Networks of Mind by Hall Kathy Rutherford Vanessa. Curtin Alicia

Author:Hall, Kathy,Rutherford, Vanessa.,Curtin, Alicia.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317913757
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Where to look to enhance understanding of creativity

Before leaving this topic, it is worth highlighting the difference in the methodologies of the two perspectives for probing matters of talent and creativity. We have already described in some detail above a study on creativity from a sociocultural view. Since the premise is that creativity is always situated and always involves other people and structures, those other players and systems need to be considered as part of the process of understanding who acquires and who can acquire the label of ‘creative’ or ‘artistic’, and so on, and how they acquire it. The following abstract of a neuroscientific study on creativity shows up the difference in approach:

In this article we provide a brief overview of contemporary methodologies used for the operationalization of creative thinking in a neuroscientific context. Empirical studies are reported which measured brain activity (by means of EEG, fMRI, NIRS or PET) during the performance of different experimental tasks. These tasks, along with creative idea generation tasks used in our laboratory, constitute useful tools in uncovering possible brain correlates of creative thinking.

(Fink et al., 2007)

What it clearly shows is that the understanding of creativity, talent, intelligence, and so on, is to be gleaned from measuring brain activity. The surround is not of interest and assessment tasks can be designed to allow subjects to demonstrate their creativity levels and assessment can take place in a laboratory. The focus could not be more different to the account of creativity described above. While socioculturalists point to the interactions, the networks of relationships, the contacts, the identities and the activities involved in the production of the creative artist, neuroscientists–following the kind of study described in the abstract–point to the importance of, for example, posterior brain regions along with more diffuse frontal activation (Haier and Jung, 2008). These particular authors speculate as to the possibility that neural factors may enhance the growth of regional grey or white matter in the brain and that if such factors exist, drugs could be developed to stimulate them. Yet, we note that regardless of perspective, attention to experience and the opportunity the person (or brain) gets is vital to their formation. As neuroscientist, Keith Sawyer (2011: 149) says in this regard: ‘the importance of domain specific expertise is confirmed. Extensive training in a domain is associated with different patterns of brain activation’ and also ‘a broad range of creativity research shows the important role of domain-specific knowledge, acquired over time and represented in long term memory’ (152).

Nearly all the neuroscientific studies that we found on creativity, giftedness and talent, mentioned the limited basis of the evidence and the need for more study. Ye t the potential contribution that neuroscience could make to our understanding of such phenomena is stressed. In a systematic review of sixty-three neuroscientific studies on creativity, neuroscientists Dietrich and Kanso (2010) make a number of important points about the contribution of the research base. They surveyed the entire literature that relates creativity to brain activity and focused on divergent thinking, artistic creativity and insight.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.