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This Is Your Brain On Creativity

Scientists have always been interested in how the brain works and how specific parts of the brain aid in specific tasks or behaviors. One of the earliest people in this domain, Franz Gall, developed his keen interest of observing his classmates’ skull sizes and features into the field of Phrenology. While phrenology is now debunked as pseudoscience, advances in brain scanning technologies have led to a much improved understanding of the brain, and the birth of cognitive neuroscience.

Recent work by cognitive neuroscientists in the field of creative thinking has shown that some of our earlier beliefs about the right and left parts of the brain are not exactly correct.

In one study, researchers split participants in high creative group and a low creative group based on their performance in the Creative Functioning Test. They then gave the two groups tasks for fluency (FAS – list as many words starting with the letters ‘F’, ‘A’ or ‘S’) and divergent thinking (DT – list as many uses of a brick). They found that the high creatives used prefrontal regions on both hemispheres on the brick task compared to the low creatives who mostly used regions in the left hemisphere.  

In another study, researchers gave the Unusual Uses task from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) to two groups – one that scored in the 99th percentile on the TTCT and the other that scored 50th percentile. The 99th percentile group showed elevated activation of both the right and left hemispheres during the task (although the activation was higher for the right hemisphere).

So one key takeaway from these and other studies is that creative problem solving recruits both sides of the brain. As psychologist, Keith Sawyer concludes, “there is no evidence for the popular belief that creativity is located in the right hemisphere of the brain. Many regions of the brain, in both hemispheres, are active during creative tasks.”

One reason that both hemispheres show activation during divergent thinking (DT) is that semantic memory is primarily stored in left hemisphere. However, these semantic memory traces most likely include primary associations. So when a user thinks of different uses for a brick, the first set of responses come from these primary associations and which lead to more common responses. To come up with more original ideas, secondary associations need to be tapped and these are more likely to be in the right hemisphere. Given this theory, the classic brainstorming advice of going past the initial set of ideas to get to more original ideas makes more sense. Once the initial set of ideas that use primary associations are exhausted, the second wave of ideas start recruiting structures from the right hemisphere more.   

A better way to think about creative cognition is not in terms of the left-brain right-brain dichotomy, but as distributed networks in the brain that span both hemispheres.

Professor Scott Barry Kaufman lists three large scale networks that play a crucial part in creative cognition:

    • The Executive Network: The Executive Network gets involved in tasks that require focused attention, that place demands on working memory, like solving a tricky math problem.
    • The Imagination Network: The Imagination Network, also known as the Default network, is associated with spontaneous and self-generated thought that includes mind wandering and social cognition.
    • The Salience Network: The Salience Network monitors both external stimuli and internal stream of thought, and flexibly switches between the two as needed.

 

Advances made in cognitive neuroscience are helping us understand how the cooperation between these three networks leads to more creative thought. It has now become evident that the right side of our brain isn’t just an intuitive center – it plays a critical role in creative and complex problem solving!

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How Neurodiversity Helps in Creativity

As a child, Isaac spoke little and had trouble reacting appropriately in social situations. He found it hard to form friendships and preferred to spend time alone. He lacked the ability to understand the motives of others’ and was prone to having angry outbursts.

If you saw signs of autism in the description, you are probably right. But you might be surprised to know that Isaac grew up to have a successful career. Isaac, as in Isaac Newton, laid the foundations of classical mechanics, made significant contributions to optics and even developed Calculus!

Simon Baron Cohen, psychologist at the University of Cambridge, believes that scientists like Newton and Einstein likely had Asperger’s syndrome (a high functioning variant of Autism Spectrum Disorder).

If Newton was indeed on the spectrum, did his condition help him or hurt him in his intellectual pursuits?

A growing area of research, Neurodiversity, shows that some of the common neurological conditions actually help in certain situations and may have evolutionary advantages.

Recent research has found that disorders like autism, ADHD and Dyslexia can be beneficial when it comes to creative thinking, a skill that is becoming increasingly important. We certainly see some evidence of that in our work with our diverse student population.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Autism is primarily characterized with challenges in social relationships and deficits in the “theory of mind”.

However, Scott Barry Kaufman, author and professor at University of Pennsylvania, explains that people with ASD do care about others and desire connection – they just do it differently. As he writes, “Perhaps instead of viewing people with ASD as “socially awkward” individuals who need to be “fixed,” we should instead conceptualize them as socially creative. They may not do things the “right” way, but they do them their way.”

Outside of social situations, people with ASD have show differences in cognitive creative thinking. For instance, in divergent thinking tasks, people with ASD produce fewer but more original ideas. Contrast this with the conventional guideline of “one needs to generate lots of ideas to get to the more unique ones“. Since the goal of brainstorming is to end up with creative ideas, autism seems to confer some efficiency in this process.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD)

ADHD is characterized by three key groups of symptoms: hyperactivity, impulsivity and distractibility. But these same traits are also helpful in some tasks.

Bonnie Cramond, director at the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia, found that the set of traits used to identify ADHD were nearly identical to the set of traits for creative people. 

Recent research has also confirmed the link between ADHD and Creativity. The part of the brain known as the Default Network or the Imagination Network, becomes active during the passive or rest phase and plays a crucial role in creative thinking. In people with ADHD, the brain structure responsible for filtering data from the Imagination Network is “leaky” leading to a more diffused attention style along with more creative thoughts. As Prof. Kaufman explains, “Both creative thinkers and people with ADHD show difficulty suppressing brain activity coming from the “Imagination Network.”” 

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a reading disorder characterized by difficulty with reading, writing, spelling and grammar, and affects from 5 to 20 percent of all school children.

In dyslexic readers  brain areas (in the left hemisphere) used in recognizing letters and words, and  in sounding out words are under-activated but the parts of the right hemisphere become more active to compensate. That might explain why dyslexics are better at visual spatial skills, out-of-box thinking and holistic perception – skills useful in creative and entrepreneurial work.

In a survey sent to entrepreneurs and corporate managers, Julie Logan, professor of entrepreneurship at Cass Business School in London, found that 35% of entrepreneurs identified themselves as dyslexic compared to only 1% of corporate managers. Richard Branson, one of most famous dyslexic entrepreneur, has often commented that far from being a disability, dyslexia has been his biggest business advantage.

 

To clarify, in highlighting the strengths associated with these disorders we do not intend to trivialize the challenges faced in more severe forms of these disabilities. We hope that by understanding the cognitive strengths that accompany these conditions, we can create better environments for different neurotypes to work together and be productive. As Thomas Armstrong says in his book, Neurodiversity, “diversity among brains is just as wonderfully enriching as biodiversity and the diversity among cultures and races.”