Creativity in and out of (cognitive) control

Abstract

The neurobiological mechanisms supporting cognitive regulation during creative thinking have been at the forefront of recent research on creative cognition. This work has revealed tradeoffs between activity in prefrontal executive control systems and posterior or subcortical brain regions, typically thought to comprise the brain's default mode network. This review will offer a critical summary of the recent literature on the costs and benefits of cognitive control mechanisms for creative thinking, proposing an interpretation of these seemingly conflicting findings in the context of the complexity and diversity of executive control functions.