Creativity and Neuroscience

[Barrett Dorko]

I'm directing as many therapists as I can to this week's Studio 360. (http://www.studio360.org/)

Let's see what happens if we listen and respond.

[Jon Newman]

First, what a great podcast. They sure covered a lot of ground. MP3 players are getting pretty cheap and I highly recommend them. Also (I'm hoping that this is going to be a trend) I just received a CD of MP3 format recordings from the American Pain Society conference I was at last May. Since they had so many concurrent courses, all the programs were recorded and since the speaker wore a microphone and all questions were asked at a microphone placed in the aisles the sound quality is good enough that I can listen to any of the talks I missed. If anyone reading this organizes the APTA conference, it's brilliant. Oh, and the CD was free (or least covered by the cost of the conference fee).

So back to the topic at hand. My first contribution will be to add this link to Kaufman's work (http://psychology.csusb.edu/faculty/jkaufman/). And then add this freely accessible article titled Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood and creativity.
For those a bit busy for the whole article, I thought the following bit of reasoning was interesting

The lack of a reasonable direct causal link between depressed
mood and creative behavior makes it likely that a third, underlying
variable is at play. In our reading of the depression literature, we
were struck by the close relationship between self-reflective ruminative
thinking and negative affect, most notably depression. Indeed,
in their analysis of the high prevalence rates of mental
disorder in female poets, Kaufman and Baer (2002) recently proposed
a link between rumination, depression, and poetry writing.
They argued that the introspection and rumination that characterizes
depression may also be involved in writing poetry and, in
addition, that rumination and introspection may in fact increase
instability in poets who are already vulnerable to mental disorder.

[Diane]

This link, Creativity: Method or Magic? (http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad.creativity.html) might be an appropriate addition to this thread.
Abstract:
Creativity may be a trait, a state or just a process defined by its products. It can be contrasted with certain cognitive activities that are not ordinarily creative, such as problem-solving, deduction, induction, learning, imitation, trial-and-error, heuristics and "abduction," however, all of these can be done creatively too. There are four kinds of theories, attributing creativity respectively to (1) method, (2) "memory" (innate structure), (3) magic or (4) mutation. These theories variously emphasize the role of an unconscious mind, innate constraints, analogy, aesthetics, anomalies, formal constraints, serendipity, mental analogs, heuristic strategies, improvisatory performance and cumulative collaboration. There is some virtue in each, but the best model is still the one implicit in Pasteur's dictum: "Chance favors the prepared mind." And because the exercise and even the definition of creativity requires constraints, it is unlikely that "creativity training" or an emphasis on freedom in education can play a productive role in this preparation.

I listened to the program, liked it quite a bit.
About creativity, the world of business has a few of its own shortcuts (http://www.directedcreativity.com/pages/ToolsHeuristics.html).
Basic Heuristics for Getting Started in DirectedCreativity

1. Make it a habit to purposefully pause and notice things.
2. Focus your creative energies on just a few topic areas that you genuinely care about and work on these purposefully for several weeks or months.
3. Avoid being too narrow in the way you define your problem or topic area; purposefully try broader definitions and see what insights you gain.
4. Try to come up with original and useful ideas by making novel associations among what you already know.
5. When you need creative ideas, remember: attention, escape, and movement.
6. Pause and carefully examine ideas that make you laugh the first time you hear them.
7. Recognize that your streams of thought and patterns of judgment are not inherently right or wrong; they are just what you think now based primarily on patterns from your past.
8. Make a deliberate effort to harvest, develop, and implement at least a few of the ideas you generate.

[Diane]

I recently met the author of this book, Mothering, Breast Cancer, and Selfhood (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1553694848/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/103-4346012-4895046?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155), Lynn Walker, who came to see me about some physical pain. When she mentioned she had written a book I immediately bought one from her, and have been finding it hard to put down; she happens to be a Jungian therapist in possession of a carefully deciphered mind, which makes her memoire all the more fascinating to me. Beyond its obvious relevance to anyone of a particular age with female breasts who grew up in a western culture, I mean.

She has taken on a bit of fame it seems, at least in Canada, where her personal journey was highlighted by the CBC radio program, Ideas (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/abouttheshow.html). (Alas, the Ideas programs are archived only back as far as 1995, and Lynn's interview was a few years before that.)

While absorbing the content of Lynn's remarkable book I came upon a word new to me, "centroverted", which was coined by Erich Neumann (one of Jung's students) and is described in a book called The Origins and History of Consciousness (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691017611/ref=s9_asin_image/103-4346012-4895046?n=283155). The term "centroversion" was apparently intended by its originator to mean something lying between introversion and extroversion, a psyche with a healthy mature ego that can move easily from one to the other. From a review by Paul Vitols (http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AQUDBQ5LB8KD8/103-4346012-4895046?ie=UTF8) further down the page:

Neumann, a student of Jung, with erudition comparable to that of his teacher, synthesizes Jung's ideas into a unified theory of psychology around his own new concept of "centroversion", his name for the integrative force of the organism--its survival instinct in the widest sense. He shows how ego-consciousness--the self-aware "I" of the modern human being--is the preeminent organ of centroversion, and that, like other, physical, organs, it has had its own evolutionary history.....

Anyway, the point I'm getting around to, is that I can't sleep tonight, because my mind is trying to make sense out of centroversion. Almost never does my mind find some idea so interesting that it can't sleep because of it, or in spite of it. Most of what I googled on it didn't help me get a fix on the meaning.. To me, it is too simplistic to plunk such a term in the middle between intro and extroversion as if it were just meat in a sandwich. To me, it's on another level entirely.

Because my brain sees things like abstract concepts kinesthetically and in three dimensions (for better or for worse) here's how my mind assigns meaning to the term centroversion; it's a fulcrum-like or even ball bearing-like capacity that conscious awareness/maturity helps to grow, that places itself under the ebb and flow of the self, under the introversion and extroversion capabilities of a given individual; it doesn't just tip the self this way or that, or define which type one will end up being; rather it is moveable balancing point, sliding under the beam upon which the two functions balance each other, allowing/creating more level balancing of the two, even when one function is in greater force than the other at some points in life, an inner gyroscope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope).

So why am I putting this post on this thread? Because this thread has to do with creativity and neuroscience. If an emergent and integrative process called centroversion has already been elucidated that helps define the maturation of the psychic world, there might be a useful motor outflow metaphor to be extracted from within it, something that might help subtract yet another layer of confusion from ideomotor movement. Inner leverage and inwardly generated leveling to better deal with outer life.

[Diane]

I found this nice little article on science writing (http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53063) using metaphor. Bonus: looks like one can read the articles for free online without having to subscibe to American Scientist.

[Diane]

Ian just sent me this Go-animal (http://www.goanimal.com/newsletters/2006/two_paths/two_paths.html) newsletter entry, called Learning Learning, about a dialectic or oscillatory process that occurs between two world views that support one another as long as the swing between them is moving and not static - like riding a bicycle. Effortless once you've got the hang of it.

[nari]

I like this - the macro and micro approach particularly. Each creative in his/her own way but on different parallel paths..

Nari

[Jon Newman]

1: Methods. (javascript:AL_get(this, 'jour', 'Methods.');) 2007 May;42(1):68-76.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/corehtml/query/egifs/http:--linkinghub.elsevier.com-ihub-images-PubMedLink.gif (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/utils/fref.fcgi?PrId=3048&itool=AbstractPlus-def&uid=17434417&db=pubmed&url=http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1046-2023%2806%2900293-3) Links (javascript:PopUpMenu2_Set(Menu17434417);)
Creativity meets neuroscience: experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking.

Fink A (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Fink%20A%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlu s), Benedek M (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Benedek%20M%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlu s), Grabner RH (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Grabner%20RH%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlu s), Staudt B (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Staudt%20B%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlu s), Neubauer AC (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Neubauer%20AC%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlu s).
Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Universitaetsplatz 2/III, A-8010 Graz, Austria. andreas.fink@uni-graz.at
The psychometric assessment of different facets of creative abilities as well as the availability of experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking has replaced the view of creativity as an unsearchable trait. In this article we provide a brief overview of contemporary methodologies used for the operationalization of creative thinking in a neuroscientific context. Empirical studies are reported which measured brain activity (by means of EEG, fMRI, NIRS or PET) during the performance of different experimental tasks. These tasks, along with creative idea generation tasks used in our laboratory, constitute useful tools in uncovering possible brain correlates of creative thinking. Nevertheless, much more work is needed in order to establish reliable and valid measures of creative thinking, in particular measures of novelty or originality of creative insights.
PMID: 17434417

[EricM]

Does anyone know which studio360 podcast is referred to in the first post of this thread?

[Jon Newman]

Hi Eric,

I'm pretty sure it is this one (http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2006/06/30)

[Jon Newman]

The first tune I heard from Daniel Johnston was on college radio. The song is titled "Speeding motorcycle"

zn3AUYuRakk

[nari]

New Scientist 19 April 2008 p49.

The book which changed Ramachandran's outlook is Peter Medawar's The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and originality in science.

This sounds an inspiring book; here are a few quotes which ring true with our philosophy, VSR states:

I also love his vitriol: in one place he refers to scientists who think science consists of unprejudiced data-gathering without speculation as "cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge".
and
...he calls a certain class of explanations in science "Analgesics that dull the ache of incomprehension without removing the cause"...

I like these statements.

Nari

[EricM]

Here's an interesting video featuring David Lynch titled Where Ideas Come From (http://podcasts.theatlantic.com/2008/07/where-ideas-come-from.php)