Nandor Ludvig, Translational Neuroscience Consultation, USA

This paper introduces the basic design of a novel neuroscientific device named Creativity Monitoring Device, CMD, able to provide new insights into the brain mechanisms of artistic, scientific and engineering creative acts. The novelty of the device is threefold. First, it allows the artifact-free recording of association cortical EEG waves during such creative acts as painting artistic visions, composing music, running novel experiments in a laboratory or working on an engineering invention. Second, it allows the synchronous monitoring of the sounds and visual events in the environment of such actions along with the artist’s, scientist’s or engineer’s verbal and non-verbal interactions with this environment and his or her own notes on the engaged creative phase. Third, it allows the offline analysis of the synchronously collected EEG and audio-visual data with the new method of dynamic neurocombinatorics, which can reveal at 2 msec accuracy the relationships between the recorded objects of 5 sets: (1) the spatial occurrence codes of the recorded association cortical EEG waves; (2) the complexity codes of each of the recorded 0.2 - 200 Hz EEG waves; (3) the codes of the synchronously recorded environmental events including those of the subject’s verbal and non-verbal interactions with this environment; (4) the subject’s own dictated notes identifying the phase of the engaged creative act, and (5) the time-course of these continuously recorded objects within each of the indicated sets over the entire, at least 10-hour, creativity monitoring period. Thus, CMD studies should reveal the key electrical brain changes underlying the initiation, maintenance and termination of creative acts and should show the similarities and differences between artistic, scientific and engineering creativities.

Artifact-free EEG headset, Wearable environment monitor, Dynamic Neurocombinatorics.