Pinpointing Creativity In the Brain 85
The Times Online has a lengthy story about the work being done to solve mysteries regarding the brain and various aspects of neuroscience. They discuss some of the "brain-training" myths and look at the quest to determine when and where creative thought originates. Quoting:
"In fact, the whole process seems to be centred on one small part of the brain: the anterior superior temporal gyrus. This seems to be the point at which bits of information stored far apart in the brain are brought together. This may be an important clue as to how the brain organises itself. But it's only the beginning. At Goldsmiths College in London, Dr Joydeep Bhattacharya says the real issue is not the 'Aha!' moment itself, but the way it is produced in the brain and how we recognise it. 'We need to know the brain processes involved, to find how this moment is strong enough to reach consciousness. We know insight does not come from the sky.' This is the problem with all neuroscience. We don't really know what we are seeing."
Creativity a gift, or learned? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sometimes, you need some pressure to create.
We're not all limitless pools of creativity - it takes pressure to get the best out of some of us.
It's all down to motivation, I think - those who are motivated to create will do regardless (I remember those days), and the rest of us need a push to get out what's in there.
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Completely wrong. Stress increases focus on a singular task, while creativity needs to look at how many bits fit together.
Re:Creativity a gift, or learned? (Score:5, Informative)
Completely wrong. Stress increases focus on a singular task, while creativity needs to look at how many bits fit together.
Cortisol [wikipedia.org], commonly referred to as the stress hormone. I believe is less about focus and more about creating memory for difficult or life threatening situations. Of course that only works when the stress is short term. Nowadays... well you know...
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I don't think your post is offtopic at all. There's a lot of truth to the old proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention." And you can certainly have necessity when you're in a deadline situation. There are plenty of people around who create artificial deadlines for themselves by procrastination or other means. Too much stress can stifle creative thought. Occasional stress may help solutions or approaches bubble up into conscious thought. Otherwise, why do we all still enjoy watching "MacGuyver?" (ahem)
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"He disagreed and said creativity comes from pressure and deadlines."
I disagree, creativity comes from simply spending time on a problem. There are many problems that take years of sitting on before one comes to a conclusion in many fields, where a person has worked on a problem off and on in their spare time. Much 'creativity' is just as much spending time doing combinations in a random/blind search as anything else.
If we had the ability to take what was imagined in a persons mind and directly translate
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Your comment is nearly spot-on. Creativity comes from obsession. Albert Einstein was quoted attributing his success to his passion rather than his natural talent. And there is no question as to whether Isac Newton was obsessed with his work. No one got their work done in a day, in fact, even though you can learn some of their accomplishments in less than a week (sometimes faster), it took them years to create and perfect. Although there is always a defining moment that they realize something, there is alway
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Well, Douglas Adams famously enjoyed deadlines... :-)
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That's the necessity as the mother of invention aspect. There are similar thoughts such as: "give a man a good wife and he is happy, give a man a bad wife and he becomes a philosopher."
In addition to pressure and deadlines, you also need resources and some luxury of time - intelligence, knowledge, and usually materials. Early man had pressure and deadlines to get the next meal all the time, he didn't do a lot of invention.
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Necessity is the mother of all invention....small British expression....take it as you will, although for me it definitely states not that it "can or can not be taught", but more so,
the conditions are present for it to flourish.
This article is a mess (Score:4, Informative)
This is some sloppy neuroscience journalism for sure. For example, Phineas Gage *didn't* recover, he was left with an altered and uncontrolled psyche by his tamping rod accident--they missed the entire point of his story.
The article is a wandering slop of poorly presented and disparate facts.
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They also picked an unfortunate example here:
"The discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953 was a clear example of convergent thinking â" the one correct answer was a double helix."
Watson's story of the discovery moment of the double helix is a classic example of just the opposite: he says he was in a dream-like state and he saw the double helix floating in front of him.
Correct. Crick took LSD and saw DNA structure. (Score:4, Interesting)
BY ALUN REES
FRANCIS CRICK, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced thedouble-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years ago.
The abrasive and unorthodox Crick and his brilliant American co-researcher James Watson famously celebrated their eureka moment in March 1953 by running from the now legendary Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to the nearby Eagle pub, where they announced over pints of bitter that they had discovered the secret of life.
Crick, who died ten days ago, aged 88, later told a fellow scientist that he often used small doses of LSD then an experimental drug used in psychotherapy to boost his powers of thought. He said it was LSD, not the Eagle's warm beer, that helped him to unravel the structure of DNA, the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize.
See http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/francis_crick_dna_lsd.html
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I didn't think this story was so bad compared to many I've read. Maybe my standards have been beaten down to nothing by the state of science reporting. But we can expect a lot of poorly written and misleading stories about neuroscience this week, due to SfN (the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, taking place right now in DC).
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This is some sloppy neuroscience journalism for sure. For example, Phineas Gage *didn't* recover, he was left with an altered and uncontrolled psyche by his tamping rod accident--they missed the entire point of his story.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] disagrees with you.
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... a wandering slop of poorly presented and disparate facts.
From my observation, this is an accurate description of the field of Neuroscience in general.
Brain Workshop (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
But don't despair: Susanne Jaeggi, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, may be able to help. She has devised a brain-training game that actually works. It's a strange, complex game involving sequences of squares on a computer screen, and it definitely improves "fluid intelligence" - the part of your mind that deals directly with the raw newness of experience or, as defined by Jaeggi, "the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge".
Here is a link [pnas.org] to the abstract of her study. And the project Brain Workshop [sourceforge.net] has released an open source version of the game used in the study.
Re:Brain Workshop (Score:4, Insightful)
âoeThereâ(TM)s no empirical evidence that these games produce improvements,â says Nancy Andreasen
That may very well be the case but are they forgetting about the Placebo effect a game like Brain Age might induce? Or for that matter, isn't using your brain in any active matter preferable to just letting it sit idle and passive in front of say, a tv?
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You're right - there's plenty of evidence that using your brain in ANY way helps to avoid deterioration. I think they're talking about specific claims: the that game will help prevent Alzheimer's, or the game will improve your brain function more than something else, like reading a book. That doesn't come across in the article very well though. Of course, the whole article is a bit incoherent. Or perhaps I just wasn't in the right altered mental state while reading it.
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I'm the author of Brain Workshop [sourceforge.net], an implementation of Suzanne Jaeggi's Dual N-Back task. The scientific basis of the dual n-back task differentiates it from regular Brain Age-type games. I highly encourage everyone to try it out. There is currently more research underway to confirm the positive effects on short term memory and fluid intelligence.
Brain Workshop works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is completely free.
Join the Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence [google.com] forum & mailing list for som
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AHA! (Score:5, Funny)
So they are not looking for the 'Aha! moment', but for the 'Aha!, an Aha! moment'... I feel some sort of recursive problem arising.
wait...
AHA!
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Pipe Wrench Fight!
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The only AHA i can think of is A-HA
Now i have that literal version of "take on me" stuck in my head.
Dr. Joydeep (Score:5, Funny)
I think I've found my new porn star name!
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What was your old one?
FTFA: the the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 (Score:2, Interesting)
FTFA:
Neuroscience, creativity and the brain (Score:5, Insightful)
Without having read the study, my contribution is that it's still early to concede that any particular part of the brain is the center of creativity, or that psychology actually has a specific definition for creativity.
My own work focused on a different squiggly piece of cortex, called the Prefrontal Cortex, that is implicated in a range of abstract thinking processes, including those that don't seem to emerge until later adolescence.
The good Doctor does seem to have an important insight in his work, which is that the locus of creativity (probably) starts much earlier than a thought present in our conscious mind.
One possible idea is that our brain is constantly combining and recombining disparate data stored in memories; the presence of a creative thought is a novel combination that, when applied to a specific problem, results in a novel and perhaps workable solution.
And, in finishing, I would agree that short-term training is unlikely to produce creativity, unless a) the training is extremely specific and b) the test is extremely specific, in which case I would wonder whether we're measuring creativity.
Overall, however, scientific processes (MRI, etc) are so rough that it will be quite some time before we're able to actually "explore" and "find" the center of whatever creativity really is, and identify how it differs from other, more pedestrian thought processes.
Cheers,
--Dave
Re:Neuroscience, creativity and the brain (Score:5, Interesting)
Without having read the study, my contribution is that it's still early to concede that any particular part of the brain is the center of creativity, or that psychology actually has a specific definition for creativity.
Ditto on not reading the article. I do however read a lot of Scientific American in it's various flavors. And I encourage you all to read SciAm: Mind Volume 19, Number 5, Oct/Nov 2008: Page 67. It's an article on how "colorful scans have lulled us into an oversimplified conception of the brain as a modular machine". Quite simply to try and suggest there is a creativity center when so many processes in the brain can be involved, and with as little as we really know, is as absurd to me as announcing they found a copy of the "Windows Task Manager [wikipedia.org]" in the brain.
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Hmmm....*hooks up brain-USB interface*
$ cd
$ ls -al TASKMAN.EXE
-rwxrw-rw- 1 morgan users 15360 2001-08-23 08:00 TASKMAN.EXE
Hmmmm...very curious. This one appears to be from Windows XP...
Explains a lot I suppose...
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$ cd
$ ls
dev core.10002 core.10003 core.10004 core.10005 core.10006
$ cd dev/
$ ls -lha
drwxr-xr-x 22 kooty users 4.0K 2008-10-14 10:18
drwxr-xr-x 22 kooty users 4.0K 2008-10-14 10:18
crw-rw-rw- 1 kooty users 1, 8 2008-10-06 18:29 random
AHA! That explains it
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Re:Neuroscience, creativity and the brain (Score:4, Informative)
One thing you have to remember is that those colourful scans are basically showing p-values. The coloured bits are the parts that are statistically associated with some stimulus to some significance threshold.
fMRI can't even image anything except change, and even then, if you look at the raw data you get something MUCH more complex than the neat little statistical blobs.
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Thanks for the link to Windows Task Manager [wikipedia.org] there. I can't believe I've been hanging out on /. for so many years and no one's mentioned it before! Such a wonderful resource, how did I ever cope with out it before?
In the spirit of reciprocation; did you know Windows comes with a built in Calculator [wikipedia.org]. Marvelous stuff.
You can access it by clicking on that Start do-hicky and erm...Programmes and...well you sound like an intellegent sort of guy, you'll find it.
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One possible idea is that our brain is constantly combining and recombining disparate data stored in memories
Sounds a lot like dreams to me!
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The simplest thought could be creative for a given person given their experiences and the exact same thought for someone else would not be deemed creative due to a different set of experiences. How then can anyone judge the "creativeness" of a thought without having a complete knowledge of the entire past experiences of a person?
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I find the entire subject rather dehumanizing. We are constantly being further reduced to mere chemicals. Due to certain institutions and a desperate society, drugs now replace life experience and the freedom to choose anything for ourselves.
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We are constantly being further reduced to mere chemicals.
No, we are not reduced in any way: we stay the same. The models that describe how we work are being r
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I wouldn't be surprised if humour plays a big role in creativity.
I believe humour is made when you make unexpected connections in your mind. That's partly why hearing the same joke over and over isn't funny anymore, or why not all jokes are funny to everyone.
Of course, laughter feels good as does making others laugh.
Seeking out more of that good feeling drives us to make new connections that make ourselves and others laugh. In the process, we come up with creative ideas.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
So what would happen if... (Score:1)
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More complicated than that. And, nothing's localized so precisely that you can selectively remove one function completely while leaving all others intact.
What the article doesn't mention (out of scope, really) is that they've found differences between the hemispheres when it comes to this kind of creative thought. Specifically, they've found that remote associations between concepts (things that are related but in an abstract way you'd rarely think of) cause activity in the right-hemisphere parts, whereas l
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nothing's localized so precisely that you can selectively remove one function completely while leaving all others intact.
Tell that to Henry M's [wikipedia.org] doctors. They might disagree with you that it's possible to go in and remove the ability to build new semantive declarative memories while sparing procedural & implicit ones.
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I would imagine it would be like when someone tries to pull several "overnighters" where they work late each night until they are completely mentally exhausted, and end up writing garbage code. They make connections, but the wrong ones, so they end up coming in the next day, looking at the design, and wondering what on earth they were trying to achieve with twenty lines of glue code, when a handful of functions was all that was required.
There was guy who had his hypothalamus destroyed due to ill health. Thi
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He also would hide his own easter eggs.
I love this article... (Score:1, Insightful)
Just for this little bit here:
[The brain] shrinks and deteriorates with age. By the time you're 30 you're probably past your intellectual peak. This is a problem, as we're living longer and longer, and the danger is that we'll just get stupider and stupider.
It's a particular problem for baby-boomers, the large, rich, spoilt generation born after the second world war.
... ah, delicious schadenfreude.
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... ah, delicious schadenfreude.
When you're old and forgetful yourself, I'm sure they'll get the last laugh ;)
Stupid scientists (Score:2)
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Everyone KNOWS creativity comes from booze.
If that's the case this game I've been making in RPG Maker XP is going platinum.
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No, pot fosters creativity, and cigarettes help you keep your creativity focused. Alcohol helps you cope with your unrealized vision.
Well, for writers, anyway . . . .
It is that spot... (Score:3, Funny)
Creativity (Score:1, Offtopic)
It is my impression that often creativity comes from the soul... far eclipsing the brain and the mind. How can something like this be inspired without coming from the Gods or from the God within us all?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee pure
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> I follow my heart in all decisions I make even when my logical self is decrying another
> avenue.
This is very, very clear. Unfortunately, you are far from alone in this.
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New John Hasler (828484)
And once they pinpoint it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or not, but you know there are some rather large and rather vocal groups out there who would rather humanity not be as creative as it is...
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Bipolar disorder and creativity - my experience (Score:3, Interesting)
I have bipolar disorder, a reasonably high IQ, and count myself as a creative person. It's difficult to describe how it feels to come up with something new, sometimes someone will just explain a problem to me, and I'll say straight away, "have you tried...." and they'll just look at me. It's kind of instant analysis and solution - I don't know where it comes from. When I was studying for my degree, I would try and come up with solutions that were non-standard, but still worked, just because I thought that was more interesting. At other times I'll get a sense that there's an answer wrapped up in the problem, one that no one else has found, but I have to really sit down and think about it. The longest I've thought about a problem (and come up with a solution) is 24 years. Of course, that was on and off thinking. It felt great when I got the answer.
That is actually well known phenomenon (Score:4, Interesting)
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I also have bipolar disorder and a reasonably high IQ and consider myself a creative person but I'm not a poser, I swear
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If you have not seen it, I would certainly suggest getting your hands on it.
(*): That's Hugh Laury, who no
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So, how did that work out for you, finding answers in ways the prof wasn't teaching, boss wasn't expecting, etc.?
Me, personally, it got me smacked around by about 9/10 "authority figures" that I tried it with. It's a rare individual that doesn't feel threatened by something they don't understand, especially when it makes them feel somehow inferior. I've had the best luck working with doctors who have transcended the post med-school god complex, know that they are secure in their position, and appreciat
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To answer the questions raised:
I do feel less creative on medication, but I have had such unpleasant experiences from this illness (prior to diagnosis and treatment) that I prefer the medication to the loss of creativity. I have type I bipolar disorder, and it is quite severe, so choosing medication or not is not really a difficult choice. I don't know whether the lessening of creativity is due to the decrease in my mood swings, or due to the medication effecting some other brain function that is resp
Pinpointing Creativity In the Brain (Score:1)
Noisy brains? (Score:2, Interesting)
Exeriments on neural nets suggest that a trained net may generate 'ideas' based in its training if the 'neurons' are deliberately somewhat noisy.
Some drugs make some people more creative. Weed has that effect on me... is it just ramping up the background neural noise level?
My brother, who is Mister Focus with respect to my Miss Random, gets little or no effect from weed. Quote: 'It gives me a slight buzz; that's all'.
Anyone ever done an MRI study on the effects of drugs?