Tale of Self Discovery Part 8

Creativity Increases Linked To Alpha Feedback Training

Part 8 - continued from part 7
[Published in Megabrain Reports, May, 1994, edited for the web]
James V. Hardt, Ph.D.
The Biocybernaut Institute

Creativity is an area of personal excellence, mental giftedness, and mental mastery, and it is of profound importance culturally, figuring as a principle component of international competitiveness and economic success for countries and for individuals. Some excellent early work on the relationship between creativity and Alpha brain waves has been done by Collin Martindale, who declares:

"Creativity is a matter of having the right brain waves. When creative people go to work on an imaginative task, their Alpha jumps... "

Collin Martindale, 1975

The key question is whether learning Alpha increases through feedback training will increase creativity. The creative process has four stages: Application (learning the information and problems in a field), Incubation (letting acquired knowledge gel), Inspiration (flash of insight, creative synthesis, Aha experience), and Elaboration (polishing and testing).

I believe that Alpha feedback training is most relevant to the Incubation and Inspiration stages of the creative process. Martindale and his associates have provided both good and bad writings on Alpha and creativity. The good is found in enlightening background reports (1973, 1977, 1978, 1984), and the bad is found in confusing and badly designed Alpha feedback studies of creativity (1974, 1975).

Martindale's excellent background reports show that highly creative people differ remarkably from normal people in their EEG Alpha activity. When told to rest (baselines), the minds of creative subjects remained activated. At rest they actually showed less Alpha than non creative subjects, who did relax and whose brains deactivated, in resting conditions. On the other hand, when given creative problems to solve, creative subjects shifted their brains into high Alpha in order to solve the problems quickly and creatively.

Non creative subjects made no such upward shifts in Alpha, and actually decreased their Alpha if they concentrated. Non creative subjects blocked Alpha (meaning Alpha went away) on all types of cognitive tasks, but creative subjects blocked only on tasks not allowing for creativity, and actually increased Alpha during tasks calling for or allowing creativity.

Creative subjects showed higher Alpha during the Inspiration phase of the creative process than they did during the following Elaboration phase. During creative performance tasks, creative right handed subjects showed increases of left hemisphere Alpha. Non creative right handed subjects did not show this shift to left hemisphere Alpha during these creative performance tasks. Intriguingly, this increase of left brain Alpha is also reported prior to peak performance in golfers putting, archers and gunners shooting, and basketball players at free throw (Allman, 1992).

Given these remarkable Alpha differences between creative and non-creative people, it is natural to ask, "Does Alpha EEG feedback improve creative performance? " Martindale's Alpha feedback studies (1974, 1975) are unable to provide useful answers to this question, because they failed to employ the effective methodology I have recommended on several occasions (Hardt, 1974, 1990), and therefore are fatally flawed. Some of the major flaws in Martindale's methodology included: use of Percent Time Alpha measures, and too little Alpha enhancement feedback time (7 1/2 minutes in one study, 8¹/₃ minutes in the other). In the later case, his subjects were required to train eyes open and to alternate between enhancement and suppression every 100 seconds. Bad feedback designs led Martindale to results which were inconclusive, difficult to interpret, and which blocked his efforts to extend his otherwise excellent work in this area.

However, we can consider the Alpha feedback and creativity study by Hardt & Gale (1993) which did follow the published design recommendations, and which also used a control group in addition to Pre- and Post- feedback tests of creativity to see if creativity could be increased through Alpha feedback training. Both the Alpha feedback and the control groups were also given Pre- and Post- tests of subjective stress, and were also monitored Pre- and Post- for stress responses using the peripheral physiological modalities of EMG, EDR, heart rate, skin temperature, and respiration rate.

There were seven experimental subjects who were all scientists at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), who volunteered for a pilot program of EEG Alpha feedback training. There were also six control subjects who were corporate professionals, also from Silicon Valley, approximately age matched, who volunteered for biofeedback training. All subjects were volunteers, who had two physiological stress tests, one at the beginning of the week [pre training for the Alpha group] and a second one at the end of the week [post training for the Alpha group]. Between their two stress tests the control subjects simply did their normal daily routines.

There were some remarkable results. On the first day of Alpha training, during the Alpha enhancement feedback, one of the 7 SRI scientists experienced a Break-Through Insight on a difficult problem in his research. In fact, he had been struggling with this problem for several years. He was so eager to apply his new insights to his research immediately (Elaboration), that he dropped out of training at the end of the first day, leaving only 6 SRI experimental Alpha feedback subjects. He had gotten the benefit he wanted in just one day of Alpha feedback training, even though he was thereafter lost to the research study.

The first step of data analysis compared experimental and control groups on their Pre-tests to see how well the two groups were matched (significance is p<.05). The two groups were very well matched on all three types of Pre-tests (Creativity, Subjective stress, the Signals of Stress Inventory [SOSI], and Physiological stress measures).

There were no significant differences between the 2 groups in Pre-test levels of subjective stress [SOSI]; moreover there were no significant differences in Pre-training test of Ideational Fluency (creativity-of-ideas); there were no significant differences in Pre-training test of Verbal Fluency, and no significant differences in 4 of the 6 peripheral modalities (EMG frontalis, EMG trapezius, skin temperature, and heart rate). Only EDR and respiration rate showed any differences between the two groups. Initial EDR was higher in the Alpha group, but only in the first resting condition of the first session. Respiration rate was slower in the Alpha group, but only in the two rest conditions and the auditory startle stress.

The second step of data analysis compared experimental and control groups on the Post training-tests to detect possible influences of Alpha feedback training through changes in creativity of ideas, verbal fluency, subjective stress, and physiological measures of stress.

Creativity Results. Creativity scores (Ideational Fluency) in the Alpha feedback group increased dramatically after 5 days of Alpha training. This increase was highly significant (paired t=5.3057, df=5, p<.004). The control group had no significant changes up or down. Verbal fluency scores (Associational Fluency) for the control group decreased significantly, while the Alpha group had a non significant increase.

Subjective Stress Results. Stress scores on the SOSI decreased an average of 57.6% for the Alpha feedback group in the course of their Alpha training. This Alpha-related stress reduction was very highly significant (paired t=6.636, df=5, p<.001). The control group, after just waiting for a week, had an average 5% increase in SOSI scores, which was not significant.

Physiological Stress Test Results. Electro-Dermal Response (EDR) was selected for analysis, as it discriminated most clearly. The Alpha group and the control group showed significantly different EDR reactions after the intervening week, which had Alpha training for the Alpha group, and no training for the control group.

In four different conditions the Alpha group showed declines in EDR stress responses, while the control group showed increases. These distinguishing conditions were: Emotional stress (t=2.8037, df=10, p<.02), Auditory Startle stress (t=2.4024, df=10, p<.05), and both of the rest conditions in the stress test, First Rest condition (t=3.0578, df=10, p<.02), and Final Rest condition (t=2.8603, df=10, p<.02).

The control group's significant decline on verbal fluency (Associational Fluency), and the non significant increase in the Alpha group may suggest the second test was harder, and only the Alpha-trained subjects could resist lower scores. Besides the creativity increases associated with Alpha training, it is also apparent that Alpha training markedly reduced stress in the Alpha group, which had a very highly significant reduction (p<.001) in subjective stress on the SOSI. In addition, the Alpha group showed decreases in EDR stress responses in 4 out of 5 conditions, , while the control group actually showed increases.

These findings invite comparison with Hardt & Kamiya's (1978) report in Science that Alpha feedback reduces anxiety in high anxiety subjects. Further studies are needed for confirmation, but these results already fit well into consistent contexts provided by Martindale for creativity and by Hardt & Kamiya for anxiety reduction. This study, by itself, suggests that there are at least two different categories of beneficial results from feedback training to increase EEG Alpha: increased creativity and reduced anxiety.

How do we interpret these remarkable findings? The highly significant increase in creativity of ideas (Ideational Fluency) in the Alpha feedback group suggests that it may be possible for a wide range of people to become more creative. If supported by further studies, this finding could have exciting implications for the conduct of daily life, and the development of human culture.

The U.S. Congress has designated the 1990s as "The Decade of the Brain ", recognizing that the brain, and the development of the mind, have become the new frontier of human exploration. Some societies, like Germany and Japan, are quick to adopt new processes that promise better performance and greater perfection. They will certainly recognize the potential of this EEG feedback process to improve their most valuable resource, the minds of their people. Other societies may suffer competitive disadvantages and economic decline to the degree that they lack the resources and the vision to make this technology and process broadly available to their citizens.

We now have the opportunity and the responsibility to integrate four areas of knowledge. These four areas of knowledge will figure significantly in our future success at all levels ranging from our individual success to our national and cultural success and our success as a species confronting problems of global change, which require responses which are rapid, creative, and wise:

1. Hardt & Kamiya's (1978) Alpha feedback report that learned increases in Alpha will reduce stress and anxiety.
2. Allman's (1992) report that certain patterns of increased Alpha (and sometimes Theta) precede, and appear to enable, moments of peak performance.
3. Hardt's recent (1993) findings that 7 consecutive days of Alpha feedback can produce patterns of EEG changes seen in the most advanced Zen meditators (both Alpha and Theta changes).
4. Hardt & Gale's (1993) report that creativity can be increased in scientists through Alpha feedback training.

Self discovery topic end.