the real Neuroscience of Creativity (Article)

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-real-neuroscience-of-creativity/

Thoughtful cognitive neuroscientists such as Anna Abraham, Mark Beeman, Adam Bristol, Kalina Christoff, Andreas Fink, Jeremy Gray, Adam Green, Rex Jung, John Kounios, Hikaru Takeuchi, Oshin Vartanian, Darya Zabelina and others are on the forefront of investigating what actually happens in the brain during the creative process. And their findings are overturning conventional and overly simplistic notions surrounding the neuroscience of creativity.

The latest findings from the real neuroscience of creativity suggest that the right brain/left brain distinction does not offer us the full picture of how creativity is implemented in the brain.* Creativity does not involve a single brain region or single side of the brain.

 

[cascadeco]

This makes sense. I am surprised the left/right brain stuff is still so prevalent, as I believe I've seen other articles debunking the emphasis placed on it as well. But I guess it takes a while for theories/ideas that make it to the masses to be removed from use by the masses (I mean there are still all kinds of 'tests' on the internet that make use of it and stress creative=right, and so on).

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

This makes sense. I am surprised the left/right brain stuff is still so prevalent, as I believe I've seen other articles debunking the emphasis placed on it as well. But I guess it takes a while for theories/ideas that make it to the masses to be removed from use by the masses (I mean there are still all kinds of 'tests' on the internet that make use of it and stress creative=right, and so on).

Misinformed people love pop psychology. It's taken its place beside old wives' tales. Tends to offer an over simplified explanation that doesn't require nuance and fits nicely into "conventional wisdom." I.e. Type A and B personalities. The stuff of Dr. Phil and daytime talk shows.


Granted, what I shared comes from a publication that can itself sometimes crossover into "pop" science.

 

[1487610420]

This makes sense. I am surprised the left/right brain stuff is still so prevalent, as I believe I've seen other articles debunking the emphasis placed on it as well. But I guess it takes a while for theories/ideas that make it to the masses to be removed from use by the masses (I mean there are still all kinds of 'tests' on the internet that make use of it and stress creative=right, and so on).

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Misinformed people love pop psychology. It's taken its place beside old wives' tales. Tends to offer an over simplified explanation that doesn't require nuance and fits nicely into "conventional wisdom." I.e. Type A and B personalities. The stuff of Dr. Phil and daytime talk shows.


Granted, what I shared comes from a publication that can itself sometimes crossover into "pop" science.

Like typology?

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

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Like typology?

I was going to suggest that too, but it seemed fairly obvious.

 

[cascadeco]

I was going to suggest that too, but it seemed fairly obvious.

yah, it crossed my mind too. I've often wondered when everyone will look back at it and it'll be in the same category as the humours.

(tbh I find for example beebe's increasingly convoluted theories as testament to the fact that function theory is not practical or 'real'. When you start having to explain things via 'witch' function and all that jazz, it starts becoming kind of...silly? haha Though like any categorical system, which is what it is, typology (NOT the functions) serves its purpose)

 

[1487610420]

I was going to suggest that too, but it seemed fairly obvious.

perception is so subjective tho

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

yah, it crossed my mind too. I've often wondered when everyone will look back at it and it'll be in the same category as the humours.

(tbh I find for example beebe's increasingly convoluted theories as testament to the fact that typology is too simplistic as to be super practical or 'real'. Though like any categorical system, which is what it is, it serves its purpose)

Yes, there's still a lot of ambiguity in the field of typology because it's mostly theoretical and still based largely in abstractions at this point.

Do you think typology will grow as a field as neuroscience grows? Or will neuroscience replace or negate the need for typology? There seems to be some effort to link the two with the work of Nardi.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

perception is so subjective tho

What would I do without you?

 

[1487610420]

What would I do without you?

 

[cascadeco]

Yes, there's still a lot of ambiguity in the field of typology because it's mostly theoretical and still based largely in abstractions at this point.

Do you think typology will grow as a field as neuroscience grows? Or will neuroscience replace or negate the need for typology? There seems to be some effort to link the two with the work of Nardi.

I think people like Nardi are trying to link neuroscience to personality. I think they will discover things yes but it'll likely debunk the usefulness of mbti and how people practice it, and I still suspect the functions as we talk about them on here are going to be replaced or aren't really what's going on. People talk about the functions on here as if they are real entities but they're only abstractions trying to put a name to a personality tendency, trying to put a single label on what's likely a very intricate interlinked process.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I think people like Nardi are trying to link neuroscience to personality. I think they will discover things yes but it'll likely debunk the usefulness of mbti and how people practice it, and I still suspect the functions as we talk about them on here are going to be replaced or aren't really what's going on. People talk about the functions on here as if they are real entities but they're only abstractions trying to put a name to a personality tendency.

Yeah, I notice that a lot when people (myself included) talk about what a function "does."

We start to refer to them as isolated gears in a machine. Of course, understanding one gear is helpful to understanding the whole machine...forest for the trees and so on. But the cognitive functions as we've defined them are merely our abstractions or guesses at what's going on in a machine that we have only just started to expose.


That's the fun of personality theory though. If I woke up tomorrow and we knew everything there was to know about the mind and personality, then I'd probably lose all interest in this subject

 

[Cellmold]

This makes sense. I am surprised the left/right brain stuff is still so prevalent, as I believe I've seen other articles debunking the emphasis placed on it as well. But I guess it takes a while for theories/ideas that make it to the masses to be removed from use by the masses (I mean there are still all kinds of 'tests' on the internet that make use of it and stress creative=right, and so on).

The right/left dichitomisation is unfortunately still suffering from the pop-psychology stuff.

But this doesn't mean that hemispheric differences should be disregarded. For example both reason and creativity (usually divided in pop-culture at left & right realms) need both sides of the brain, as a whole system, in order to function, but the areas of reason and creativity in which they deal are often very different. Which this article highlights pretty well the "different stages of creativity".

I'm currently part way through The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Ian Mcghilchrist who creates a really good argument using a pretty exhausting amount of neurological studies to make his point about the differences between the hemispheres.

He regularly gives examples of different types of brain lesion and stroke concerning one side of the brain or the other, including split brain patients whose corpus collosum has been separated as a (now outdated) cure for epilepsy.

Here is what he has to say about mirror neurones, a key element in the development of empathy and imitation:

"Physiological & behavioural evidence indicated that the left pars opercularis (part of Broca's area), the area of the frontal lobe critical for speech production, contains mirror neurones which are involved in the imitation of finger movements. So absorbing was this finding that it was until recently thought that mirror neurones were a speciality of the left hemisphere, rather than the right. But that seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, especially since both the right and left pars opercularis equally have mirror neurones, and both hemispheres contribute to the processing of watching and imitating.

In fact, which hemisphere is involved on any one occasion has not only to do with what and where the action it is that we are copying, but also with how instrumental (object-directed) that action is. Such actions excite the left hemisphere's system. On the other hand, the predominant contribution to the imitation of actions that are non-instrumental comes from the right temporal and frontal lobes.

Mirror Neurones are a means of understanding another's intentions, amongst other things, and are not just about copying actions. They form part of our capacity to understand others and empathise with them. For instance, in imitating other's facial expressions, it is the right pars opercularis, with it's mirror neurones, which is the critically important area; and it is this area that appears to be silent in autistic children when carrying out such a task".

The problem is that complex and intricate areas of difference tend to get conflated into general traits, which is always going to be inaccurate.

 

[cascadeco]

The right/left dichitomisation is unfortunately still suffering from the pop-psychology stuff.

But this doesn't mean that hemispheric differences should be disregarded. For example both reason and creativity (usually divided in pop-culture at left & right realms) need both sides of the brain, as a whole system, in order to function, but the areas of reason and creativity in which they deal are often very different. Which this article highlights pretty well the "different stages of creativity".

I'm currently part way through The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Ian Mcghilchrist who creates a really good argument using a pretty exhausting amount of neurological studies to make his point about the differences between the hemispheres.

He regularly gives examples of different types of brain lesion and stroke concerning one side of the brain or the other, including split brain patients whose corpus collosum has been separated as a (now outdated) cure for epilepsy.

Here is what he has to say about mirror neurones, a key element in the development of empathy and imitation:



The problem is that complex and intricate areas of difference tend to get conflated into general traits, which is always going to be inaccurate.

Good points. It reminds me of a book I read many years ago that cited many of the 'truths' about what we actually KNOW about the brain (vs just conjecture/theory), and one of the chapters in the book referenced studies involving a certain type of 'savant' / those who have incredible memory of details and retention of those and recall -- however at the cost of having absolutely zero ability to tie things together/ make connections/extrapolate. Ie massive amounts of fact recollection but absolute inability to DO anything with it. (thus the person was effectively unable to function in the world, on his own)

At the time it reminded me of mbti N/S discussions (though other elements of mbti theory could also tie in). The fact is, that *most* people, with the exception of these very extreme cases, are utilizing elements of what we call S and N interchangeably/ constantly --- people joke about having 'no S' or 'no N', but the reality is that people who had no S or no N would be 100% disfunctional / would need assisted care.

 

[Dreamer]

I think people like Nardi are trying to link neuroscience to personality. I think they will discover things yes but it'll likely debunk the usefulness of mbti and how people practice it, and I still suspect the functions as we talk about them on here are going to be replaced or aren't really what's going on. People talk about the functions on here as if they are real entities but they're only abstractions trying to put a name to a personality tendency, trying to put a single label on what's likely a very intricate interlinked process.

I've been stewing with some thoughts of my own regarding the functions and personality, and allowing Ni to mull over things a bit. I'd be curious to know if you have any thoughts or personal theories to share? Perhaps we can bounce some ideas off one another!