The cognitive neuroscience of creativity (original) (raw)
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Creativity Research Journal, 2007
The authors put forward a novel theory to account for creativity and innovation, with particular reference to mathematical discovery, but they do not define their conception of creativity or outline factors that they believe are critical to their model of creative function. Does their theory hold true only for mathematical creativity? What factors make mathematical creativity separable from artistic or even other types of scientific creativity? Clarity at the level of definitions is necessary not only because delimiting claims helps make hypotheses more concrete but also because it is only then possible to clearly assess the power and fitness of the model they propose.
Methods, 2007
Creativity is deWned quite simply as "the ability to create" in most lexicons, but, in reality, this is a complex and heterogeneous construct about which there is much to be discovered. The cognitive approach to investigating creativity recognizes and seeks to understand this complexity by investigating the component processes involved in creative thinking. The cognitive neuroscience approach, which has only limitedly been applied in the study of creativity, should ideally build on these ideas in uncovering the neural substrates of these processes. Following an introduction into the early experimental ideas and the cognitive approach to creativity, we discuss the theoretical background and behavioral methods for testing various processes of creative cognition, including conceptual expansion, the constraining inXuence of examples, creative imagery and insight. The complex relations between the underlying component processes of originality and relevance across these tasks are presented thereafter. We then outline how some of these conceptual distinctions can be evaluated by neuroscientiWc evidence and elaborate on the neuropsychological approach in the study of creativity. Given the current state of aVairs, our recommendation is that despite methodological diYculties that are associated with investigating creativity, adopting the cognitive neuroscience perspective is a highly promising framework for validating and expanding on the critical issues that have been raised in this paper.
Creativity and the Brain, 2007
Neurocognitive approach to higher cognitive functions that bridges the gap between psychological and neural level of description is introduced. Relevant facts about the brain, working memory and representation of symbols in the brain are summarized. Putative brain processes responsible for problem solving, intuition, skill learning and automatization are described. The role of non-dominant brain hemisphere in solving problems requiring insight is conjectured. Two factors seem to be essential for creativity: imagination constrained by experience, and filtering that selects most interesting solutions. Experiments with paired words association are analyzed in details and evidence for stochastic resonance effects is found. Brain activity in the process of invention of novel words is proposed as the simplest way to understand creativity using experimental and computational means. Perspectives on computational models of creativity are discussed.
CognitLve research on creativity is both traditional and innovative. It is traditwnal in the sense that many of the well-recognized processes, structures, and stores from mainstream cognitive psyclwlogy ha1•e been used to understand creatil•e thinking. It is innovative because there is a need to understand processes which are not recognized unless one is specifically interested in creativity. Some of these are inherently subjective, a fact which is often disregarded by those hoping for a traditionally scientific analysis. Still, much of the interest in the cognitive sciences concerns how new constructs come into being; and anyone interested in that is in fact thinking about creativity.