"Creativity is the residue of time wasted."
~Louis Pasteur
Creativity is the backbone of most musical enterprise. From the earliest instruments discovered in caves* to the shockwaves jazz blew around the globe to today's myriad of offerings in a myriad of formats, creativity is the seed planted. The brain is the source of this creativity, 3 pounds of flesh inside the skull. In the introduction to Dante's Inferno, T.S. Eliot wrote that "hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing." So, connectivity, another brain thing. In the California public schools, we've recently heard alot about making connections, about growing our schema. It turns out, this is precisely what the brain does best: literally. We all know that the right side of the brain differs from the left side of the brain. One of the best descriptions I have read of this in the new book by Jonah Lehrer, called Imagine: How Creativity Works, is that the right brain is concerned with connotation, while the left brain is concerned with dennotation. For the first time, scientists have been able to measure the imagination, by charting all those neurotransmitters, their beginnings, the new connections made and to what ends. Thinking about the brain existing in a time and place, or a context and culture, as Mr. Lehrer states, we start to think about blending sociology (the outside world) with psychology (the inside world).
Mark Beeman, a young scientist at the National Institute of Health is researching insight. Most of the time, when people experience insight, they have no idea where it came from. It is that familiar feeling of something "popping into your head, " an unconscious happening. Beeman wanted to extend the research on the phenomenon by scanning the brain as people had insights and to locate the source of these epiphanies, by using the latest scientific tools: PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans and fMRI (functional MRI) machines. Solving a puzzle while inside an fMRI machine, will show that active brain cells consume more energy and more oxygen and this triggers increased blood flow in the area. Discovering that insight happens just too fast for fMRI to truly capture, with the help of colleague John Kounios, he moved on to EEG (electroencelphalography), which measures electrical waves produced by the brain. Unfortunately, that couldn't pinpoint the location of the electrical source. Combining the two techniques allowed the deconstruction of the epiphany. It turns out that despite the feeling that the idea 'came out of the blue,' the left side of the brain had already completed a systemwide search in all the right places. But, if that didn't dredge up the correct answer, subjects entered the second so-called "stumped" phase. Not fun, and quite frustrating, this negative feeling of impasse turns out to be very important to insight, because it signals the importance of beginning a new method of search, perhaps on the right side of the brain. This new perspective often works, quickly. "The suddenness of the insight is preceded by an equally sudden burst of brain activity. Thirty milliseconds before the answer erupts into consciousness, there's a spike of gamma-wave rhythm, which is the highest electrical frequency generated by the brain. Gamma rhythm is believed to come from the binding of neurons: cells distributed across the cortex draw themselves together into a new network that is then able to enter consciousness." Analysis of the data produced the 'neural correlate of insight': the aSTG (anterior superior temporal gyrus) is a small fold of tissue in the right hemisphere, located above the ear on the surface of the brain. The scientists noticed that the aSTG became unusually active in the seconds preceding the insight. They also noted that this area of the brain remained silent during the initial search or analysis phase. Have you ever tapped your right temple with your right forefinger, when you are about to vocalize a sudden idea? Perhaps you even say "Aha!"? Well, there's a physical reason for that - it's precisely where the insight is taking place. Amazing, yes? To me, YES!
3M is a Fortune 500 company that has been inventing things for over 75 years. They have no particular focus, but they take insight seriously. The first feature of of their corporate history of invention is their flexible attention policy, wherin instead of constant concentration, the company encourages regular breaks. These breaks are different from the ordinary coffee-break idea in that they have employees schedule in activities that may seem unproductive to some. Incidences of struggle and challenge are met by long walks on campus, daydreaming or game-play. The invention of their so-called 15% rule, which has all researchers spending 15% of their workday on speculation. They call this Bootlegging Hour and they are required to share their ideas with co-workers. Google has copied this idea because it works and science supports it.
Joydeep Bhattacharya, a University of London psychologist has used EEG to explain why interrupting focus can be productive. Interestingly, he has shown that it is possible to predict when an insight will take place. It turns out that a steady rhythm of alpha-waves radiating from the right hemisphere will preceed insight by 8 seconds. This becomes very interesting when you learn a little about alpha-waves. While their precise function is still a mystery, they are associated with activities primarily associated with relaxation: a warm shower, a walk, a game of cards are all alpha-wave producing activities. Even more interestingly, the absence of such waveforms actually stunt progress. Bhattacharya found that subjects who were not producing sufficient alpha-waves were unable to use hints given for the puzzles they were attempting to solve, even really obvious clues. Amazing, yes? YES! You must relax in order to achieve new ground.
When we are in a relaxed state-of-mind, our brain will start producing alpha-waves, and our attention begins to be focused inward. The inward attention scans the remote association areas of the right hemisphere (what happens after the "stumped" phase). On the other hand, or on the other side of the brain, the left hemisphere, we are tending to direct our attention outward, toward details and connections the left hemisphere encompasses. "That's why so many insights happen during warm showers," Bhattacharya says. "For many people, it's the most relaxing part of the day."
German researchers have also determined that when people are happy, they are much better at guessing an answer, even the possibility of an answer. Those in gloomy moods were shown to perform slightly lower than random chance. Beeman has shown that even temporary feelings of pure happiness or delight can lead to increased creativity, sometimes dramatically increased. He showed some subjects a stand-up comedy video and some subjects a boring or scary video. Those who were in a positive mood were allowed to relax and therefore had more access to the remote associations of the right hemisphere and were enjoying those alpha-waves. "Because positive moods allow us to relax, we focus less on the troubling world and more on these remote associations." Early morning is also another time for insights, shortly after waking. "The drowsy brain is unwound and disorganized, open to all sorts of unconventional ideas. The right hemisphere is also unusually active. The probem with the morning though", John Kounios says, " is that we're always so rushed." If you're stuck on a difficult problem, Kounios recommends setting your alarm a few minutes early so you'll have time to lie in bed. "We do some of our best thinking when we're half asleep." **
Don't force it though! Relentless, continuous focus actually deters you from making those purely creative connections you need for an insight. Even the use of stimulants like caffiene, Adderall and Ritalin, that increase focus seem to decrease breakthroughs. ***
Jensen/University of Tubingen
LOST AND FOUND Scientists say that this bone flute, found at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany, is at least 42,000 years old.
** "There's one additional cortical signal that predicts epiphanies. Looking at the data, Beeman and Kounios saw a sharp drop in activity in the visual cortex just before the insight appeared, as if the sensory area were turning itself off. At first, the scientists couldnt figure out what was going on. But as they were struggling to decipher the data, Beeman watched Kounios cover his eyes with his hand. That's when it occurred to him: the visual cortex was going quiet so that the brain could better focus on its own obscure associations. "The cortex does this for the same reason we close or cover our eyes when we're trying to think," Beeman says. When the outside world becomes distracting, the brain automatically blocks it out."
*** "Marijuana, by contrast, seems to make insight more likely. It not only leads to states of relaxation but also increases brain activity in the right hemisphere. A recent paper by scientists at University College, London, looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming. This occurs when the activation of one word allows an individual to react more quickly to related words. For instance, the word dog might lead to faster reaction times for wolf, pet, and Lassie, but it won't alter how quickly a person reacts to chair. Interestingly, the scientists found that marijuana seems to induce a state of hyper-priming, meaning that it extends the reach of semantic priming to distantly related concepts. As a result, one hears dog and thinks of nouns that in more sober circumstances woul seem completely disconnected. This state of hyper-priming helps explain why canabis has so often been used as a creative fuel: it seems to make the brain better at detecting the remote associations that define the insight process."
Lehrer, Jonah. IMAGINE: How Creativity Works. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2012.
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