Neural Mechanisms of Episodic Retrieval Support Divergent Creative Thinking

In the paper

“Strikingly, during the past decade, episodic memory, and the neural processes that support it, have been found to be engaged during tasks beyond simple remembering that may also involve the retrieval and reconstruction of episodic details for completion, such as future thinking or simulation, decision making, and problem solving (for review, see Schacter et al. 2012;Moscovitch et al. 2016;Schacter”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The review describes episodic memory as supporting future simulations by extracting and recombining details of past experiences (Neural and cognitive similarities: A brief summary; page unavailable). It also reviews default-network activity during goal-directed planning and evidence linking episodic simulation to decisions and problem solving (The Default Network Can Couple Flexibly with Other Networks to Support Complex Goal-Directed Simulations; Concluding Comments and Future Directions; pages unavailable). (LLM, conf=0.91)

  cites Schacter et al. 2012 source
• Supported

  The section “Episodic Simulation, Problem Solving, Empathy, and Decision Making” describes overlap between the processes and structures used to retrieve episodic memories and to imagine future events. It also reports roles for episodic simulation in decision making and social problem solving, supporting the review claim. (LLM, conf=0.93)

  cites Moscovitch et al. 2016 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Schacter et al. 2017

In the paper

“the specificity (Ononye et al. 1993) and episodic detail (Addis et al. 2016) of imagined future events correlate with divergent thinking.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Ononye et al. 1993 source
• Supported

  The Addis et al. citation is attached to episodic detail, not specificity. In Results, the paper reports that all five divergent-thinking measures were significantly correlated with the amount of internal episodic detail in imagined future events. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Addis et al. 2016 source

In the paper

“such processes have typically been characterized as not very relevant for, or even a hindrance to, creative output.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Gilhooly et al. 2007 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Runco and Acar 2010 source
• Partly supported

  The Discussion (page not provided) says retrieving known ideas can be ineffective for generating highly creative ideas, which supports a narrower version of the hindrance claim. It does not say episodic memory processes have typically been characterized that way; instead, it describes constructing novel representations from episodic memory as part of effective creative idea generation. (LLM, conf=0.79)

  cites Fink et al. 2015 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Prior research has indicated that brain regions and networks that support semantic memory, top-down and bottom-up attention, and cognitive control are all involved in divergent creative thinking.”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Interim discussion links creative idea generation to semantic selection, and the General discussion links it to working memory and inhibitory top-down control. But the Introduction says generating original ideas requires a state not driven by external bottom-up stimulation; the paper does not support the claim that bottom-up attention is also involved. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Fink et al. 2009 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• Partly supported

  The Results and Discussion (page unavailable in our copy) link creative uncommon-use generation to posterior regions, distributed object representations, and perceptually driven attention. But the Discussion associates prefrontal filtering and cognitive control primarily with common-use retrieval, and suggests that such filtering can be counterproductive for generating uncommon uses. The source therefore does not support the claim that all the listed systems are involved in divergent creative thinking. (LLM, conf=0.85)

  cites Chrysikou and Thompson-Schill 2011 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Mayseless et al. 2015 source

In the paper

“To this end, previous behavioral work has indicated that ESI, compared with various control inductions that do not target episodic retrieval, improves subsequent performance on tasks that involve the retrieval and reconstruction of episodic details, such as episodic remembering and imagining (Madore et al. 2014), means-end problem solving (Madore and Schacter 2014) and divergent thinking (Madore”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2014
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore and Schacter 2014
• Supported

  Split into 2 atoms — 2 confirmed, 0 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

  cites Madore et al. 2015 source

In the paper

“and that episodic details from past (vs.future) events do not correlate strongly with divergent thinking (Addis et al. 2016).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Results section reports significant correlations between all five divergent-thinking measures and detail in imagined future events, but only one significant correlation for imagined past events. It also reports that the past–future difference was not statistically significant, so the source does not establish a strong contrast between them. (LLM, conf=0.86)

  cites Addis et al. 2016 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“To ensure a methodologically sound paradigm, we derived our parameters for main task trial number, length, and idea response mode from AUT fMRI studies (e.g., Fink et al. 2015 for trial number; Sun et al. 2016 for trial length; Abraham et al. 2012 for response mode) and from our previous induction fMRI study (Madore et al. 2016b).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The citation to Fink et al. is specifically for trial number, not trial length or response mode. The Methods section (Psychometric Tests; page not provided) reports 20 AUT trials and 20 control-task trials, for 40 trials total. (LLM, conf=0.93)

  cites Fink et al. 2015 source
• Supported

  Sun et al.’s “fMRI task” section describes an AUT trial in which participants had 20 seconds to generate uses for an object. The citing sentence uses Sun et al. specifically for trial length, not for trial number or response mode. (LLM, conf=0.92)

  cites Sun et al. 2016 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Abraham et al. 2012 source

In the paper

“With respect to divergent thinking, ESI increases the production of both old ideas from memory (e.g., novel uses of an object based on remembering a past experience involving that use) and new ideas from imagination generated for the first time during study”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The General Discussion reports preliminary data suggesting that ESI may boost both “old” and “new” ideas. The citing sentence presents that tentative finding as an established increase, although the paper says it requires more systematic investigation. (LLM, conf=0.87)

  cites Madore et al. 2015 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016a

In the paper

“Third, researchers have tended to downplay the role of episodic memory in divergent thinking and some have suggested that episodic retrieval is not very relevant for, and may even be a hindrance to, creative output (Gilhooly et al. 2007;Runco and Acar 2010;Fink et al. 2015).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Gilhooly et al. 2007 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Runco and Acar 2010 source
• Partly supported

  The Discussion says that retrieving unusual but already-known ideas is a less effective strategy for generating highly creative ideas. That supports the narrower point about relying on old ideas, but not the claim that episodic retrieval generally hinders creativity: the Discussion also describes effective creative generation as constructing novel representations from available episodic memory. Our copy provides no page number for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.86)

  cites Fink et al. 2015 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Both the AUT and OAT involve assembling, integrating, and generating information in response to an object cue, but the AUT involves divergent thinking and episodic imagery (Madore et al. 2015(Madore et al. , 2016a;;Addis et al. 2016).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The Experiment 1 Method (Materials; page not provided) says both tasks generate information in response to object cues. It describes the AUT as involving flexible recombination and divergent thinking, while the OAT involves divergent thinking or episodic imagery to a lesser degree. (LLM, conf=0.90)

  cites Madore et al. 2015 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016a
• Partly supported

  The Materials and Methods section (page unavailable) describes the AUT as generating multiple uses for an object, scored for divergent thinking. The paper also links AUT performance to detail in imagined episodes, but it does not establish that the AUT itself involves episodic imagery. Our copy does not describe the OAT or compare its processes with those of the AUT. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Addis et al. 2016 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“We ran Monte Carlo simulations with 10 000 iterations with estimated spatial autocorrelation values of 7.06-7.47 to yield parameters with a significance threshold of P < 0.05 corrected for multiple voxel-wise comparisons (Slotnick et al. 2003; see Thakral et al. 2017 for a recent example of this approach).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Slotnick et al. 2003 source
• Supported

  The citation identifies Thakral et al. as a recent example of the thresholding approach. In §2.3 (Image acquisition and analysis), the paper reports a 10,000-iteration Monte Carlo simulation used to set a cluster-extent threshold correcting voxel-wise comparisons to p < 0.05. Its spatial autocorrelation estimate was 11.13 mm; the citing sentence’s 7.06–7.47 values describe the citing authors’ own analysis, not Thakral et al.’s. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Thakral et al. 2017 source

In the paper

“An independent component where the spatiotemporal map represented the core network (including bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, angular gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and retrosplenial cortex/posterior cingulate; Benoit and Schacter 2015), and an independent component where the spatiotemporal map represented the frontoparietal control network (including bilateral lateral prefrontal”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The citation follows the citing sentence’s identification of the core network, rather than its reported coupling result. The Results section (page not available) identifies bilateral parahippocampal, medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate/retrosplenial, and posterior inferior parietal regions as core-network nodes; the Discussion also identifies precuneus among relevant network regions. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Benoit and Schacter 2015 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Vincent et al. 2008 source

In the paper

“Two raters blind to induction visually inspected the spatial patterns and timecourses of the 26 extracted components independently (see Kelly et al. 2010) and determined that 24 of the 26 components were nonartifactual (inter-rater agreement was 100% on which components were nonartifact and artifact).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The citation points to the visual-inspection procedure, not to the citing study’s counts or agreement rate. Kelly et al.’s Results examples describe classifying components by their spatial maps and time courses, and its Methods describe a separate rater’s labeling for an inter-rater reliability assessment. The 26 components, 24 nonartifactual classifications, and 100% agreement are presented as the citing study’s own results. (LLM, conf=0.91)

  cites Kelly et al. 2010 source

In the paper

“The entire 20 s duration of each trial was modeled because previous creativity fMRI studies have used this approach consistently with similar trial lengths (cf.Fink et al. 2009Fink et al. , 2010Fink et al. , 2012Fink et al. , 2015;;Sun et al. 2016).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Apparatus/EEG recording section (p. 738) describes a 20-second idea-generation interval, and the Analysis of MRI data section (p. 739) says the fMRI model covered idea generation without the response period. This supports Fink et al. (2009) as a precedent for modeling a similarly timed interval, but its trials also included a 20-second fixation period and a response period. This source alone does not establish that previous studies used the approach consistently. (LLM, conf=0.83)

  cites Fink et al. 2009 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fink et al. 2010 source
• Partly supported

  The fMRI task section describes 20-second task items, and the fMRI task analysis section says the task blocks were modeled with a general linear model. This supports Sun et al. as an example of a study using a similar trial length, but the paper does not establish that previous creativity fMRI studies consistently modeled the entire 20-second duration. (LLM, conf=0.82)

  cites Sun et al. 2016 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“We have recently suggested ( Schacter and Madore 2016; Madore et al. 2016b) that contributions of episodic memory to a variety of tasks beyond simple remembering, such as imagining the future, solving means-end problems, and thinking creatively, may be explained by an event construction account in particular, and we think that the patterns of data from the current study add novel support for this”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In the Concluding Comments (page not provided), Schacter and Madore propose that scene or event construction contributes to remembering, imagining the future, means-end problem solving, and creative thinking. The citing authors’ statement that their current study adds novel support is their own conclusion, not a finding attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.92)

  cites Schacter and Madore 2016 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016b

In the paper

“Previous AUT fMRI research (Abraham et al. 2012;Sun et al. 2016) has suggested that behavioral performance in the scanner correlates positively with output collection in a postscan interview”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Abraham et al. 2012 source
• Partly supported

  The fMRI task section reports that participants’ in-scanner responses were positively correlated with the number of ideas they provided after scanning (r = 0.81, P < 0.001). It says participants wrote down those ideas after scanning; it does not describe a postscan interview. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Sun et al. 2016 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“To minimize false positives that can occur with cluster-extent thresholding in fMRI analyses (see Eklund et al. 2016; but also see Cox et al. 2017), we adopted a computational method that does not employ a random-field theory approach, derived our spatial autocorrelation values from the respective group residual mean-square images, and used a conservative cluster defining threshold (i.e., P < 0.00”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Eklund et al. 2016 source
• Supported

  The citation is attached to the risk of false positives from cluster-extent thresholding, not to the citing authors’ description of their own analysis methods. Cox et al. state in “Inflated FPRs” (p. 2) that several cases showed significant false-positive-rate inflation, while emphasizing that its size varied and was often smaller with stricter voxelwise thresholds. (LLM, conf=0.91)

  cites Cox et al. 2017 source

In the paper

“This pattern of induction-related findings replicates and extends behavioral studies of divergent thinking (Madore et al. 2015(Madore et al. , 2016a)), and indicates for the first time that the ESI manipulation selectively affected divergent thinking performance in an fMRI setting but did not affect performance on an object control task.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The General Discussion reports that the specificity induction affected divergent thinking but had no comparable effect on the object association task. The sentence attributes those earlier behavioral findings to this source; it presents the fMRI result as the citing study's extension, not as a finding of the cited paper. (LLM, conf=0.92)

  cites Madore et al. 2015 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016a

In the paper

“we have previously hypothesized (Schacter and Madore 2016) that an experimental manipulation that facilitates detailed episodic retrieval and biases a specific retrieval orientation (Morcom and Rugg 2012) should likewise facilitate performance on subsequent tasks that nominally involve this sort of episodic processing for completion, in this case divergent thinking.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In “Distinguishing Episodic from Non-Episodic Processes,” the authors propose that a prior episodic specificity induction should affect performance on tasks relying on episodic memory. In “Using the Specificity Induction,” they explicitly predict improved divergent-thinking performance and report that participants generated more unusual uses after the induction. The Concluding Comments also describe the induction as biasing an episodic retrieval orientation toward specificity. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.93)

  cites Schacter and Madore 2016 source
• Supported

  The Introduction (page unavailable) defines retrieval orientation as a goal-directed way of processing cues and says it can increase retrieval of goal-relevant memories. The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that different task demands modulated recollection. The citation is attached to retrieval orientation; the prediction about subsequent divergent-thinking performance is presented as the citing authors’ own hypothesis, not as a finding of Morcom and Rugg. (LLM, conf=0.90)

  cites Morcom and Rugg 2012 source

In the paper

“That is, an episodic retrieval manipulation increased not only the retrieval of old ideas but the production of new ideas that were not associated with any one particular past experience, as in our previous induction-related behavioral work (Madore et al. 2015(Madore et al. , 2016a)).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The General Discussion (page not provided) says preliminary data suggest the induction may boost both “old” and “new” ideas. It also says the issue requires more systematic investigation; it does not establish that the new ideas were unrelated to any particular past experience. (LLM, conf=0.86)

  cites Madore et al. 2015 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016a

In the paper

“Neural effects of the episodic manipulation were consistent with behavioral effects of enhanced idea production on divergent thinking but not object association.”

In the paper

“Over 98% of uses across the sample were deemed appropriate by the raters.”

In the paper

“Task effects differed significantly as a function of induction, in that participants exhibited significantly greater BOLD activity in left anterior hippocampus, left inferior (i.e., ventrolateral), middle (i.e., dorsolateral), and superior frontal gyri, and left precentral”

• Also stated in: § Discussion · plain

  “Critically, and as hypothesized, following ESI relative to the control induction, participants exhibited significantly greater BOLD activity in the hippocampus during divergent thinking but not an object association control task that involves semantic imagery and little divergent thinking”

In the paper

“participants generated significantly more total uses that were also deemed appropriate and as fitting into distinct categories for those AUT cues that had come after ESI compared with the control but did not show significant induction-related differences in total objects generated for OAT cues (induction × task interactions: Fs[1, 31] > 5.91, Ps < 0.021, η p 2 s > 0.16)”

In the paper

“Behavioral pilot testing on a separate batch of participants (n = 12) where button presses were provided before later verbal responses about the button presses replicated this pattern.”

In the paper

“Participants also produced multiple responses per task per induction; a significantly greater number of such responses was produced for the OAT relative to the AUT (P < 0.001), as in previous work using related control tasks”

In the paper

“Over 98% of responses across the sample were considered objects by the raters.”

In the paper

“participants generated significantly more responses on the AUT following ESI relative to the control induction in the scanner, and did not differ in the number of responses generated on the OAT as a function of induction (induction × task interaction: F[1, 31] = 5.24, P = 0.029, η p 2 = 0.15)”

In the paper

“Relatedly, there was significantly less output in the postscan interview for the AUT and OAT than button presses in the scanner (P < 0.001), as in previous related fMRI work (Abraham et al. 2012), and this did not vary significantly as a function of induction (P = 0.68).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Abraham et al. 2012 source

In the paper

“Total uses were scored as”

In the paper

“Specifically, participants found generating AUT responses in the scanner to be somewhat difficult and OAT responses a little difficult; as in previous related work (Abraham et al. 2012), the AUT was rated as significantly more difficult than a related control task (P < 0.001).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Abraham et al. 2012 source

In the paper

“ideas generated following ESI and the control induction were both rated as”

In the paper

“Correlations between total output in the postscan interview for the AUT and OAT and total button presses in the scanner were also significantly positive (r = 0.67, P < 0.001 for AUT and r = 0.63, P < 0.001 for OAT).”

In the paper

“Episodic memory is a neurocognitive system that is classically characterized as supporting the recollection of past experiences specific to a time and place (Tulving 1983(Tulving , 2002)).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tulving 1983
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tulving 2002 source

In the paper

“Second, behavioral work has shown that particular episodic memories are drawn on infrequently during divergent thinking (Gilhooly et al. 2007)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Gilhooly et al. 2007 source

In the paper

“First, neuroimaging work that implicates the core network and medial temporal lobe subsystem in divergent thinking has not been linked specifically to behavioral indices of episodic retrieval.”

In the paper

“Moreover, medial temporal lobe structures have been associated with both semantic and episodic memory (Eichenbaum and Cohen 2001).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Eichenbaum and Cohen 2001 source

In the paper

“This induction did not facilitate detailed episodic retrieval and did not include mental imagery probes.”

In the paper

“In our previous work, the ESI has produced consistent increases in the episodic detail of remembered and imagined events as measured by the AI (Levine et al. 2002), as well as key generative measures of divergent creative thinking.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Levine et al. 2002 source

In the paper

“Imagined events contained more episodic-but not semantic-details following ESI and were not rated as more similar to past experiences or thoughts than imagined events following a control induction.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016b

In the paper

“The biasing of a specific retrieval orientation via ESI should show differential effects on subsequent tasks where an episodic retrieval orientation is invoked relative to tasks where it is not.”

In the paper

“The cues were divided into 4 lists of 18, and did not differ significantly with respect to number of syllables (M = 1.93,SD = 0.83) or words (M = 1.26,SD = 0.44) per cue.”

In the paper

“The logic of this approach is straightforward: cognitive tasks that involve episodic memory should be affected by an ESI when given prior to task completion, whereas cognitive tasks that do not involve episodic memory should not be affected by an ESI prior to task completion.”

In the paper

“The ESI was comprised of a set of questions derived from the Cognitive Interview (CI), a forensic protocol that has been found to reliably boost accurate details of eyewitness memory (Fisher and Geiselman 1992).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Fisher and Geiselman 1992

In the paper

“None of the cues were related to the content of the videos.”

In the paper

“Participants also generated their first response early in the 20 s trial window (e.g., 3-4 s) and their last response late in the trial window (e.g., 15-16 s); first and last reaction times did not vary significantly as a function of induction (Ps > 0.21).”

In the paper

“None of the participants had completed previous ESI experiments.”

In the paper

“This finding replicates and extends our previous fMRI results on ESI and future event simulation (Madore et al. 2016b) to divergent thinking, and lends support to current conceptual frameworks and data patterns focused on the role of the hippocampus in flexible cognition”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Madore et al. 2016b

In the paper

“Participants gave written informed consent and were treated in a manner approved by Harvard University's ethics committee.”

In the paper

“It should be noted that we did not examine BOLD activity associated with each particular button press within each trial because differences emerged for this variable on the alternate uses task as a function of induction, which could skew results in terms of the number of trials modeled per induction.”

In the paper

“Five additional participants completed the study but were excluded from analyses due to excessive movement in the scanner (n = 4) or task noncompliance (n = 1).”

In the paper

“All reported results are derived from statistical parameters that survive a significance threshold of P < 0.05 corrected for multiple voxel-wise comparisons or multiple component comparisons, respectively.”

In the paper

“Participants rated themselves as engaged on task for at least 17 out of 18 trials per task per induction during scanning (Ps > 0.12).”