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The Neuroscience Of Creativity

A few hours after Einstein died, Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed his autopsy, removed Einstein’s brain without his family’s permission and against Einstein’s wishes of what he wanted done with his remains. He then carved out his brain into 240 pieces and preserved them. After hiding them for several years, he finally sent parts of the brain to other scientists to conduct studies and unravel the mystery behind Einstein’s intellectual prowess.

One of the studies found that Einstein’s brain, compared to 11 other control brains, had a higher ratio of glial cells to neurons in a part of the association cortex, which is responsible for integrating and synthesizing information from multiple parts of the brain. This possibly resulted from Einstein spending so much time visualizing and solving complex scientific problems in creative ways. Not everyone agreed with the study’s conclusions though, and there have been valid criticisms of the way this and other similar studies were conducted.

Since the time of these (potentially flawed) studies, we have come a long way in understanding about the brain structures that aid in creative and critical thinking.

In a recent study, researchers found that the ability to think creatively depends on the interconnectedness between different parts of the brain involved in creative problem solving. The three large-scale networks that span both hemispheres and aid in creative thinking are:

  • Default network: This network consists of the cortical midline and posterior inferior parietal regions of the brain structures. The default network is active when you are not in deliberate thought and helps in idea generation.
  • Executive network: The executive network, which is composed of the anterior and lateral regions of the prefrontal cortex and other interconnected regions like the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The executive network is active when you are consciously thinking, and is responsible for planning, reasoning and decision making.
  • Salience network: The salience network, comprised of bilateral insula and anterior cingulate cortex facilitates the transition between the default and executive networks.

The study, which used connectome based predictive modeling, found some interesting results.

First, people who were more creative showed dense functional connectivity between the parts of the brain that comprised the default, executive and salience networks. Of the highest connected nodes in the high creative network, almost a half were in the default network followed by those in the salience and executive networks. In comparison, the low creative network showed diffused connectivity mainly in the subcortical/brainstem regions. Second, creative people were able to engage simultaneously parts of the brain that are typically supposed to work in isolation. For example, the default and executive networks, which correspond to the ideation and evaluation phases respectively, are normally assumed to be active at separate times. Creative people, however, are able to engage these networks at the same time.

If you are one of the people who believe they weren’t born with the creative gene (or the creative brain), there is reason for some hope.

Studies have also found that training for creativity can be effective. In a study where participants were trained on divergent thinking, researchers found that due to neural plasticity, structural changes were found in some parts of the brain post training that caused improvement in the participants’ creativity.  Similar effects have been found in other studies that looked at music and visual art training, where researchers found plasticity in neural pathways that enhance creative cognition.

All of this clearly indicates that, from a cognitive development perspective, it’s vital to have creativity and arts integrated into school curriculum. As the researchers in the creativity training study summarized, “Obviously, it is promising that human creativity capacities can be developed through well-designed training programs, which may contribute to social development and human civilization.”

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How Technology Can Improve Deep Learning

In an experiment to evaluate the impact of media on learning, researchers showed volunteers a presentation about the country Mali. Some of the subjects saw a text-only version of the presentation while the others saw a multimedia version that included additional audio-visual content.

After the presentation, the researchers gave all subjects a quiz on the material. The text-only group were able to answer more questions correctly on the quiz compared to the multimedia group. The outcome of this experiment was summarized as, “The text-only readers found it to be more interesting, more educational, more understandable, and more enjoyable than did the multimedia viewers, and the multimedia viewers were much more likely to agree with the statement ‘I did not learn anything from this presentation’ than were the text-only readers.”

Technology has undoubtedly made a big impact in education. Apps and games that teach specific reading and math skills have shown to improve learning outcomes, and productivity apps have made research and collaboration so much more easier in the classroom.

However, technology doesn’t just provide us with tools to learn specific skills or be productive, it also actively changes the way we think and process information.

And quite often, these changes inadvertently end up being detrimental to learning in some ways. Professor Patricia Greenfield explains, “Although the visual capabilities of television, video games, and the Internet may develop impressive visual intelligence, the cost seems to be deep processing: mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection.”

Inappropriate or overuse of technology can significantly impair learning, by breaking attention and interrupting the learning process. Our brains contain two types of memory – short-term and long-term. Long-term memory, which can hold information for a long periods of time, is the seat of understanding where complex schemas and patterns that give us meaning are held. Short term memory on the other hand is fragile – it can hold information for only a few seconds. One type of short term memory, called the working memory, is what we use when we have to retain partial results as we work through a math problem or follow a sequence of steps. However, working memory, unlike long-term memory, is small and can hold only a few chunks of information at a time. After the contents of the working memory are processed, they can be encoded in long term memory for future retrieval.

The challenge with this learning process is that since working memory can retain information for only a few seconds (~20 sec), and any distractions in that time interrupt the flow of information to long-term memory. Being able to focus and reflect on concepts for extended periods of time are critical to learning new things.

In addition to inferior learning, poorly designed technology can have other harmful effects.  When the ability to focus on tasks decline, it can lead to feelings of boredom and an increased desire to seek more external stimuli. Time spent with media (television, video games) has been shown to result in ADHD like behavior.

If we want to promote critical and creative thinking, essential for deep learning, we have to unlearn the way technology is designed. Here are some things to pay attention to when designing technology products for use in education that can promote deep learning.

Pay Attention To Passive Switches

Switches are interruptions that result in students switching between different tasks. Passive switches, as opposed to active switches, are those that students don’t initiate themselves. Obvious examples of passive switches are email notifications, chat features, or pop-ups within an app that are meant to help students but inadvertently break their focus.

Less obvious examples of passive switches include using hyperlinks in the text, often with the good intention of providing information to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, hyperlinks also subtly nudge students into clicking before they have had sufficient time to process information, thereby breaking their flow. In one experiment, groups of people were asked to read the same piece online writing with different number of hyperlinks. Results showed that as the number of hyperlinks increased, reading comprehension went down. The researcher explained her findings as, “Reading and comprehension require establishing relationships between concepts, drawing inferences, activating prior knowledge, and synthesizing main ideas. Disorientation or cognitive overload may thus interfere with cognitive activities of reading and comprehension.”

Be Less Helpful

In an interesting experiment, researchers gave students a tricky puzzle to solve that involved moving colored balls between boxes based on some rules. One group of students got a helpful version of the software that had on-screen assistance and other cues, while the other group got a bare-bones version with no hints or guidance.

In the early stages, the helpful group outperformed the bare-bones group in how fast they solved the puzzle. However, as the test progressed the bare-bones group got more proficient and was able to solve faster with fewer incorrect moves as compared to the helpful group, which gave clear indication that they were planning ahead and using strategy.

It didn’t just end there. Eight months after running the experiment, the researchers invited the students again and gave them similar puzzles to solve. The group that used the unhelpful version of the software was able to solve the puzzles twice as fast compared to the helpful group.

When help is too easily available, it robs students of the opportunity to think for themselves and build critical and creative thinking skills.

Be Judicious With Media And Visuals

Unnecessary media usage can overload working memory making it harder to process and assimilate knowledge.

In an experiment conducted on college students, researchers showed groups of students a typical CNN broadcast. One group saw the broadcast along with infographics that flashed on-screen and text-crawls on the bottom. The other group saw the simpler version of the same broadcast without any additional infographics or text-crawls. Subsequent testing showed that the multimedia group retained far fewer facts about the news compared to the simpler group. The researchers theorized that the “multimessage format exceeded viewers’ attentional capacity.”

Keeping things simple when working with different forms of media works much better from a learning perspective. While different forms of media are good to use individually, using them simultaneously can overwhelm working memory.  

 

To design educational technology we need to carefully assess if the technology or feature encourages students to think and reflect, or does it distract them. When we introduced a team related feature not too long ago, we realized it was working a little too well, to the point of getting in the way of real learning. We decided to remove the feature and will likely introduce it again in a different incarnation, where it improves productivity without being a distraction.

Technology has great potential to improve student learning in different ways, but it requires us to be more mindful of the learning process while designing it.

 

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How Gender Stereotypes Harm Cognition

“But we are boys – we like to smash things!”

I groaned, silently, when I heard a group of 4th and 5th graders say this, quite aware that they will likely not successfully complete the challenge I gave them.

As part of understanding how creativity works, our students learn how the brain works as an associative engine, and how combining unrelated ideas can often lead to novel ideas. One exercise we do is “Wacky Inventions” where students pick two random object names from a bag and try to combine them to make an invention idea all in a matter of few minutes.

This group got “wheel” and “hammer” as their two objects, and it’s clear to see how those words quickly triggered gendered associations. The only idea they could come up with was to use the hammer to smash cars. For an idea to be creative it needs to be both novel and useful, but unfortunately even after prompting the students to think of how it would be useful, they couldn’t come up with a useful form. For instance, they could have explored a scenario where a giant hammer is used to smash cars in a junkyard to reduce space. But once the gender stereotype got triggered, it blocked their minds from elaborating or exploring more ideas to successfully complete the challenge.

Their peer group, in contrast, came up with a design to decorate cupcakes evenly. Cupcakes are placed on a rotating wheel and a hammer hits on an icing holder to release the right amount icing at the right time. An idea that is both novel and useful – not bad for a 5 minute challenge!

Strong gender associations are not just bad from a social perspective, they also hinder cognitive thinking, especially creativity.  

Research studies show that for people who identify with opposite gender characteristics, or in other words exhibit androgyny, display higher levels of creativity. This effect has been found to be true for both men and women.

It’s not the physical or superficial aspect of androgyny that is important – it is the psychological androgyny that drives creative behavior. As Scott Barry Kaufman explains, “… all the research suggests that it’s psychological androgyny, not physical androgyny, or stereotypically masculine or feminine displays of behavior, that is associated with creativity.”

Psychological androgyny is high for people who are able to embrace traits or characteristics typically associated with different genders. It does not mean that the trait has to have a rational or biological reason to be associated with a particular gender, it just means it is stereotypically associated with that gender. For example, an architect who balances both technical and engineering aspects (typically associated with men) along with aesthetic sensitivity (typically associated with women) will produce more creative work. In more recent times, Steve Jobs, with his knack for technical details and an eye for aesthetic design, was an example of someone with high psychological androgyny.

When stereotypes take over, the ability to think in more flexible and diverse ways, the hallmark of creativity, reduces. Which is unfortunate, because creativity is rapidly becoming the most important skill to possess in the 21st century as less creative jobs are being automated out. Against that backdrop, reducing gender stereotypes isn’t just good socially, it actually makes us smarter and better positioned for success.

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Creativity Behind Jugaad Innovation

In 2001, when an earthquake caused extensive damage in rural Gujarat, Mansukh Prajapati, a potter, found his inspiration. Reading the caption, “Poor man’s fridge broken!”, under the picture of a broken earthen clay pot in a newspaper, sparked an idea in him. “Why  not use clay, he thought, to make a real fridge for villagers – one that looks like a typical fridge, but is more affordable and doesn’t need electricity?”

Prajapati experimented with different clay designs over several months and ultimately created Mitticool – a refrigerator that doesn’t use electricity and is significantly more affordable for villagers who don’t always have access to electricity. The refrigerator quickly became popular and his company now creates many other clay products.

This kind of innovation – born out of a desire to solve relevant problems in the cheapest way possible – has come to be called Jugaad innovation. Jugaad, a Hindi word, means a resourceful hack using available or frugal resources. Examples of Jugaad innovation abound in many developing countries like India, China and Brazil.

What is fascinating about Jugaad or frugal innovation, is not just the creativity behind it, but also that it is tied closely to reverse innovation. Reverse innovation refers to the trend of innovation from low-income markets entering and disrupting wealthier markets, a change from the typical flow of innovation. Trends show that in the 21st century more innovation, a large part of which is Jugaad innovation, is coming from developing markets with the potential to move into developed markets.

Radjou, Prabhu and Ahuja, who researched frugal innovation and popularized the phrase Jugaad innovation, identified six principles that underlie jugaad that include seeking opportunity in adversity, keeping things simple and thinking flexibly.

While some of the principles relate to having the right mindset, from a cognitive perspective, flexible and simplistic thinking is key to frugal innovation. Some creativity techniques that can help spur frugal thinking are:

Subtraction

While typical innovation adds more features and complexity, frugal innovation works by removing key components and then figuring out a way to make the idea work. For example, I recently gave a challenge to a group of middle schoolers to design a washing machine that doesn’t use electricity. By removing a central part of the product, students were forced to think in different ways to manually rotate a barrel. They came up with several different ideas like connecting the barrel to a stationary bicycle or using a pumping mechanism like that in a salad spinner.

Substitution

Another way to generate low cost solutions is to try and substitute with simpler or cheaper materials. Trying to find a substitute is the other side of the coin to typical divergent thinking. This approach can also lead to ideas that work well enough but at a much lower cost. For example, one student idea for a different challenge was to reuse discarded (and cleaned) socks to make low cost diaper linings.

Jugaad represents the best of creativity – being able to find a solution or a way out despite extreme resource constraints. And developing the skills and mindset for such innovation is becoming increasingly important for companies to solve important problems and stay relevant.

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3 Simple Ways To Build Scientific Creativity

In 1911, Elizabeth Kenny, a nurse in Australian Outback, was called upon to take care of a little girl who she thought had infantile paralysis. She wrote to her mentor, Dr. McDonnell, for advice who wired her back with a message to treat “according to the symptoms as they present themselves.”

Not realizing that the girl really had polio, Elizabeth started finding ways to alleviate the symptoms. She noticed that the girl’s muscles were very tense, so she used hot compresses which she theorized would help relax the muscles. The girl found instant relief from the hot compresses and they reduced her muscle spasms. Next, she saw that the girl could barely move her limbs. Once again, she hypothesized that the muscles needed retraining and increased blood flow. So she started a regime of motion therapy and massage (an approach that later evolved into physical therapy). The results were dramatic and the girl recovered and was able to walk again!

In comparison, the conventional approach to treating polio at the time was to immobilize the limbs by attaching splints which pretty much ensured that patients would not be able to fully recover their mobility. Elizabeth went on to treat many more polio patients, despite being rebuffed by the medical establishment. It took the medical community several decades to acknowledge that her methods of treating polio were indeed effective.

Not knowing that she was actually treating polio, turned out to be a blessing for Elizabeth. It led her to create fresh hypotheses based on what she observed, come up with creative techniques and test them.

Most advancements in science came by because of creative leaps in generating hypotheses or designing better experiments. Creativity plays an integral role in all real-world science explorations – from problem finding to generating and testing hypotheses. As psychologists, David Klahr and Kevin Dunbar who proposed the Dual Space Search in Science approach,  explain, “The successful scientist, like the successful explorer, must master two related skills: knowing where to look and understanding what is seen. The first skill – experimental design – involves the design of experimental and observational procedures. The second skill – hypothesis formation – involves the formation and evaluation of theory.”

So, how do we build some of this scientific creativity among younger students?

Research in scientific creativity can be viewed as an interaction between general creativity skills and science knowledge and skills. Here are a few simple approaches to build scientific creativity among students.

Problem Finding

Problem finding in general is considered a core aspect of creativity, and it extends to all domains including arts, math and even science. Real-world problem finding is more predictive of creative achievement than standard measures of divergent thinking.

One way to encourage problem finding in science is to have students list problems they want to explore in a science topic. For example, give students an exercise to think of as many research topics as they can, on subjects like the behavior of ants or the growth of plants. The idea is to give them a chance to think of what they already know and discover areas they want to extend their understanding in. 

Hypotheses Generation

The ability to generate many alternative hypotheses is related to success in science. However, research shows that children tend to get stuck focusing on a single hypothesis. One approach to build the ability to generate multiple hypotheses is to present a partially-defined experimental scenario or setup, and ask students to generate as many hypotheses as they can.  For example, give students an adjustable ramp and different balls as the setup to explore connections between different variables like height, weight, speed and time. That could lead to hypotheses around what happens when you roll different weight balls or change the height of the ramp and so on. 

Scientific Imagination

Scientific imagination is one of the key aspects in the scientific creativity model proposed by Hu and Adey. Einstein had often mentioned how imagining himself chasing a beam of light gave him the insights that eventually led to the development of special relativity. The role of such imagination in science, which is different from creative imagination, is now considered valuable.

One way to build scientific imagination is to give students story writing tasks on topics like “what if there was no gravity” or “the sun is losing its light”. The goal isn’t to just write an imaginative story but to get students to use their scientific knowledge to guide their story.