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Dissociable neural systems for analogy and metaphor: Implications for the neuroscience of creativity
Author(s) -
Vartanian Oshin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02073.x
Subject(s) - analogy , metaphor , creativity , psychology , neuroimaging , cognition , cognitive science , functional magnetic resonance imaging , cognitive neuroscience , cognitive psychology , neural correlates of consciousness , functional neuroimaging , neuroscience , epistemology , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics
Two recent reviews of the neuroimaging literature on creativity have pointed to inconsistent findings across studies, calling into question the usefulness of the theoretical constructs motivating the search for its neural bases. However, it is argued that consistent patterns of neural activation do emerge when the cognitive process and the neuroimaging method are kept uniform across studies. To demonstrate this empirically, the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method was used to conduct quantitative meta‐analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments of analogy and metaphor – two processes related to creativity and included in the recent reviews. The results demonstrated that analogy and metaphor reliably activate consistent but dissociable brain regions across fMRI studies. The implications of the findings for cognitive theories of analogy and metaphor are discussed. Furthermore, these results demonstrate that to the extent that creativity has heterogeneous sources, its neural instantiation will vary as a function of the underlying cognitive processes.