“Adaptive Decision-Making “Fast” and “Slow”: A Model of Creative Thinking”
The late Daniel Kahneman introduced the concept of fast and slow thinking, representing two distinct cognitive systems involved in decision-making (DM).
Fast thinking (System 1) operates intuitively and spontaneously. In contrast, slow thinking (System 2) is characterized by deliberation and analytical reasoning.
Following Kahneman’s view, called the biases view, we suggest a framework involving the interplay between two systems, the bottom-up and top-down approaches.
These two approaches involve various modalities, including learning skills, perception, cognition, attention, and emotion. Accordingly, we incorporate temporal modulation, which varies based on individual differences and accounts for adaptive DM. Our overarching framework elucidates how the brain dynamically allocates resources for adaptive DM and how creative mental processes could drive it. We highlight the immense value of interdisciplinary research collaboration in progressing the empirical research of our proposed framework.
The explore–exploit dilemma is a central theme in DM and foraging literature. By framing novelty-seeking within this trade-off, we can draw parallels between broader DM scenarios and foraging choices. Humans utilize directed and random exploration to navigate DM dilemmas, suggesting that novelty-seeking behaviors can influence choices even in more static contexts. Gottlieb et al. emphasized the role of curiosity in driving exploratory behavior and DM across various contexts.
The ability to flexibly switch between exploration and exploitation and between inhibition and disinhibition during novelty-seeking tasks is essential for characterizing creative abilities.
This perspective may provide a theoretical foundation on how novelty affects decisions beyond traditional foraging scenarios, i.e., creative DM. Traditional literature on general DM is often framed around rationality and optimality, which may only partially capture the complexities of foraging behavior. Researchers such as Kahneman and Gigerenzer have critiqued the focus on optimality, advocating for a more realistic understanding of how people make choices based on bounded rationality (BR) and heuristics.
Adaptive behavior in DM can elucidate the connection between rationality, uncertainty, novelty, and the interplay of fast and slow thinking. An abundance of novel stimuli in uncertain contexts may result in cognitive overload, affecting information processing. Individuals engage in adaptive DM, influenced by various external factors, including the physical environment surrounding humans and animals. The blue dashed arrow between rationality and uncertainty signifies the differing perspectives of behavioral economics and ecological disciplines.
Novelty fosters exploration and learning, while uncertainty increases the demand for additional information; nevertheless, novelty and uncertainty are interconnected through adaptation.
From an evolutionary point of view, both fast and slow thinking can have benefits or downsides concerning survival and reproduction. While fast DM can be advantageous in uncertain environments, it may be suboptimal in more complex situations where slow analytical thinking pays off. Evolutionary biases may have served as cognitive shortcuts, enabling our ancestors to make quick decisions with limited information in specific situations. Access to more information can assist individuals in avoiding relying on heuristics based on past experiences when making inferences. Moreover, it is crucial to consider the other side of the coin by viewing human societies as an environment of adaptive values that influence the evaluation of individual behavior. Imitation is a prevalent tactic in humans, even observed in preverbal newborns. This tendency plays a significant role in cultural transmission and the evolution of social norms. Only a few individuals are committed to improving cultural practices, such as folklore, to promote cultural adaptation. As a result, human societies have an advantage over other social animals, as cultural adaptation occurs significantly faster than genetic adaptation.
This framework encompasses two systems—clustering and switching—alongside temporal modulation, which includes fast versus slow thinking and bottom-up versus top-down approaches that account for individual differences. Clustering is primarily associated with fluency and originality, while switching is related to dual pathways of creativity. The flexible, creative pathway leans towards fast switching, and the persistent, creative pathway favors slow switching. Novelty-seeking is closely linked to flexible switching and dual pathways.
The dual system of bottom-up and top-down approaches integrates multiple modalities, such as learning skills, perception, cognition, attention, and emotion. These modalities symbolize a trade-off between spontaneous versus deliberate modes, local versus global attention, narrow versus broad cognitive thoughts, uncertainty versus certainty, and exploratory versus exploitative learning skills. These trades vary among individuals. The dual bottom-up and top-down processes govern dynamic competition between motor and nonmotor loops. Key brain regions, including the cortex, striatum, pallium, and thalamus, are involved in these loops.
The flow of information spans from the cortex to the striatum, to the pallium, to the thalamus, and back to the cortex through the thalamus. This dynamic competition exemplifies the brain’s ability to allocate resources adaptively, respond to environmental demands, and ultimately enable adaptability and efficient functioning in DM.
This dual system (bottom-up and top-down) includes several modalities: learning skills, perception, cognition, attention, and emotion. The trade-offs within these modalities can be described by several contrasts: spontaneous versus deliberate modes, local versus global attention, narrow versus broad cognitive considerations, and exploitative versus exploratory learning strategies. We propose that individual differences significantly affect the degree of variation observed in this trade-off. Through this dual system, the brain functions engage in a dynamic competition between motor and nonmotor loops, which coordinate and integrate these functions. The interconnected loops comprise the cortex, striatum, pallium, and thalamus. Information flows from the cortex to the striatum, then to the pallium, followed by the thalamus, and ultimately returns to the cortex via the thalamus. These competitive dynamics accentuate the brain’s ability to adaptively allocate resources according to environmental demands to promote efficient DM processes.
This dynamic interaction characterizes the adaptive DM framework, which complements the frameworks in previous figure. Each phase encompasses four modalities: motor, sensory, limbic, and cognitive, with each modality serving distinct functional roles, as shown in the corresponding boxes with smooth versus dashed red lines. The sensory modalities in both phases, such as auditory and visual, are coupled with different modulator profiles, including transfer ranges and persistence information.
Novelty emerges as a fundamental factor in DM processes and should be integrated into this framework. It is necessary to distinguish between two forms of novelty: organismal and environmental.
Organismal novelty refers to the intrinsic characteristics of an organism that may affect its DM processes.
Conversely, environmental novelty refers to new or unfamiliar stimuli or contexts that an organism encounters; this novelty can stimulate exploration and shape DM strategies.
An organism’s phenotypic novelty—cognitive flexibility, openness to experience, and learning from past experiences—can impact how it interacts with the environment and adaptively processes information. Interestingly, the interplay between organismal and environmental novelty is reciprocal. An organism’s capacity to adapt to or embrace novelty can influence how it perceives and interacts with its environment. Novel stimuli may trigger specific neural pathways associated with exploration and curiosity. Novelty-seeking behaviors can drive exploration during sequential DM tasks, and it should be noted that novelty is not necessarily a surprise. Research emphasizes the significance of cognitive flexibility in adaptive DM, indicating that individuals with greater cognitive flexibility are more adept at navigating novel situations and making effective decisions.
While novelty is often used interchangeably with new information, it can imply a broader scope: unprecedented situations or stimuli that do not merely represent new information but require creative responses or problem-solving. Thus, it could encompass complex scenarios that necessitate the development of new cognitive schemas.
Our proposed framework offers an integrative perspective on adaptive DM, emphasizing the interplay of novelty, fast and slow thinking, and creative thinking. We elucidate the construction of adaptive DM in the context of creative thinking by incorporating the concepts of clustering and switching. Transitions between these modes reflect shifts between top-down and bottom-up approaches and adequate communication between flexible learning and persistent stereotypical phases.
While emphasizing novelty in foraging decisions holds substantial value, clarifying how this knowledge can be applied to the contexts of adaptive DM is essential.
By focusing on the explore–exploit trade-off and integrating neurobiological perspectives, we can examine the role of novelty in foraging underlying adaptive DM scenarios. Although the evolutionary framework for adaptive DM could serve as a valuable tool for comprehending this process across various species, applying two systems to animals must be cautiously approached and warrants further discussion. Therefore, researchers should consider constructing more sophisticated models that accurately echo the adaptive DM strategies among different species.
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