ArticleNature communications2018
Creative exploration as a scale-invariant search on a meaning landscape.
Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Is criticality a unified setpoint of brain function?Neuron · 2025Pooled it
- Harnessing Uncertainty: Improvisation as a Model for Rapid Behavioral Expansion.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Neural dynamics of semantic control underlying generative storytelling.Communications biology · 2025Article
- De-sync: disruption of synchronization as a key factor in individual and collective creative processes.BMC neuroscience · 2024Review
- Article
- Efficient Lévy walks in virtual human foraging.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Can knowledge accumulated in systems biology on mechanisms governing cell behavior help us to elucidate cognitive processes, such as human creative search? To address this, we focus on the property of scale invariance, which allows sensory systems to adapt to environmental signals spanning orders of magnitude. For example, bacteria search for nutrients, by responding to relative changes in nutrient concentration rather than absolute levels, via a sensory mechanism termed fold-change detection (FCD). Scale invariance is prevalent in cognition, yet the specific mechanisms are mostly unknown. Here, we screen many possible dynamic equation topologies, to find that an FCD model best describes creative search dynamics. The model further predicts robustness to variations in meaning perception, in agreement with behavioral data. We thus suggest FCD as a specific mechanism for scale invariant search, connecting sensory processes of cells and cognitive processes in human.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.