was
responsible for inhibitory control and conceptual bonding.
Tong et al. (2013) used Functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (fMRI) to expl- ore the brain mechanism of the
problem finding in the context of scientific invention. The
results showed that left fusiform Gyrus, left medial frontal
Gyrus(L-MFG), left lenticular nucl- eus, right cerebellum, and
left precentral Gyrus were activated. Tong et al. (2013) used a
similar approach to explore the ques- tion of the scientific
invention with or without prototypes and found that the brain
activation of the question raised in the prototype elicitation
effect was localized in the precuneus and angular gyrus. Zhou
(2015) used the Event-related potential (ERP) technique to
find significant differences in the amplitude of the P3
component of novelty assessment tasks among indivi- duals
with highly creative scientific questions. It shows that their
working memory storage and concept representation upda-
 TONG DanDan et al.: The neural basis of scientific innovation problem finding
ting are more efficient, and their attention pattern is more more widely used local spontaneous activity (Wei et al., 2013).
flexible. Thus, they can evaluate the novelty of pictures more Studies
effectively. Although these studies are important for
understanding the nature of creative questions, the
differences in experimental paradigms and techniques and
the paucity of studies make it difficult to corroborate and
support each other’s results. In addi- tion, there is still a lack of
consensus on the neural mechanism of creative science, and the
research on the neural mechanism of scientific creativity still
needs to be strengthened (Hu & Han,
2015). Therefore, it is necessary to study the neural
mecha- nisms of creative problems by using more abundant
brain ima- ging techniques, especially without the limitation
of experi- mental tasks.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging can record spontan-
eous neural activity in the brain without external cognitive
tasks (Biswal, Yetkin, Haughton, & Hyde, 2010; Zuo et
al.,
2010). Therefore, the method is independent of the task
and measures the blood oxygen level of the human brain
at rest, depending on the low frequency fluctuation signal. It is
a good and stable tool for identifying differences in spontaneous
neural activity in the brain (Buckner, 2012; Fulwiler, King, &
Zhang,
2012). Based on the resting State Functional Magnetic
Reso- nance Imaging Technique, previous studies have
explored the neural mechanisms of creative thinking from the
perspective of individual differences, suggesting to some extent
that individuals with different levels of creativity have
specific brain bases. Takeuchi et al. (2012) used the seed-
point-based Resting state functional connectivity (RSFC)
analysis to find a significant positive correlation between
individuals’ performance on div- ergent thinking tasks and
RSFC intensity between the medial prefrontal cortex and the
posterior cingulate cortex. Wei et al. (2014) found a
significant positive correlation between Tor- rance’s
divergent thinking test scores and the strength of the
functional connectivity between the mPFC and the middle
temporal gyrus. Chen et al. (2014) further found that there was
a significant negative correlation between individual
creative achievement test scores and RSFC intensity in bilateral
anterior cingulate and middle frontal gyrus, and that
cognitive flexibility had a mediating effect on the relationship.
Li et al. (2016) used Regional homogeneity (ReHo) and low
frequency amplitude (ALFF) analyses and found that the
correct rate of scientific problem-solving was positively
correlated with the ReHo and ALFF values of left anterior
cingulate. Some researchers used seed-point-based resting
functional connectivity has been used to explore long-distance
functional connectivity in creative thinking or used focus
on the local activity of spontaneous BOLD (Blood oxygen
level dependent) signals in brain regions while lacking a
complete exploration of the brain mechanism of creative
thinking from the perspective of resting state brain imaging.
In addition, some researchers have explored the brain
mechanism of creative thinking by using divergent thinking
tasks, creative achievement questionnaires, and scientific in-
vention problem solving materials, but not from the perspective
of creative problems.
ALFF uses the average of the amplitudes at all frequencies
in the 0.01-0.08 Hz Band to represent the BOLD signal inten-
sity of each voxel, which reflects the level of spontaneous ac-
tivity of each voxel at rest in terms of energy (Zang et
al.,
2007). It reflects individual differences not only in state,
but also in personality, and it is a useful measure of the
have suggested ALFF is related to a variety of cognitive abili-
ties, personality traits, or psychopathology disorders, such as
working memory (Zou et al., 2013), well-being (Luo et al.,
2015), and Alzheimer’s disease (He et al., 2007). RSFC reflects
the connectivity of spontaneous neural signals between
different brain regions and the synergistic effect of the formation
of net- works in different brain regions, and it can reveal the
internal neural circuits of external behavior through well-
connected and integrated brain networks. Moreover, it is a useful
indicator of the spontaneous activity of neural networks in the
brain (Mennes et al. 2010). This approach has been widely used
in studies of individual cognitive abilities, such as creativity
(Takeuchi et al.,
2012). Also, it may reflect associations between various psycho-
pathology disorders, such as social anxiety disorder (Hahn et al.,
2011) and depression (Zeng et al., 2012). Using both ALFF
(resting state spontaneous signal) and RSFC (coordination of
signals from different brain regions), we can effectively and
completely detect the creative problem posed by the stable
functional organization of the brain.
Studies have shown that there are systematic differences
between high creative problem finding individuals and low
creative problem finding individuals in the ability to
generate novel ideas and suppress irrelevant information
(Tong et al.,
2013; Hu et al., 2015; Wang, 2013; Zhou, 2015). The
medial frontal lobe is thought to be a classic brain region for
generat- ing and evaluating novel ideas, and as a key point
of “cons- cious effort,” it is mainly responsible for thought
processes such as cognitive control (Beaty et al., 2014; Chen et
al., 2014; Fink et al., 2010; Kounios et al., 2006; Luo &
Zhang, 2006; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2011; Talati & Hirsch,
2005). Accord- ingly, we hypothesize that ALFF values in the
mPFC may be associated with creative scientific problem
finding. In addition, some researchers have found that the mPFC,
as the core node of the default network, plays an important role
in the generation of creative ideas by increasing the strength
of its functional connections to other nodes in the default
network (Takeuchi et al., 2012; Wei et al., 2013). Scientific
Creativity is closely related to the frontal lobe, parietal lobe,
and cingulate gyrus (Jung et al., 2010; Limb & Braun,
2008; Shen et al., 2010). Accordingly, we selected the medial
prefrontal lobe as the seed point and hypothesized that the ratio
of creative scientific ques- tions had a significant positive
correlation with the strength of functional connectivity among
Default Network nodes such as the medial prefrontal lobe, the
posterior cingulate/precuneus (Takeuchi et al., 2012), and the
inferior parietal lobe (related to spatial representation and
processing) (Gansler et al., 2011).
Based on these assumptions, this study will use ALFF and
RSFC, which are used in the Functional magnetic resonance
imaging technique, and select the scientific invention problem
with high ecological validity in real life as experimental mate-
rials to explore the relationship between spontaneous brain
activity and creative scientific problem finding.
2 Method
2.1 Participants
In the study, 107 healthy college students were recruited
through online advertisements, 3 participants with excessive
head movement data were deleted, and 104 participants (mean
age 19.26 ± 0.99 years) were used for formal analysis.
There were 32 males (mean age 19.66 ± 1.15 years) and 72
females (mean age 19.08 ± 0.85 years). In order to test
whether the
 Acta Psychologica
sample size was reasonable, the software G*Power 3.1
(Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) was used to
perform the Post hoc statistical efficacy test (effect size (f 2) =
0. 25, α = 0.
05). The result showed that power = 0.99, indicating that
the sample size was sufficient. All participants had a
normal or corrected vision, no history of mental illness or
surgical trauma, computer skills, and no prior exposure to
the material. After entering the laboratory, the participant first
signed the informed consent, and then the subject introduced the
experimental proc- edure. The participants completed the
behavior experiment outside the scanning room and then were
sent to the scanning room by the scanner for scanning in a
resting state. Appropriate remuneration would be paid after
the experiment. All experi- mental procedures and
procedures of the institute have been approved by the
committee on academic ethics.
2.2 Experimental materials
From the material library of creative science problem, 9
problem situations with appropriate difficulty were selected for
the formal experiment (Tong, 2017). The experimental
materials were compiled by sifting through examples of
scientific inven- tion creation, all of which met the conditions of
novelty, easy to understand, and not involving the
knowledge of specialized fields. Each material contained
potentially contradictory problem situations, old problems with
a certain amount of misdirection, and the prototype with
heuristic information. A sample of the experimental material:
Problem situation: There are a lot of asteroids around
the earth that would be catastrophic if they hit the earth.
But the launch of an atomic bomb to destroy the asteroids will
bring all kinds of atomic radiation hazards.
Old question: How do you deal with the fallout of an atomic
bomb blowing up an asteroid?
Prototype: When we hit a moving billiard ball with a little
force while playing billiards, it will change direction and leave
the original track.
Based on the theory of “transformation of
representation”
and “prototype elicitation,” when individuals encounter
problem situations with stereotyped thinking and old problems
(thinking deadlocks), they tend to make representations
according to the ways suggested by the problem situations
and search in the corresponding error problem space. If an
individual wants to ask creative questions, he or she needs
to enter the meta-problem space and search for other
appropriate problem representations, then he or she may ask
novel questions. Besides, by activating semantically connected
heuristic information in mind or in the environment and making
connections with problem situations, it is possible to ask novel
and effective creative questions (Holman,
2018; Kaplan & Simon, 1990; Tong, 2017; Zhang et al., 2012).
The situation of implicit contradiction can cause the individual
to think and guess the explanation of the question. When
the setting of the old problems adopts the contradictory
situation of individual reading, the simple question without any
value will first come to mind, which can provide the wrong
thinking set and lead the individual into the wrong problem
space. The pro- vision of prototype can not only help
individuals jump out of the wrong horizontal space, but also
point out the direction of the problem for individuals to enter
the right problem space.
The problem of creative scientific invention presents the
ability of materials to focus on how to jump out of the wrong
problem space caused by situations and old problems and then
find the right problem direction. The stereotype of the old pro-
blem in the current test is more similar to the puzzle in
life, which makes up for the lack of ecological validity in the
pre- vious test materials. The experimental materials used in
this study were carefully prepared by the research group and
were used in other studies (Tong, 2017). Previous studies
have shown that the rate of validity questions correlates
significantly with the score on the creative achievement test,
indicating that the material presented by the creative scientific
invention ques- tion can, to some extent, predict the level of
creative achieve- ment in real life, with a certain degree of
effectiveness. In addi- tion, individuals engaged in different
innovative work (Rese- arching Employees and Operation
Employees) showed signifi- cant differences in the scores of
scientific invention questions. After covariant age and
education and other additional vari- ables, the results
showed that researching employees raised more valid
questions than operation employees, and the experi- mental
results further validated the validity of the experimental
materials in the Enterprise Environment (Tong, 2017).
2.3 Collection and evaluation of behavioral data
E-prime software was used to program and present the exp-
erimental materials. Based on the existing research on scientific
invention (Wu et al., 2008), this study adopted the “9-to-9”
two-stage experimental paradigm of “learning prototype-posing
problem” to investigate the brain mechanism of individuals’
novel validity problem. The process was as follows: First, the
Fixation Point “+” was presented in the center of the
screen with white words on a black background for 0.5 seconds,
then nine prototype materials were presented randomly. The
partici- pants read the prototype materials carefully, and
then pressed the “1” key after understanding them, and the
button jumped to the next prototype material. Each prototype
material was rend- ered up to 60 seconds and automatically
jumped to the next when the time was up until all the
prototype materials were rendered. Then, the fixation point
“+” was presented in the center of the screen again, with
white words on a black back- ground for 0.5 seconds, and
then nine problem situations and old problems were
randomly presented. After 60 seconds, the question situation
and the old question disappeared and were presented with a
prompt. On the answer sheet, the participants wrote down the
questions in the order in which the questions were presented.
After writing the questions, they pressed the “1” button. The
prompt disappeared and moved on to the next question situation
until all the problem situations and old probl- ems were
presented. The experimental procedure is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Flow chart of the experiment
Based on the theory of “representation transformation” and
“prototype activation,” the evaluation criteria of creative scien-
 TONG DanDan et al.: The neural basis of scientific innovation problem
tific problem materials are formulated (Kaplan & Simon, 1990;
Zhang et al., 2012). If the answer is a simple repetition of the
old question or repetition of its meaning, then the individual is
still bound to the old question space, such as: “How to reduce
the effects of atomic radiation? /How to make a nuclear weapon
with low radiation?” The point is 0. If the answer is not tied to
the problem space of the old question but to the future and is
imaginative and novel, such as: “Is a planet colliding with the
Earth more dangerous or is atomic radiation more dangerous?
Why did the asteroid hit the earth?” The point is 1. If the ans-
wer is not stuck in the old problem space and presents a scien-
tific hypothesis with some idea of how to solve the
problem, which is valid or valuable, for example: “if a
particular trajec- tory can be designed to keep the asteroid off
the planet by itself? / Can other forces be used to knock the
asteroid off its course?” The point is 2. The rate of novelty
problems refers to the rate of items with a non-zero score in the
total test items, and the rate of novelty validity problems refers
to the rate of items with 2 scores in the total test items. The
higher the rate of novelty problem, the more likely the
participants can break through the old cognitive model, jump
out of the wrong question space, and ask novel questions.
Besides, the higher the rate of novelty validity problem,
the more likely the participants can form effective
connections related to task goals and raise valuable
questions through cognitive processes such as thought reor-
ganization or prototype elicitation.
2.4 Static data acquisition and preprocessing
The Resting State images were obtained with Siemens
Medical 3 Tesla magnetic resonance Imaging. Block foam pads
and earplugs were used to reduce head movement and instru-
ment noise. Before scanning, the participants were asked to
change the special clothing in the laboratory, and, at the same
time, the metal jewelry was removed to avoid the influence of
the metal objects on the security and image quality of the parti-
cipants. During the scan, participants were asked to lie
back with their eyes closed and relax, keeping their heads still
and resting their eyes closed throughout the scan (Wang et al.,
2011).
The whole-brain plane Gradient Echo planar imaging (EPI)
was used for scanning. The relevant scanning parameters were
above: repetition time (TR) = 2000ms, echo time (TE) = 30 ms,
flip angle = 90°, field of view (FOV) =220 mm × 220
mm, thickness = 3 mm, gap = 1 mm, Voxel size =3.4 mm × 3.4
mm ×
4 mm, and acquisition Matrix = 64×64. The total scanning time
was 8 minutes and 4 seconds. A total of 242 consecutive
im- ages were obtained.
Based on Matlab, Data Processing Assistant for
Rest- ing-State fMRI software (DPARSF) is used to
process Data (Yan & Zang, 2010). The steps are as
follows: (1) check the data quality of the rest state to see
whether there is incomplete scanning or artifact of the
participant data; (2) convert the original DICOM data into
analyzable Nifti data format; (3) in order to obtain a stable MRI
image, the data of the first 10 time points are eliminated, and
the remaining stable data are gradually subjected to slice
timing and head motion correction. Then, delete translation
greater than 3 mm and rotation greater than 3 degrees (delete 3
participants) and remove physiological noise; (4) standardize
the processed data to the MNI (Montreal neu- rologic institute)
Standard Spatial Template by using DARTEL (ancestral
morphological registration through expanded Lie Algebra),
and the normalized voxel size is 3 mm × 3 mm × 3 mm; (5) 6
mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) is used to
Gauss the image to increase the signal to noise ratio; (6)
the effect of low and high-frequency noise is reduced, and de-
linear drift is performed.
2.5 Statistical analysis
Calculation and analysis of ALFF. Using the REST
(Rest- ing-state FMRI data toolkit) toolkit (Song et al., 2011),
accord- ing to the method of Zang et al. (2007), the time series
of each voxel in the whole brain is Fourier transform, and then
the area under the peak of the frequency domain power
spectrum is squ- ared, the resulting value can represent the
amplitude of the signal oscillation. At the same time, the
square root of frequ- ency between 0.01 to 0.08 of each voxel
was averaged, that is, the ALFF value. To achieve
standardization, the ALFF value of each voxel is divided by the
whole-brain mean and normalized to obtain a standardized
ALFF value for each voxel (Biswal et al.,
2010). In order to explore the relationship between creative
scientific problem-finding ability and low-frequency amplitude,
a voxel-wise analysis of variance (ANCOVA) was used to
analyze the whole brain. Age and gender were irrelevant
variables, and creative science problem finding scores was
variables of interest. Multiple Linear regression was used to
detect the problem and propose the relationship between the
score and ALFF. The signi- ficance was corrected by
topological FDR, and the significance level was p < 0.05 (two
tails) (Chumbley & Friston, 2009).
Calculation and analysis of RSFC. Also, using the
REST toolkit and based on seed point correlation analysis, the
regions of interest (ROI) were the mPFC (mPFC, x = 0, Y = 54,
Z = 8) (Beaty et al., 2014; Whitfield-gabrieli & Nieto-Castanon,
2012), which were selected from anatomically represented in
the clas- sical literature and significantly associated with
ALFF in the study separately, and a circle with a radius of 6
mm was establi- shed by taking the coordinates of the region of
interest as the center. The calculation method was as follows:
First, the time series of all voxels in each region of interest
were extracted, and the whole brain signal, white matter, brain
crest fluid, and six head motion parameters were used as
meaningless variables for regression. Then, the correlation
coefficients between each seed point and other brain regions
were calculated by voxel-wise Correlation Analysis and
Fisher’s r-to-z transformation. Finally, we used multivariate
Regression analysis. Age and gender were independent
variables, scores on creative science questions were
presented as variables of interest, and the correlation bet- ween
the strength of functional connectivity and creative science
questions was calculated, further testing for the existence
of specific network connections can significantly predict the
ability of creative scientific problem-finding. The
significance level was also adjusted by topological FDR
and was p < 0.05(two tails) (Chumbley & Friston, 2009). Use
G*Power Software to calculate the effect of multivariate
regression analysis results (Faul et al., 2009).
3 Results
3.1 Behavioral data results
The rate of novelty problem and the rate of novelty validity
problem were tested by an independent sample t-test. The
results showed that there were no significant gender differences
in the two variables (ps > 0.05). Specifically, the accuracy rate
of nov- elty problem raised by male participants was 0.86 ±
0.19, and that of female participants was 0.90 ± 0.10, with no
significant difference between male and female participants
(p = 0.184). Besides, the novelty validity problem rate of male
participants
 Acta Psychologica

Table 1
Mean and standard deviation of the rate of creative scientific problem finding
Measurement index Mean number 95% CI Standard deviation Minimum value Maximum value Score range
Novelty problem 0.89 0.86 ~ 0.91 0.14 0.11 1.00 0.89
Validity problem 0.33 0.28 ~ 0.38 0.26 0.00 0.89 0.89
Table 2
ALFF and novel validity questions were presented with rates significantly correlated to brain regions
MNI ES
Cerebral area Hemispheres T value
(maximum point) (Voxels) f 2
X Y Z
ALFF is positively correlated with the
proposed rate of novel validity problem
vmPFC L −6 12 −18 3.51 74 0.19
anterior cerebellum R 9 −42 −30 4.53 124 0.25

Figure 2. ALFF values and novel validity questions were presented in a rate-significant correlation between brain regions.
was 0.33 ± 0.27, and that of female participants was 0.33
± found to be significantly associated with novelty problem find-
0.26. There was no significant difference between male
and female participants (p = 0.945). Then, the correlation
analysis between the rate of novelty problem and the rate
of novelty validity problem was carried out. The results
showed that the correlation between the two columns was
significant r = 0.343, p < 0.001. The average and standard
deviation of creative science problem formulation rates are
shown in Table 1.
3.2 Brain imaging data
3.2.1 ALFF results
The rate of ALFF and novelty problem and novelty validity
problem were analyzed by multiple regression analysis, and sex
and age were controlled as covariables. The results showed that
after controlling for covariates, the rate of new validity
ques- tions was positively correlated with the ALFF values of
the left ventromedial prefrontal (L-vmPFC) and the right
anterior cer-
cerebellum (Table 2 and Figure 2). No regions of the brain were
ing rates.
3.2.2 Results of RSFC analysis
The functional connections between the whole brain and the
seed sites in the ALFF-behavioral region (L-mPFC) and
the creative thinking region (R-mPFC) in the classical
literature were analyzed by multiple regression analysis,
respectively (Beaty et al., 2014). The results showed that
after controlling the covariates such as age and sex, the
functional connectivity between the R-mPFC and the left
Cuneus were positively cor- related with the rate of novel
validity questions finding (x = −3,
2
Y = −90, Z = 33; mass size = 249 Voxel; t = 4.03; f = 0.13; r =
0.33; p < 0.001; Figure 3). The stronger the functional
connection between medial prefrontal lobe and left Cuneus, the
higher the rate of novel validity problem finding. There was no
significant
 TONG DanDan et al.: The neural basis of scientific innovation problem
Figure 3. Functional connectivity networks with seed points were able to predict the regions of the brain that presented novel validity
problems.
correlation between the strength of functional connectivity
in the Left Medial prefrontal (L-mPFC) and other brain
regions and the rate at which valid questions were posed.
4 Discussion
For the first time, the problem situation of scientific
invention with high ecological validity was selected as the
experimental material, using high spatial Resolution Resting
State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technique and
widely used ALFF and RSFC, exploring the functional basis of
the brain raised by questions in the situation of scientific
invention, and thus provi- ding data support for further
understanding the nature of creative thinking. It was found that
the intensity and functional connec- tivity of resting
spontaneous neural activity reflected individual differences in
the questions posed in the situation of scientific invention.
Specifically, in the ALFF analysis, the higher the rate at
which novel validity questions were posed, the greater the
spontaneous activity in the left medial prefrontal lobe and the
right anterior cerebellum. In a further RSFC analysis, a
significant positive correlation was found between the proposed
novel validity problem ratio and the strength of functional
connectivity between the Right Medial prefrontal lobe and the
left cuneiform lobe. The results of two kinds of resting
state brain image data showed that the mPFC played an
important role in the problem-finding process of scientific
invention.
Creative thinking is the process of producing novel and app-
licable ideas or products. Therefore, both the general field
of creative thinking (e.g., divergent thinking, convergent
thinking, etc.) and domain-specific creative thinking (such
as scientific creativity, artistic creativity, etc.) involve the
generation and evaluation of novel ideas (Sternberg &
Lubart, 1993; Feist,
1998). Both of them have also been found to be associated with
activity in the mPFC and middle frontal gyrus, which is resp-
onsible for novel ideas (Darsaud et al., 2011; Hao et al., 2013;
Gilbert et al., 2010; Fink et al., 2010; Limb & Braun,
2008). Therefore, consistent with the previous results, the
positive correlation between medial prefrontal spontaneity and
the rate of creative scientific problem finding in the current
study can be understood to be related to the generation of novel
ideas.
However, scientific creativity follows stronger logical rules,
relies more on purposeful information processing that excludes
all extraneous information, and places more emphasis on reca-
pitulating and synthesizing existing seemingly disparate know-
ledge and the ability to create new scientific knowledge (Bai et
al.,
2014; Hu & Han, 2015). Previous studies have also found that
individuals with highly creative questions are better at
supp- ressing irrelevant information and are more likely to
activate conceptual network connections in mind (Hu et al.,
2015; Wang,
2013; Zhou, 2015). Kounios et al. (2006) found that
priming for insight was associated with significant activation
of the medial frontal lobe, which might be associated with
increased top-down cognitive control, such as inhibition of
thinking, choosing the right strategy, and ignoring the wrong
one. Dar- saud et al. investigated the neural mechanisms of
delayed epiphanies using the digital reduction task and
found that the mPFC might be involved in semantic
associations, rules finding, and other creative related cognitive
processes (Darsaud et al.,
2011; Lang et al., 2006). In addition, several studies have hypo-
thesized that the medial frontal lobe is involved in
cognitive processes such as conflict processing, response
selection, and inhibition control (Moore et al., 2009;
Takeuchi et al., 2012). Therefore, this study concludes that the
medial prefrontal lobe may help the high-problem speaker to
better suppress irrelevant information, break away from the
constraint of the old problem space, integrate the semantic
meaning of each sentence, estab- lish semantic connection
between seemingly remote problem situations and heuristic
information (prototype or original kno- wledge of the
individual), and then lead to constructive or sci- entifically
hypothetical questions.
In addition, previous studies have shown that highly creative
scientific problems suggest that individuals are better able
to store stimuli separately in working memory based on their
mea- ning in the task, thus improving the efficiency of
information processing (Zhou, 2015). Howard-jones et al.
(2005) used the fabrication task to explore the neural
mechanisms of creative perspectives and found that the
fabrication condition signific- antly activated both medial
prefrontal Lobes as opposed to the fabrication of non-creative
Stories, which might reflect that the medial prefrontal lobe
was related to the storage of working memory and the
retrieval of situational memory. In addition, the medial
prefrontal lobe is thought to play an important role in
manipulating information in working memory (Cairo et al.,
2004). In this study, rather than simply repeating the old prob-
lem, the process of finding appropriate heuristic archetypes in
mind, making novel connections, and forming new
problems with scientific hypotheses increased the working
memory load. Therefore, the medial frontal lobe may be
involved in the proc- ess of information storage and retrieval in
working memory.
In addition, Beaty et al. (2014) believed that the emergence
of new ideas was related to the Default Mode Network (DMN)
 Acta Psychologica
of the classic Brain Areas (such as medial prefrontal, posterior
cingulate, and bilateral inferior parietal lobule). Takeuchi et al.
(2012) explored the relationship between creative thinking and
functional connectivity between the MPFC and other brain
regions. It was found that there was a significant positive corre-
lation between divergent thinking test scores and the strength of
functional connectivity between the two Default
Network Nodes: the MPFC and posterior cingulate. Wei et
al. (2014) further found a significant positive correlation
between Torra- nce divergent thinking test scores and the
strength of the func- tional connectivity between the MPFC and
the middle temporal gyrus, which was also the default network
node. Therefore, the MPFC, as the core node of the default
front of the network, played an important role in the
generation of creative ideas. In addition, Takeuchi et al. (2010)
used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to find a significant
positive correlation between the structural integrity of
MPFC white matter and the scores of divergent thinking
tests. Structural connectivity is the basis for functional
connectivity between brain regions (Greicius et al.,
2003), and higher individual white matter structural
integrity makes stronger functional connectivity possible (AU
Duong et al.,
2005). Therefore, the enhancement of medial prefrontal functi-
onal connectivity in high problem finding individuals may
be partly related to the higher structural integrity of the
MPFC white matter in high-creative individuals.
The process of scientific activity also involves the transfer
and transformation of information from one domain to another,
involving a great deal of abstract reasoning (Bai et al.,
2014; Hu & Han, 2015). Previous research has found that
compared with the temporal lobe and motor cortex are activated
by artistic creativity, there was more activation of the
parietal cortex in scientific creativity (Gilbert et al., 2010;
Luo et al., 2013; O'Boyle et al., 2013; Shen et al., 2010).
Moreover, the precuneus is a common activated brain region
in reasoning and prob- lem-solving tasks ((Ferstl & Yves von
Cramon, 2001; Luo et al.,
2013; Qiu et al., 2010). In the RSFC analysis of the
present study, there was a significant positive correlation
between the rate of proposed novel validity problem and the
strength of the functional connection between the right medial
frontal lobe and the left cuneiform lobe, which maintained a
high consistency with the existing results and verified the
reliability of the exp- erimental results. Moreover, Fink et al.
(2014) found that the flexibility and fluency scores of
verbal imagination creativity tests were positively correlated
with the gray matter density of the right cuneus and precuneus.
The completion of the verbal imagination creativity test
requires the generation of flexible ideas, the use of diverse
information, and problem-oriented solutions (rather than
unsystematic and unrealistic illusions). Therefore, this study
concludes that in the present situation of creative scientific
problem-finding, the reasoning process, viewpoint
generation, and problem-oriented thinking associated with
precuneus make it possible to pose novel and effective
problems.
Andreasen and Ramchandran (2012) found that cuneus cor-
relates with the performance of Word Association tasks, which
might reflect a strong association between these brain regions
and visual imagery. Shen et al. (2012) also found
that “non-verbal” visual spatial information processing
networks composed of cuneus and precuneus facilitated the
effective conversion of problem representations. These
results suggest that the parietal-occipital regions, such as the
cuneus and prec-
uneus Lobes, play a prominent role in mental imagery. In addi-
tion, previous research has shown that the precuneus, together
with the prefrontal cortex, controls source memory, in
which the source of the memory is recalled. The function of the
prec- uneus in this process is to provide sufficient context
for the prefrontal cortex to choose the correct past memory
(Lunds- trom, Ingvar, & Petersson, 2005). In scientific
creativity, such episodic memory is associated with the recall of
an individual’s heuristic knowledge (Luo et al., 2013; Qiu et al.,
2010). These results demonstrate that the precuneus is involved
in informa- tion retrieval and visual retrieval through the
representation of physical images in the brain. Based on
this, this study conc- ludes that individuals with high-
creativity questions may have more vivid visual mental imagery
and better episodic memory, which makes heuristic
prototypical information better stored and extracted. Thus,
the functional connections between the medial frontal lobe
and the wedge lobe provide the basis for these cognitive
functions.
Previous studies have shown that individuals with high
or low creative problems difference in the allocation of attention
resources. The concrete manifestation is that the highly creative
question raises the individual attention resources allocation and
the attention pattern transformation to be more flexible and so
on (Feist, 1998; Wang, 2013; Zhou, 2015). Qiu et al.
(2010) used word puzzles as experimental material to explore
the brain mechanisms of the preparation and resolution stages of
insight problems and found that the cerebellum was
significantly activ- ated by the problem solving state. From
this, the researchers speculated that the Cerebellum might
play a role in attention resource allocation, perceptual
reorganization, and information retrieval. Tong et al. (2013)
found that the problem raised in the scientific invention context
also involved the left medial frontal lobe and the right
Cerebellum, in which the right cerebellum might cooperate
with the medial frontal lobe to regulate and allocate
attention resources. Houk (2005) supported the Cereb- ellum
was responsible for maintaining an individual’s ongoing
behavior or thought and provided corrective functions for ongo-
ing tasks. Li (2014) further found that the density of gray matter
in the posterior cerebellum of the high academic achievement
group was significantly higher than that of the Control Group,
which might reflect better language integration and
response inhibition in the high academic achievement group.
Therefore, this study concludes that when individuals pose
questions based on a problem situation that contains
contradictions, highly creative problem-makers make better use
of the cerebellum to keep the goal of questioning in mind,
allocate more attention to the contradictions or gaps in the
situation, reorganize these contra- dictions more deeply, and
then integrate language to find new and effective scientific
problems.
In this study, the question situation of the scientific
inven- tion with high ecological validity was used as the
experimental material, and the analysis method based on low
frequency amp- litude and static state function connection was
adopted with the Functional magnetic resonance imaging
technique to explore the brain mechanism of creative
scientific problems. The res- ults show that the validity of
the novel problem is realized through the cooperative
association between mPFC and other brain regions, which
provides some evidence for further rev- ealing the neural
mechanism of the scientific creative problem. Moreover, it is
the first study to analyze the problem of scient- ific invention
systematically by using the resting state data index.
 TONG DanDan et al.: The neural basis of scientific innovation problem
The current study also has some shortcomings, such as
using only the more basic analysis methods of the resting state
functi- onal magnetic resonance imaging and lack of other
modal magnetic resonance imaging and more complex network
analysis. Therefore, diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI),
Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM), and small-world network
can be used in fut- ure research to help us explore the neural
mechanisms of crea- tive scientific questions more
comprehensively. Besides, the current study is a cross-
sectional study with adults as partici- pants. In order to
explore the relationship between brain develo- pment and
creative problems, we should consider the Longitu- dinal study
with children and adolescents as subjects. Therefore, future
research can also be carried out longitudinal follow-up
studies to explore creative questions and propose changes
in brain mechanisms over time. In addition, brain activity is
inse- parable from the creative environment. To fully
describe the cognitive neural mechanisms of creative problems,
future rese- arch must also consider the interaction between
the brain and multiple environmental systems in the creative
process and conduct multi-level research.
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