Creativity is generally defined as the ability to produce novel and useful responses (Runco & Jaeger, 2012). Creative thinking, which is the core of creativity, can be divided into divergent and convergent types (Guilford, 1957). Divergent thinking (DT) refers to the ability to seek diversity in answers, whereas convergent thinking (CT) refers to the ability to seek uniqueness. Simultaneously, creativity allows us to respond effectively to challenges in life. To explore an effective way of improving creativity, researchers have discussed the association between executive functions and creative thinking, especially for working memory (Nusbaum & Silvia, 2011).

Working memory (WM) refers to a memory system with limited temporary storage and information processing capacity (Baddeley, 1992). Previous researchers have explored the correlations between WM and DT and CT (Cropley, 2006), and the link between WM and creative thinking pertaining to most tasks involving these (Zhao et al., 2021). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) researchers have consistently found that the prefrontal cortex might be the overlapping neural mechanism for creative thinking and WM (Chrysikou, 2019; Vartanian et al., 2013). Furthermore, diffusion tensor imaging studies have found WM has a parietal lobe white matter microstructure similar to that of creative thinking (Takeuchi et al., 2010).

However, the volume of research on WM and creativity may be overwhelming for researchers who are initially entering this field. In addition, research on visualization of this topic is lacking. Bibliometrics uses quantitative methods combined with various techniques from scientific mapping, information visualization, and text mining to study the evolution of this field of study (Broadus, 1987). It can assess studies’ quality, analyze the key areas of research, and predict the direction of future studies by analyzing publication data, such as author and keywords (Li & Yan, 2018). The literature on WM and creativity provides rich data resources for bibliometric research. Therefore, to provide a reference for those initially entering this field of research, in this study we explored the literature on WM and creativity using bibliometric analysis.

Method

We used data in the relevant literature from the Web of Science (WOS) core collection (https://www.webofscience.com, accessed on April 1, 2022). Prerequisites for the search were as follows: (TS = “working memory” and “creative”) or (TS = “working memory” and “creative thinking”) or (TS = “working memory” and “convergent thinking”) or (TS = “working memory” and “divergent thinking”), where TS is the topic, time spans are unlimited, the language is unlimited, and the literature type is journal articles. We retrieved 305 literature records and exported their full texts and cited references as a plain text file to form the data for the VOSviewer. Data included author(s), title, journal, abstract, keywords, cited references, citation count, year of publication, language, organization, country, and document type.

VOSviewer (version 1.6.18) is a text-mining software tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks. It was created by van Eck and Waltman (2010). SCImago graphica (version 1.0.17) is a new tool for exploration and visual communication of data that allows us to create artistic and complex visualizations without programming. Two standard weight attributes are applied: link strength attribute and total link strength attribute. Nodes of VOSviewer represent information such as authors, organizations, countries, and keywords in the network map. The larger the node, the higher the frequency of research, and the curved lines between nodes represent cooperative and co-occurrence relationships.

Results

VOSviewer Analyses

Number of Article Publications

Highly Cited Journals

Coauthorship

Cooperative Organizations

Cooperative Countries

Popular Topics

Frontier Trend Topics

Discussion

We analyzed 305 articles on WM and creativity indexed in the WOS core database and found that the number of published articles shows a rapid linear growth trend. The United States is one of the most significant research countries in this topic, with the largest number of publications and citations, and the closest cooperation with other countries. The University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina System, Harvard University, and Stanford University communicate more frequently with other organizations. Roger E. Beaty has one of the largest numbers of published articles. This shows that research in this field is dominated by Western countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Austria. In addition, the cooperation and communication among organizations in the research on this topic is not frequent. The University of Graz in Austria ranks No. 1 and has 14 articles highly cited 1,044 times; however, they cooperate less strongly with other organizations (total link strength is 7). Thus, we should strengthen the sharing resources and complementary advantages in future research. For example, we could establish an in-depth cooperation mechanism between organizations to facilitate resource sharing and complementary advantages.

Research on popular topics indicates that the neurocognitive mechanisms of WM and creativity are the subject of intense research in behavioral and brain sciences. Compared with behavioral studies in the field, neural mechanisms have received the most attention. fMRI, a noninvasive technique that can use blood as a proxy for measuring neuronal activity within the brain, has played a role in functional brain mapping since the 1990s (Smith, 2012). Around 2014, the researchers applied fMRI to this field to locate its brain regions. For example, the prefrontal cortex being a common neural mechanism for WM and creativity has been confirmed (Chrysikou, 2019; Vartanian et al., 2013). For the frontier trends of this topic, resting state functional connectivity enables us to know how brain regions within and between networks interact, which is a way to compensate for fMRI (Takeuchi et al., 2012).

To our knowledge, this is the first study to use a VOSviewer based on the relevant literature to explore the literature on WM and creativity. The results not only provide a comprehensive reference from journals, authors, organizations, countries, hot topics, and frontier trends but also facilitate researchers who have initial contact with this field to carry out their study more rapidly. Moreover, the conclusion of the research frontier trend suggests that the neural mechanism of WM and creativity is a future trend, so multimodal brain imaging methods (e.g., structural aspects, regional gray matter volume/density, cortical folding, and thickness) will become the research direction in this field.

Although the research results are highly reliable, this study has limitations. In particular, we used only the WOS core database as the bibliometric data source and did not select other databases, such as the American Psychological Association and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Additional literature from different databases could be used in future research.

References

This research was supported by the Young Doctoral Program of Higher Education Foundation in Gansu Province (2021QB-013) and the Key Scientific Research Project for Double World-Class Initiative in Gansu Province (GSSYLXM-01).

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Peng Lu on request.

Dandan Tong, School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, 967 East Anning Road, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]