Marcela Ovando-Tellez

Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives (IMN) · Groupe d’Imagerie Neurofonctionnelle

Researchers and educators interested in creative writing need a reliable and efficient tool to score the creativity of narratives, such as short stories. Typically, human raters manually assess narrative creativity, but such subjective scoring is limited by labor costs and rater disagreement. Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable succe...

The associative theory of creativity proposes that creative ideas result from connecting remotely related concepts in memory. Previous research found that higher creative individuals exhibit a more flexible organization of semantic memory, generate more uncommon word associations, and judge remote concepts as more related. In this study (N = 93), w...

Understanding complex phenomena often requires analyzing high-dimensional data to uncover emergent properties that arise from multifactorial interactions. Here, we present EMUSES (Emerging-properties Mapping Using Spatial Embedding Statistics), an innovative approach employing Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) to create high-dime...

Creative problem-solving is central in daily life, yet its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Restructuring (i.e., reorganization of problem-related representations) is considered one problem-solving mechanism and may lead to an abstract problem-related representation facilitating the solving of analogous problems. Here, we used network science...

Creative ideas emerge from searching, reorganizing, and combining ideas or concepts within memory. This involves an interplay between associative and controlled processes. How these processes occur during memory search varies between individuals and how they relate to creative abilities remain unclear. Here, we explored the neurocognitive correlate...

Problem-solving often requires creativity and is critical in everyday life. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative problem-solving remain poorly understood. Two mechanisms have been highlighted: the formation of new connections among problem elements and insight solving, characterized by sudden realization of a solution. In this...

What drives us to search for creative ideas, and why does it feel good to find one? While previous studies demonstrated the positive influence of motivation on creative abilities, how reward and subjective values play a role in creativity remains unknown. This study proposes to characterize the role of individual preferences (how people value ideas...

Creativity research commonly involves recruiting human raters to judge the originality of responses to divergent thinking tasks, such as the alternate uses task (AUT). These manual scoring practices have benefited the field, but they also have limitations, including labor-intensiveness and subjectivity, which can adversely impact the reliability an...

Associative thinking plays a major role in creativity, as it involves the ability to link distant concepts. Yet, the neural mechanisms allowing to combine distant associates in creative thinking tasks remain poorly understood. We investigated the whole-brain functional connectivity patterns related to combining remote associations for creative thin...

Associative thinking plays a major role in creativity, as it involves the ability to link distant concepts. Yet, the neural mechanisms allowing to combine distant associates in creative thinking tasks remains poorly understood. We investigated the whole-brain functional connectivity patterns related to combining remote associations for creative thi...

What drives us to search for creative ideas, and why does it feel good to find one? While previous studies demonstrated the positive influence of motivation on creative abilities, how reward and subjective values play a role in creativity remains unknown. This study proposes to characterize the role of individual preferences (how people value ideas...

Creative ideas likely result from searching and combining semantic memory knowledge, yet the mechanisms acting on memory to yield creative ideas remain unclear. Here, we identified the neurocognitive correlates of semantic search components related to creative abilities. We designed an associative fluency task based on polysemous words and distingu...

COVID-19 took us by surprise. We all had to face the lockdown and pandemic that put us in a new context, changing our way of life, work conditions, and habits. Coping with such an unprecedented situation may have stimulated creativity. However, the situation also restricted our liberties and triggered health or psychological difficulties. We carrie...

Associative theories of creativity argue that creative cognition involves the abilities to generate remote associations and make useful connections between unrelated concepts in one’s semantic memory. Yet, whether and how real-life creative behavior relies on semantic memory structure and its neural substrates remains unclear. We acquired multi-ech...

Creativity is a high-level cognitive function at the basis of various domains of human activity. However, this human capacity, while essential to face the challenges of our society as well as our daily lives, is still poorly understood. Previous research indicates that individual differences in semantic memory structure and processes contribute to...

While problem-solving is central in our daily life, its underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Restructuration (i.e., reinterpretation and reorganization of problem-related representations) is theoretically considered as one such mechanism, yet empirical evidence supporting it is scarce. We investigated restructuration as a mechanism underly...

Problem-solving often requires creativity and is critical in everyday life. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying creative problem-solving remain poorly understood. Two mechanisms have been highlighted: forming new connections from and between the problem elements and insight solving (with a sudden realization of a solution). We examine...

Creative cognition relies on the ability to form remote associations between concepts, which allows to generate novel ideas or solve new problems. Such an ability is related to the organization of semantic memory; yet whether real-life creative behavior relies on semantic memory organization and its neural substrates remains unclear. Therefore, thi...

Categorization-whether of objects, ideas, or events-is a cognitive process that is essential for human thinking, reasoning, and making sense of everyday experiences. Categorization abilities are typically measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) similarity subtest, which consists of naming the shared category of two items (e.g., 'Ho...

Creativity is a high-level cognitive function that is central to our ability to cope with change and solve novel problems, enabling extraordinary accomplishments as well as adapting and flourishing in everyday life. Neuroscientists usually define creativity as the ability to generate productions that are both original and appropriate. Only a few pa...

COVID-19 took us by surprise. We all had to face a new situation never encountered before and find new solutions to the problems it generated, either related to the disease or the lockdown's consequences. The lockdown and pandemic crisis caused new issues and placed us in an entirely new context, changing our way of life, work time and conditions,...

The associative theory of creativity suggests that creative abilities rely on the organization of semantic associations in memory. Recent research has demonstrated that semantic network methods allow testing this hypothesis. The aim of the current study was to investigate the properties of semantic networks at the individual level, in relation to c...

Individual creativity, defined as the ability to achieve a production that is both original and appropriate, results in part from mental operations that may be related to the functioning of the brain. The challenge in this field of research is to understand what these operations are, and what cerebral networks underlie them. Although these question...

Psychological and recent neuroimaging findings indicate that creativity relies on a balance between associative thinking likely supported by the default mode network and cognitive control processes sustained by control-related networks including frontoparietal regions. Exploring patients with brain lesions allows testing this model and ascertaining...