Sex differences in processing of humor and creativity: An effective connectivity study
Poster No:
593
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Chia-Yueh Chang1, Han-Hsing Hsieh2, Hsueh-Chih Chen1, Yu-Chen Chan2
Institutions:
1National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei City, Taiwan, 2National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Previous studies on creativity have emphasized active thinking processes (Fink & Neubauer, 2006). Grounded in the methodologies proposed by Chan et al. (2023) and Chan (2023), this study adopts a passive appreciation approach to examine the experimental framework. The present study employs dynamic causal modeling with parametric empirical Bayesian (DCM-PEB) analysis to explore sex differences in the effective connectivity underlying humor and creativity processes.
Methods:
Participants
Participants in this study were 72 healthy right-handed people with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders, and 36 men (mean age = 24.06 ± 3.59 and 36 women, mean age = 22.94 ± 1.95). The study was approved by the research ethics committee of National Tsing Hua University.
Stimuli
The present study involves three types of pictorial stimuli: humor, creativity, baseline. Each picture consisted of two stages: setup and punch line. The behavioral study was conducted to that the humor, creativity and baseline pictures were valid as stimuli. In total, 96 pictures were used, divided into three types, with 32 stimuli per type.
Experimental paradigm
The present study used a 2 (sex: male, female) × 3 (type: humor, creativity, baseline) two-way mixed design using an event-related fMRI paradigm. Each participant viewed 96 trials in total. The experiment included four runs, presented in a balanced order across participants. Each run lasted approximately 9 minutes. fMRI scans were performed using a 3T Siemens Magnetom Prisma scanner (Erlangen, Germany).
Data analysis
This study employed dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate the effective connectivity among four selected nodes: the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and amygdala within the dopaminergic reward network, the precuneus within the default mode network (DMN), and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) within the executive control network (ECN). Effective connectivity was estimated using DCM implemented in SPM12.
The first-level (subject-level) analysis involved specifying a DCM for each participant, followed by a second-level (group-level) analysis using parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) to derive the connectivity parameters (Friston et al., 2016). In the DCM-PEB analysis, humor processes were modeled with funniness ratings and creativity processes with novelty ratings as covariates.
Participants in this study were 72 healthy right-handed people with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders, and 36 men (mean age = 24.06 ± 3.59 and 36 women, mean age = 22.94 ± 1.95). The study was approved by the research ethics committee of National Tsing Hua University.
Stimuli
The present study involves three types of pictorial stimuli: humor, creativity, baseline. Each picture consisted of two stages: setup and punch line. The behavioral study was conducted to that the humor, creativity and baseline pictures were valid as stimuli. In total, 96 pictures were used, divided into three types, with 32 stimuli per type.
Experimental paradigm
The present study used a 2 (sex: male, female) × 3 (type: humor, creativity, baseline) two-way mixed design using an event-related fMRI paradigm. Each participant viewed 96 trials in total. The experiment included four runs, presented in a balanced order across participants. Each run lasted approximately 9 minutes. fMRI scans were performed using a 3T Siemens Magnetom Prisma scanner (Erlangen, Germany).
Data analysis
This study employed dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate the effective connectivity among four selected nodes: the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and amygdala within the dopaminergic reward network, the precuneus within the default mode network (DMN), and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) within the executive control network (ECN). Effective connectivity was estimated using DCM implemented in SPM12.
The first-level (subject-level) analysis involved specifying a DCM for each participant, followed by a second-level (group-level) analysis using parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) to derive the connectivity parameters (Friston et al., 2016). In the DCM-PEB analysis, humor processes were modeled with funniness ratings and creativity processes with novelty ratings as covariates.
Results:
The results showed that effective connectivity during humor and creativity varied by sex. For humor, with funniness ratings as a covariate, males had stronger connectivity from the amygdala to the VTA (amygdala → VTA) and from the VTA to the precuneus (VTA → precuneus) than females. For creativity, using novelty ratings as a covariate, males exhibited stronger connectivity from the VTA to the precuneus (VTA → precuneus), whereas females showed stronger connectivity from the amygdala to the VTA (amygdala → VTA) (Figures 1 and 2).
·Figure 1. Sex differences in amygdala activation patterns associated with humor and creativity processes.
·Figure 2. Modulatory effects in the B matrices.
Conclusions:
The findings revealed sex-specific differences in effective connectivity during humor and creativity appreciation. For humor, after controlling for funniness ratings, males exhibited stronger connectivity from the amygdala to the VTA than females, suggesting that humor appreciation in males may involve an initial positive emotional response followed by reward system activation. Furthermore, males exhibited stronger connectivity from the VTA to the precuneus, implying that males may engage in social cognition to interpret others' intentions during humor appreciation.
For creativity, after controlling for novelty ratings, males showed stronger connectivity from the VTA to the precuneus compared to females, possibly indicating greater reliance on internally directed attention when evaluating novel creative stimuli. Conversely, females showed stronger connectivity from the amygdala to the VTA than males, suggesting that females may engage in the reward system following an evaluation of the appropriateness of creativity.
For creativity, after controlling for novelty ratings, males showed stronger connectivity from the VTA to the precuneus compared to females, possibly indicating greater reliance on internally directed attention when evaluating novel creative stimuli. Conversely, females showed stronger connectivity from the amygdala to the VTA than males, suggesting that females may engage in the reward system following an evaluation of the appropriateness of creativity.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Neuroscience Other 2
Emotion and Motivation Other 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural)
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
BOLD fMRI
Keywords:
Cognition
Emotions
FUNCTIONAL MRI
NORMAL HUMAN
Other - Humor
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
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Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Chan, Y. C., Zeitlen, D. C., & Beaty, R. E. (2023). Amygdala-frontoparietal effective connectivity in creativity and humor processing. Human Brain Mapping, 44(6), 2585-2606. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26232
Fink, A., & Neubauer, A. C. (2006). EEG alpha oscillations during the performance of verbal creativity tasks: Differential effects of sex and verbal intelligence. International journal of Psychophysiology, 62(1), 46-53.
Friston, K. J., Litvak, V., Oswal, A., Razi, A., Stephan, K. E., Van Wijk, B. C., ... & Zeidman, P. (2016). Bayesian model reduction and empirical Bayes for group (DCM) studies. Neuroimage, 128, 413-431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.11.015