1. What Does Science Say About Creativity?
Overview
Key Points
- Creativity invloves three main cognitive processes.
- There are both genetic and, much more importantly, environmental factors that affect creativity.
- We can become more creative with the right conditions, methods, and practice.
Objectives
- Understand some of the basic neuroscience of creativity.
- Challenge the incorrect notion that creativity is innate.
- Get our creative juices flowing.
How Does the Creative Brain Work?
Creativity draws on three main brain networks:12
- Executive Attention Network for targeted attention and focus.
- Imagination Network / Default Mode Network for mental simulation about future events.
- Salience Network for internal stream of consciousness, external stimuli.
Researchers found that when all networks are active it can actually diminish creativity and that reducing executive attention network a little can boost creativity.
Focused attention has been shown to limit spontaneity.
What does the Research Say?
A study of ADHD in children and adults showed that people with ADHD have more active imagination networks and less active executive attention network vs neurotypical individuals.3
A functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study of jazz musicians found that when they were improvising, their imagination networks were more active. But when they just played over learned musical sequence their executive attention network were more active.4
Nature vs. Nurture
Researchers have identified genetics factors that may influence creativity, but there is also evidence that creativity can be learned.
What does the Research Say?
Researchers found that people who were more creative in music had an extra copy of the Glucose Mutarotase (GALM) Gene. This gene is involved in the release of Serotonin (neurotransmitter that promotes neural connections). GALM increases production of serotonin and the brain’s ability to use it.5
One study compared professional dancers, artists, and musicians with novices in their fields. During mental or active improvisational sessions (compose a 5 note tune, mentally compose a drawing, mentally perform a dance), the professionals thought about the task differently, engaging different parts of their brain as compared to novices.6
Becoming More Creative
Based on current research and our intuition, we want to
- Activate our brain networks in a non-competing way.
- Treat creativity like a skill.
With this mindset, we can cultivate creativity by creating the right conditions and employing the right mechanics.
Get Those Juices Flowing
Now, let us activate our Imagination Network with the help of a special guest.
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Jung, R. E., Mead, B. S., Carrasco, J., & Flores, R. A. (2013). The structure of creative cognition in the human brain, Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7. ↩
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Beaty, R., et al, Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity, PNAS, January 30, 2018, Vol. 115, no. 5, 1087-1092. ↩
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Fassbender, C., Zhang, H., Buzy, W. M., Cortes, C. R., Mizuiri, D., Beckett, L., & Schweitzer, J. B. (2009). A lack of default network suppression is linked to increased distractibility in ADHD, Brain research, 1273, 114-128. ↩
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Limb, C. J., & Braun, A. R. (2008). Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an fMRI study of jazz improvisation, PLoS One, 3(2), e1679. ↩
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Ukkola-Vuoti, L., Kanduri, C., Oikkonen, J., Buck, G., Blancher, C., Raijas, P., … & Järvelä, I. (2013). Genome-wide copy number variation analysis in extended families and unrelated individuals characterized for musical aptitude and creativity in music, PLoS One, 8(2), e56356. ↩
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Berkowitz, A. L., & Ansari, D. (2008). Generation of novel motor sequences: the neural correlates of musical improvisation, Neuroimage, 41(2), 535-543. ↩