By Laura Helmuth, Scientific American
Being curious and pursuing creative endeavors provide you with the opportunity to discover new interests, explore unfamiliar territory, develop expertise, and take breaks. In short, working to develop and maximize your creativity serves to enrich your life. As Harvard University psychologist Shelley Carson puts it, “Once you realize that you can be creative, it opens up this whole new world.”
Changes in Brain Activity
When insight hits, there are certain changes that happen in the brain. Studies have shown that there is significant increased activity in the anterior superior temporal gyrus of the right hemisphere at the critical moment when the solution appears for people using insight, in comparison to problem solvers who do not experience such a moment.
There are areas in the right side of our brain that interpret information more loosely than areas in the left side. Since the information is less tightly defined, we can access other concepts more readily, which is a key component of creativity.
Both hemispheres are working all the time, but parts of our right hemisphere might loosely define a cat as a mammal, making it easy to see how a cat relates to, say, an elephant. Parts of our left hemisphere, however, might describe a cat as a small, carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractile claws—something very different from an elephant.
Research has suggested that you can tip the scales toward a looser style of understanding by describing objects or issues in unusual ways. For example, by thinking of a hanger as a long, twisted wire instead of as a metallic instrument for hanging coats, you might discover other uses for it. Try this technique every so often as you are actively working to solve a problem. It might help prime your brain to forge connections between distant concepts.
This is a transcript from the video series Understanding Your Inner Genius. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Archimedes’ ‘Eureka!’ Moment
Psychologist Mark Beeman, of Northwestern University, led a study that measured people’s brain activity with fMRI and EEG during the moment of insight. This moment of insight is accompanied by a burst of alpha activity in the visual cortex, according to Beeman’s study. Alpha activity inhibits neuron firing, meaning that during a breakthrough, your brain is less involved in processing visual information—perhaps because visual stimuli can be distracting. These findings suggest that you could help your brain discover an insight simply by closing your eyes.
Probably the most famous moment of insight in history is Archimedes’ ‘Eureka!’ moment. Legend has it that the ancient Greek mathematician had been challenged to figure out whether a crown that King Hiero II of Syracuse had commissioned was made out of solid gold. Archimedes was preparing a bath when he discovered how to measure an object’s volume, and thus its density, after noticing the displacement of water as he climbed into the tub. Although the story may be apocryphal, it has gone down in history in part because it illustrates perfectly how insight strikes.
Time for Feedback
Once you have had a moment of insight, you might find yourself feeling elated. A study by Tufts University researcher Tad Brunyé showed that subjects who came up with broad associations between words, such as associating ‘pipe’ with ‘flute’ rather than with ‘smoke’ experienced a boost in mood. Take advantage of the positive mood to check whether your solution works. “When you have an insight, it comes with a lot of conviction,” Carson says. “So you really have to be objective and evaluate that idea.”
This stage is an ideal time to bounce ideas off of trusted friends—their feedback and support could help you determine how well your solution works. Do not be discouraged, though, if your personal eureka is less than perfect.
Creative people often describe going through many failures before reaching a successful solution. Those failures help to inform the end result, making them a necessary step in the process. When a student asked chemist and two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling how he came up with so many good ideas, he replied, “I have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.”
In practice, each stage does not always follow easily from the one before it—many people have to revisit earlier steps several times before hitting on inspiration—but ultimately the process is very rewarding. Creativity not only makes creators happy but also benefits all those who will enjoy their creations.
Insights Are Rewarding
The joys of an aha! moment may even serve a deeper purpose. In 2013, psychologists Claudia Muth and Claus-Christian Carbon of the University of Bamberg in Germany found that participants who identified a hidden face in a picture liked the image more than those who did not identify the face.
Muth hypothesizes that insight is rewarding for evolutionary reasons. She says, “It could explain why we explore the world and why we have interest in things that are new.”
Common Questions about Being Curious and Creative
The brain’s right hemisphere might loosely define a cat as a mammal, making it easy to see how a cat relates to, say, an elephant. Parts of its left hemisphere, however, might describe a cat as a small, carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractile claws—something very different from an elephant.
Legend has it that Archimedes had been challenged to figure out whether a crown that King Hiero II of Syracuse had commissioned was made out of solid gold. Archimedes was preparing a bath when he discovered how to measure an object’s volume, and thus its density, after noticing the displacement of water as he climbed into the tub.
You can prepare your brain to forge connections between distant concepts by describing objects or issues in unusual ways. For example, by thinking of a hanger as a long, twisted wire instead of as a metallic instrument for hanging coats, you might discover other uses for it.
