Despite substantial progress in the quest of demystifying the brain basis of creativity, several questions remain open. One such issue concerns the relationship between two latent cognitive modes during creative thinking, i.e., deliberate goal-directed cognition and spontaneous thought generation. Although an interplay between deliberate and spontaneous thinking is often implicated in the creativity literature (e.g., dual-process models), a bottom-up data-driven validation of the cognitive processes associated with creative thinking is still lacking. Here, we attempted to capture the latent modes of creative thinking by utilizing a data-driven approach on a novel continuous multitask paradigm (CMP) that widely sampled a hypothetical two-dimensional cognitive plane of deliberate and spontaneous thinking in a single fMRI session. The CMP consisted of eight task blocks ranging from undirected mind wandering to goal-directed working memory task, while also included two widely-used creativity tasks, i.e., alternate uses task (AUT) and remote association task (RAT). Using eigen-connectivity (EC) analysis on the multitask whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) patterns, we embedded the multitask FCs into a low-dimensional latent space. The first two latent components, as revealed by the EC analysis, broadly mapped onto the two cognitive modes of deliberate and spontaneous thinking, respectively. Further, in this low-dimensional space, both creativity tasks were located in the upper right corner of high deliberate and spontaneous thinking (creative cognitive space). Neuroanatomically, the creative cognitive space was represented by not only increased intra-network connectivity within executive control and default mode network, but also by higher coupling between the two canonical brain networks. Further, individual differences reflected in the low-dimensional connectivity embeddings were related to differences in deliberate and spontaneous thinking abilities. Altogether, using a continuous multitask paradigm and a data-driven approach, we provide initial empirical evidence for the contribution of both deliberate and spontaneous modes of cognition during creative thinking.

尽管在探索创造力的大脑基础方面取得了实质性进展，但仍有几个问题悬而未决。其中一个问题涉及创造性思维过程中两种潜在认知模式之间的关系，即刻意的目标导向认知和自发的思维产生。尽管在创造力文献（例如，双过程模型）中经常涉及深思熟虑和自发思考之间的相互作用，但仍然缺乏对与创造性思维相关的认知过程的自下而上的数据驱动验证。在这里，我们试图通过在新的连续多任务范式 (CMP) 上利用数据驱动的方法来捕捉创造性思维的潜在模式，该范式在单个 fMRI 会话中广泛采样了一个假设的有意和自发思考的二维认知平面。CMP由8个任务模块组成，从无方向的思维游荡到目标导向的工作记忆任务，同时还包括两个广泛使用的创造力任务，即交替使用任务（AUT）和远程联想任务（RAT）。使用对多任务全脑功能连接 (FC) 模式的特征连接 (EC) 分析，我们将多任务 FC 嵌入到低维潜在空间中。EC 分析揭示的前两个潜在成分分别广泛映射到刻意和自发思考的两种认知模式。此外，在这个低维空间中，两个创造性任务都位于高度刻意和自发思维（创造性认知空间）的右上角。神经解剖学上，创造性认知空间不仅表现为执行控制和默认模式网络内网络内连接的增加，而且表现为两个典型大脑网络之间的更高耦合。此外，反映在低维连接嵌入中的个体差异与深思熟虑和自发思考能力的差异有关。总之，使用连续的多任务范式和数据驱动的方法，我们为创造性思维过程中故意和自发的认知模式的贡献提供了初步的经验证据。反映在低维连接嵌入中的个体差异与深思熟虑和自发思考能力的差异有关。总之，使用连续的多任务范式和数据驱动的方法，我们为创造性思维过程中故意和自发的认知模式的贡献提供了初步的经验证据。反映在低维连接嵌入中的个体差异与深思熟虑和自发思考能力的差异有关。总之，使用连续的多任务范式和数据驱动的方法，我们为创造性思维过程中故意和自发的认知模式的贡献提供了初步的经验证据。