Psychology researcher Darya Zabelina has received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research to study creative decision making under time constraints. The work could ultimately guide how military personnel are trained to make quick and effective battlefield decisions.

Zabelina was contacted by the Navy due to her research into how processes such as creative cognition and imagination are linked with attention and other executive functions. That type of research is especially relevant in a constantly changing world, she said. 

“Former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said the most predictable thing we can say about the future is that it will be unpredictable,” Zabelina said. “And with the current COVID-19 situation, that seems to be even more true. It's important that we realize how unpredictable things are, and that's why they're interested in harnessing the power of creative thinking, because it seems to be what will get us to where we need to go.”

Zabelina plans to study creativity at varying time scales, from giving people seconds, days or weeks to complete a creativity task. The research will include both civilians and military personnel on active duty. She plans to use electroencephalogram headsets to monitor brain activity while participants are performing tasks.

Zabelina’s past work has shown that certain types of creativity are associated with certain types of attention. People with “leaky” attention, meaning they find it difficult to concentrate on a single task for a sustained period, are creative in different ways than those with very focused attention, she said. “We find that people who are good at coming up with creative ideas on the spot are really good at focusing their attention, whereas people who show long-term real-world creativity have more leaky attention,” she said.

Once researchers are able to link certain types of creativity at different time scales with certain types of attention, the final step will be to develop training protocols around creativity.

“We're going to see whether we can train attention to benefit creativity at a particular time scales,” Zabelina said.

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