Towards a unified neurobiological theory of creative problem solving

Very little work in psychology has tried to simultaneously tackle the representational problem and the search problem in creative problem solving. Unifying these two fields is critical, because building and searching the problem space may be highly interactive activities that cannot be decoupled and studied in isolation. In addition. neuroscientific explanations of creative problem solving have been elusive. In this article, we propose an integrative biological theory called Neuro-EII to address these problems. Neuro-EII is based on the Explicit-Implicit Interaction (EII) theory of creative problem solving. Like EII, Neuro-EII is implemented using the CLARION cognitive architecture and can be used to simulate behavioral data. We present simulation results of a lexical decision task and use Neuro-EII to generate testable neuroscientific predictions. We conclude by discussing how the Neuro-EII theory can contribute to solving the seemingly intractable problem of identifying the brain circuit(s) supporting creative problem solving.