Creativity has been in steady decline since the 1990s. This is an area of significant concern because creative ability is considered to be among the most important skills for national prosperity in the 21st century. Action needs to be taken to reverse this decline in creativity and engineers in particular should be included in these efforts because they are often faced with coming up with innovative solutions to many of our modern-day problems, such as addressing climate change through green engineering and improving global health and well-being via nanotechnologies and bioengineering. The National Academy of Engineering has specifically noted that there is a need for training creative, as well as competent, engineers. But, students graduating from engineering fields are lacking creative ability even though creativity and innovation are hallmarks of engineering.

Some neuroimaging studies have been conducted to investigate the neurological side of creativity in engineers. Many of these studies focus on areas of the brain that are active during design tasks, ideation, or concept generation. Another way of investigating creativity is through the use electroencephalography (EEG). EEG is a temporal, rather than spatial technique, so it is often used to examine different bands of brain activity, such as alpha band (8-13 Hz), during different tasks. However, there is another EEG technique known as event-related potential (ERP) that has not been utilized extensively. ERPs are useful signals that are time-locked to a stimulus and provide a step-by-step visualization of brain processes at each electrode during a trial while also providing high, millisecond-scale temporal resolution of brain activity.

Given these shortcomings, this research poses two primary research questions: 1) “Is the N400 component of engineers modulated when assessing the novelty and appropriateness of an item function?” and 2) “How does exposure to ideas via an Object-Function Relationship Task (OFRT) impact alpha band activity during design problem ideation?” From these two questions, there were two corresponding experiments conducted to answer them. One utilizes the methodology of a previous study and, because research in the area is limited, narrows down the general focus to investigate results from individuals solely in engineering. This experiment will examine the N400 and post-N400 ERP components of engineers – these are the negative peaking potentials around 300-500ms and 500-900ms post-stimulus, respectively. These ERPs are investigated via OFRTs, which is similar to an alternative usage task (AUT) but with specific differences. While recording EEG, the participant is shown a word of an object in conjunction with a potential function for that object. The participant then decides if the given function is novel and appropriate by pressing corresponding buttons. By doing this, they are selecting which of three categories (common, creative, or nonsense) they believe the item/function pair belongs in.

The second is a design problem and design ideation experiment that consists of a two-part trial entailing design problems and the OFRT as an intervention. That is, OFRT will be presented either before or after the design problem. Then, because this is a two-part design, the order of presentation is switched later on. This experiment will examine the alpha band activity of participants while coming up with solutions to design problems. Participants will be given a design problem and, while EEG is recorded, will ideate solutions to a given situation. After fully ideating a design, the participant then sketches the design and will move on to the next ideation phase for a different solution, if they have another.

After experimentation, conclusions about the primary questions were drawn. With respect to Question 1), the N400 component of engineers is not significantly modulated when assessing novelty and appropriateness of an item function. Even though these results are not significant, the averaged N400 potentials followed similar trends to those found in literature. With respect to the Question 2), there were significant increases in alpha band activity and power when the OFRT was presented before a design task.

Overall, the aim of this research is to investigate the neuro-responses of engineers via the OFRT and during design ideation. The proposed research, in terms of the OFRT study, will be the first of its kind with respect to engineering. The other half of this research is also unique and will provide insight in to creativity to better understand the neuro-responses of engineers. However, it is important to note that these experiments can be thought of as pilot studies rather than full-scale experiments due to the small number of participants. This limitation and inability to recruit a larger number of participants was due to the conditions, most notably the pandemic. In the future, there is potential to conduct a large-scale study as well as different type of experiments concerning creativity in engineering.