“有效性”和“新颖性”被认为是创造性的两个本质特征，任何一件产品、一项思维活动或问题解决过程，只有当其既新颖又有效时，才被认为是创造性的。但迄今为止，人们对这两种特征的心理与脑科学信息加工过程却所知甚少，更少有研究致力于对这两方面特征的内部表征过程进行系统的实验分离。本项目拟采用认知心理学以及脑功能成像技术，通过设置“新颖有效”、“新颖无效”以及“常规有效”等多种实验条件并在它们之间进行比较的方法，对参与“新颖性”和“有效性”表征的认知神经过程进行分离，以期深入揭示创造性的本质。鉴于创新和创造性思维形式的多样性，本项目拟以顿悟问题解决、创造性产品、多用途任务以及创造性情绪调节等不同创造性领域为例，揭示多种创新形态中的“有效性”和“新颖性”的认知神经科学表征方式。

Usefulness and novelty are well recognized as the two essential features in creative thinking or innovation. Any product or design, or any way of thinking or problem solving could be regarded as “creative” only when it is both novel and useful. However, it is unclear how these two features are distinctively processed by cognitive brain systems, and there is still no systematic investigation devoted to dissociate these two components essentially contained in creative thinking. In this proposal, we plan to use behavioral and fMRI approaches to dissociate the neural correlates underlying the processing of usefulness and novelty, we plan to do so through setting the conditions of “novel and useful” (problem solving or design), “novel but useless”, and “ordinary and useful” and making contrasts among them. In order to get a relatively comprehensive understanding on the neural basis of usefulness and novelty, we designed several studies for separating the usefulness and novelty in different forms of creative thinking and innovations, including insight problem solving, innovative product, alternate uses task, as well as creative emotion regulation.