We all have experienced writer's block at one time or another. No inspiration comes when we sit down to write, paint, or compose music. The worst part is, the harder we try, the less inspired we become. Now, at least neuroscientists may have a clue as to why flashes of inspiration are so hard to come by.

Researchers at Stanford University recently began to explore the neurological basis of creativity and made a surprising discovery. Their research was published in Scientific Reports on May 28. Research shows that the cerebellum, which controls movement, is also involved in creativity. If so, the discovery could change our understanding of neural architecture in relation to thought processes. (Scientific American and Scientific Reports are both part of Nature Publishing Group.)

Some scientists believe that the cerebral cortex is an important part of who we are as humans, and that the left and right parts of the cerebral cortex The hemispheric area distinguishes creative thinkers from logical thinkers, that is, "right-brain thinking" and "left-brain thinking." This led to the idea that neural processes can be divided into "higher" cognitive functions and "lower" basic sensory-motor functions, Robert Barton (Robert Barton) said. Robert, an evolutionary biologist at Durham University in England, was not involved in the study, but the latest research disputes this view.

Three and a half years ago, Grace Hawthorne, an associate professor at the Stanford University Institute of Design (also known as the D.School), and a behavioral scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine Meet Allan Reiss. Hawthorne wanted to find a way to objectively measure whether her design classes were improving students' creativity. Rice was inspired by a game called "Pictionary" and designed this experiment.

The participants in this experiment were placed next to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device and a non-magnetic tablet. Participants were asked to draw a series of pictures based on given verbs (e.g. vote, exhaustion, greeting), taking 30 seconds for each word. (Participants were asked to draw curves to understand each participant's baseline brain position during the drawing process.) Participants then rated how easy it was to express the words through drawing. The images were sent via tablets to researchers at the School of Design, who rated the creativity of the images, and to researchers at the School of Medicine, who analyzed the brain maps.

The results were striking: the prefrontal cortex, which is traditionally thought to be related to thinking, showed the most activity when participants rated the most difficult pictures to draw; the cerebellum was the most active when participants rated peak creativity. active. Essentially, the less participants thought about what to draw, the more creative they were. Manish Saggar, a psychiatrist at Stanford University and author of the paper, summed it up: "The more you think about it, the more confusion you get."

If the cerebellum plays an important role in creation , which may change our understanding of brain function. Traditionally, the cerebellum is only involved in motor control. This concept originated from monkey experiments. The cerebellum is anatomically separated from the body and is located at the bottom of the brain, with little contact with other tissues. However, recent anatomical studies of the human brain have revealed that during human evolution, the cerebellum established connections with a large number of other brain tissues. Narendar Ramnaini, a neuroscientist at the University of London, has done relevant research. He proposed that it is this connection (within the brain) that allows the cerebellum to participate not only in power work, but also in cognition. work, and may also explain the development of human cognitive abilities to higher levels. In this regard, a meta-analysis of the literature on human cerebellar activity may shed light on the cerebellum's role in cognitive tasks and reveal new directions in cognitive neuroscience research, Barton said.

However, the significant cerebellar activity in this study was unexpected, and the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data also measured activity in other areas of the brain. According to Lisa Azziz-Zadeh, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the study, the findings are "representative of the interconnectedness of different areas of the brain." and demonstrates the need for the development of new neural models of higher cognition, including creativity.

In this experiment, "once things are learned, the cerebellum will subconsciously generate circuits," which proves the brain function mechanism of "practice makes perfect," Ramnani said. We know that when we learn a new movement, for example, the motor cortex of the brain becomes active, and then the cerebellum defaults to coordinating the movements together, so that the motor cortex of the brain can continue to learn.

In fact, cerebellar activity decreased when participants were faced with cognitively challenging tasks and increased once the tasks required some conscious thought. This phenomenon supports the hypothesis that the cerebellum's function in cognition is similar to that of motor control. If so, according to Rice, "the cerebellum is most likely the brain's coordinating center, allowing other brain regions to work more efficiently."

However, this study also has some limitations. First, there has been little consensus in the scientific community on how to define creativity. Therefore, researchers must come up with a workable definition in order to objectively measure creativity. Second, because the cerebellum is linked to movement, and "painting creativity may be related to the complex body movements necessary for painting," John Coney, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University who was not involved in this study, said John Kounios said. The control of this experiment, drawing a curve, may be much simpler than drawing a picture based on the words given, so subsequent experiments should strive to adjust the difficulty of the creativity work and control conditions to ensure that they are closer to the same level. Finally, this experiment only measured visual creativity. To better understand the precise brain regions involved in creativity, future research will need to look at brain activity maps for other forms of creativity, such as speaking and playing music.

However, if the Stanford experiment can be repeated and improved upon, it could lead to a further understanding of the cognitive neuroscience of creativity and other forms of higher cognition.

Translator’s note:

“Less is more” was proposed by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He advocates a new concept of fluid space in his approach. The details in his design works are extremely streamlined. Although simple, his works are noble and elegant, and the structure itself has been sublimated into architectural art. So this "less is more" is aimed at the treatment of architectural art.

Kenya Hara (known as the design director of MUJI) also adopts a similar design philosophy. His book "White" also talks about the concept of simplified design. But the difference is that Kenza Hara's "White" mainly discusses the concepts of "white" and "emptiness" in Japanese design. However, this concept has the same effect as "less is more". In his other book "Design in Design", he also mentioned a similar design philosophy, which is closer to "less is more". In addition to Kenya Hara, there are many other related design philosophies that are very similar to Mies's idea. For example, the famous de Stijl in modern art also takes simplification and streamlining as its philosophy.

Translation: Jiao Yihui Cece Reviewer: Liang Nuo

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