Study of the effects of alpha/theta neurofeedback and heart rate variability biofeedback on emotional and cognitive creativity in elementary school children

There are hundreds of ways to develop creativity among children, youths and adults. Developing new ideas and ways of teaching creativity should incorporate the interests and hobbies of children and young adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of alpha/theta neurofeedback and heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback on emotional and cognitive creativity in elementary school children in the citly of Isfahan.
The sample consisted of 90 children who participate in the research vulnarably. Participants were randomly assigned to control five experimental groups. Emotional and cognitive creativity were measured by Torrance’s Test of Creativity and Averill’s Emotional Creativity Inventory. The experimental groups participated in 15 HRV biofeedback sessions, 15 alpha/theta neurofeedback sessions. It was hypothesized that each of these methods increases creativity and also have differetnt effects on emotional and cognitive creativity and their components in the experimental groups.
The result of analysis of variance of repeated measures showed that these methods significantly increased emotional and cognitive creativity and their components (p alpha/theta neurofeedback increased cognitive creativity, and heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback increased emotional creativity.