Impact of Competitive Conditions on Amplitudes of Event-Related Potentials during Verbal Creative and Noncreative Task Performance

Brain activity changes significantly under various conditions of social interaction. However, the impact of the context of social interactions on neurophysiological correlates of cognitive and creative activity per se has not been sufficiently addressed. Two polar types of interactions can be distinguished when solving tasks, cooperation or competition. This study was aimed to assess the impact of competitive conditions on the amplitudes of event-related potentials (ERPs) when solving creative and noncreative tasks. The subjects (26 males, 18 females) performed two types of tasks as individuals or dyads (male–male, female–female): a creative task to think up an unusual uses of simple everyday objects, and a noncreative task to enumerate objects from the presented categories. In each of the tasks, ERPs were compared during its competitive (dyadic) and individual performance. Competitive conditions led to a decrease in amplitudes of the components P1 and P2, as well as N400 and P600, during both creative and noncreative tasks, suggesting the difficulty of finding an answer. The percentage of answers found was also significantly lower under conditions of competitive versus individual task performance. Apparently, cognitive resources, when performing a task under social interaction conditions, are directed toward the assessment of partner's responses and answers, as manifested in a decreased amplitude both of the earlier attention-related ERP components (P1, P2) and the later components related to semantic processing (N400, P600).