The Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Laboratory (CNCL) at Penn State University studies the psychology and neuroscience of creative thinking.
Our lab uses a combination of behavioral, neuroimaging, and computational approaches to investigate the mechanisms underlying human creativity. We create open-access tools for evaluating creative thinking and examine creativity across diverse domains, such as music, science, and education.
Lab News
Dr. Beaty Gives a Talk at University of Amsterdam
Dr. Beaty recently presented a talk titled “Measuring and Enhancing Human Creativity with AI” at the University of Amsterdam! His talk highlighted how artificial intelligence is transforming creativity research, with new advances in automated creativity assessment, large-scale open-source testing platforms, human-level computational scoring methods, and experimental work on human–AI co-creativity.
CNCL Grad Student Wins Networking Award
Congratulations to Paul DiStefano for winning the Adele Miccio award from the Center for Language Science! He will be using this award to visit Dr. Maciej Karwowski and Dr. Izabela Lebuda at University of Wrocław in Poland. Great job Paul!
CNCL Grad Student Wins Dissertation Support Award
Congratulations to Clin Lai for receiving a Dissertation Support Award from the College of the Liberal Arts Research and Graduate Studies Office! This award, made possible through generous alumni donations, will help fund the third study in her dissertation, From Words to Networks: Examining the Network and Shape of Creative Collaborative Discourse. Great work, Clin!
Dr. Beaty Featured on NPR’s “Where We Live”
Dr. Beaty recently appeared as a guest on NPR’s Where We Live to discuss the science of creativity! The conversation explored how AI is changing the way we understand human creativity. You can listen to the full episode here!
CNCL Grad Student Wins STEM Fellowship
Congratulations to Simone Luchini for being awarded the Chateaubriand Fellowship in STEM! This fellowship aims to reinforce collaboration partnership or joint projects between French and American research teams. Simone will be using this to work with Emmanuelle Volle at the Paris Brain Institute. Great job Simone!
New Papers
New Paper Up for Preprint
Reet Patel and Dr. Beaty put up a new paper for preprint titled “The Bilingual Creative Metaphor Task: A Psychometric Assessment of Metaphor Production in English and Spanish”. Check out the paper here!
New Paper in Behavior in Research Methods
Dr. Patterson, Jimmy Pronchick, and Dr. Beaty recently published “CAP: The Creativity Assessment Platform for Online Testing and Automated Scoring” in the Behavior in Research Methods journal. Check out the paper here!
New Paper in Science of Learning
CNCL grad student Simone Luchini recently published a new paper in Science of Learning titled “Creativity supports learning through associative thinking”. Check out the paper here!
New Paper in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
CNCL grad student Simone Luchini recently published a new paper in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences titled “The Role of the Default Mode Network in Creativity”. Check out the paper here!
CAP Up For Preprint
Dr. Patterson, Jimmy Pronchick, and Dr. Beaty put up a new paper for preprint titled “CAP: The Creativity Assessment Platform for Online Testing and Automated Scoring”. Check out the paper here!