The (b)link between creativity and dopamine: Spontaneous eye blinkrates predict and dissociate divergent and convergent thinking

摘要

Human creativity has been claimed to rely on the neurotransmitter dopamine, but evi-dence is still sparse. We studied whether individual performance (N= 117) in divergentthinking (alternative uses task) and convergent thinking (remote association task) can bepredicted by the individual spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR), a clinical marker of dopami-nergic functioning. EBR predicted flexibility in divergent thinking and convergent thinking,but in different ways. The relationship with flexibility was independent of intelligence andfollowed an inverted U-shape function with medium EBR being associated with greatestflexibility. Convergent thinking was positively correlated with intelligence but negativelycorrelated with EBR, suggesting that higher dopamine levels impair convergent thinking.These findings support the claim that creativity and dopamine are related, but they alsocall for more conceptual differentiation with respect to the processes involved in creativeperformance.