Neurocognitive spotlights: Configuring domains for ideation

Creativity is an important attribute of the human mind, and shows itself in all aspects of its function. However, its neural basis remains poorly understood. In this paper, we explore two issues with regard to creativity in the semantic domain: 1) What neural mechanism enable the brain to construct context-specific semantic spaces to facilitate the generation of relevant ideas? and 2) Can these mechanisms support greater creativity simply by exploring unusual semantic spaces? We use a variant of our previously developed neural model of ideation to show that a dynamical modular neural system can, indeed, learn to configure context-appropriate semantic domains based on experience, and that exploratory dynamics within this system can lead to the unmasking of novel emergent ideas.