Over the weekend NPR's Studio 360 explored the neuroscience of creativity.
Among the topics discussed were: the relationship of mental illness to creativity, how creative people differ from non-creative people, the role of the association cortex and mirror neurons in the brain and creativity in animals.
Here are some of the more interesting hypotheses and insights:
- Creativity exists in the execution, not the thought. One scientist points out that a lot of people have ideas, but they don't act on them
- The creative process isn't something you just turn on
- The human brain becomes more creative during uninhibited moments, as in when someone is experiencing mild mania
- People who are able to make more new and original associations are thought to be more creative
- Creativity is not exclusively a young person's game. A lot of highly creative people in the sciences are in their 70's
- There seems to be an unconscious knowledge that creative people use
- Artists are good at conveying significant gestures and the viewers bodies respond to the implied gestures of the artist
- Creativity is not just being novel. It also needs to be appropriate
- Despite lots of experimentation, there are no good tests that accurately identify creative kids
- Creativity appears to be a mystery we may be hundreds of years away from understanding
To listen, here's the podcast.
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