The Neuroscience of Creativity

Dr. Rex Jung, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and research scientist at the Mind Research Network (MRN) in Albuquerque, NM, has been awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation to pursue his pioneering work in the emerging field of Positive Neuroscience, or the study of what the brain does well.

 

CREATIVITY

• Originality, fluency, flexibility, elaboration

• Divergent Thinking: Creativity requires the novel understanding and expression of orderly relationships.

• Taking a different direction from the prevailing modes of thought or expression

• Disengagement from the expected and development of alternative solutions – abstraction

 

THE BRAIN AND CREATIVITY

• Frontal Lobe functioning likely informs the creative process as it is critically involved in inhibition/divergent thinking

• Left hemisphere - important to language (Broca, 1863).

- focal attentional perspective

• Right hemisphere - important to spatial processing (Benton et al., 1975)

- communication of primary emotions (Heilman et al., 2000).
- global attentional perspective (Robertson et al., 1988)

• White Matter: The connectivity of the brain may assist the creative process (corpus callosum).

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

John Templeton Foundation

3-year Grant

 

Rex E. Jung, Ph.D.
Department of Neurology and the

MIND Imaging Center

University of New Mexico

CLINICAL RESEARCH COORDINATOR

Ranee Barrow

rbarrow@mrn.org

THE MIND RESEARCH NETWORK

http://www.mrn.org/

Based in Albuquerque, NM, with collaborators around the world, the Mind Research Network (MRN) is a nonprofit scientific research organization dedicated to discovering the root causes of brain-based diseases and disorders, and quickly advancing their prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Resources: 3T and 1.5T MRI, Neuropsychological tests, Research Assistants, Computer analysis.

 

 

 

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

• Why do people with low IQs and autism produce beautiful art?

• Does creativity and/or intelligence require written language?
e.g. Native Americans
e.g. preliterate societies (ancient – Ache)

• Can we really define creativity or intelligence?

• Is creativity constant over the lifespan?

• Is creativity just a social construct – a fad of a certain era?

• Should we study creative individuals as opposed to measures of creativity?

• How is creativity manifest in the brain?

• Are we all creative or only a special few?

• How can individual creative capacity be encouraged and developed?

• Are creativity and intelligence linked in any meaningful way?

 

Templeton Protocol

a) Convergent tasks - RAVEN

b) Divergent tasks

c) Remote association tasks

1. cottage / swiss / cake

2. cream / skate / water

3. loser / throat / sore

4. show / life/ row

5. night / wrist / stop

6. duck / fold / dollar

7. rocking / wheel / high

8. dew / comb / bee

9. fountain / baking / pop

 

 

 

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