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Is the creativity of lovers better? A behavioral and functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning study

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Abstract

Love is an innate human emotion and an eternal theme in artistic and scientific works. However, the question of how love affects people’s behavior and the underlying neural mechanisms remains unanswered. This study examined the performance of lovers while solving group creative tasks and revealed the cognitive neural mechanisms of this process. We used a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning approach to measure simultaneously interpersonal brain synchronization in lover dyads and stranger (heterosexual) dyads during the realistic presented problem (RPP) task. The behavioral results found that originality and fluency in the lover dyads were significantly higher than in the stranger dyads. Moreover, compared to the stranger group, the behavioral index of cooperation was significantly higher in the lover dyads. Significantly increased interpersonal brain synchronization was observed at the frontopolar cortex (FPC) and right temporo- parietal (rTPJ) junction when the lover group was solving the RPP task. Furthermore, in the lover group, interpersonal brain synchronization was positively correlated with cooperation performance and RPP originality. These data indicate that lovers had more advantages in interaction and cooperation, and this contributed to the solving of group creative problems. Our findings provide the first cognitive neuroscience evidence for how romantic relationships affect creativity.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China grant (32071078), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (GK201902011, 2019TS140), Key project for Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Towards Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University (2018-05-009-BZPK01, 2020-05-009-BZPK01), and Learning Science Interdisciplinary Project of Shaanxi Normal University.

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Correspondence to Haijun Duan.

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The author declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

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All procedures performed in the study were authorized by the Academic Committee of the Ministry of Education of Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Shaanxi Normal University in China.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before the experiment.

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Duan, H., Yang, T., Wang, X. et al. Is the creativity of lovers better? A behavioral and functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning study. Curr Psychol 41, 41–54 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01093-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01093-5

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