How Creativity Works: Jonah Lehrer Says It's All In Your Imagination

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(via NPR All Things Considered)

I am a huge fan of neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer. He seems impossibly young for someone that has studied and published so much already. I devoured his books Proust Was A Neuroscientist, How We Decide and have already gotten halfway through the just published Imagine: How Creativity Works. His Wired blog Frontal Cortex is also a must read for anyone interested in the brain. Besides his obvious intelligence Lehrer has the talent to understand and convey deeply complex science in narratives that are engaging and thought-provoking without diminishing the power of his research. Highly recommend you take a look at his books. 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Creativity Top 5: Week of March 19

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Your Brain On Fiction

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Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.

Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells.

The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction by Annie Murphy Paul, NYTimes.com

The more we study the brain the more we realize that it does not make distinctions between reading and watching, between thinking an experience and having it in real life. The same parts of the brain are stimulated. The same has been discovered about empathy, when we see others in pain, the areas of the brain that would be active if we were suffering from the pain become active as well.

The more we study the brain the more obvious it becomes that the role of art, written or otherwise, is to educate us on how to handle experiences that we would not normally encounter. To educate us by allowing us to see the world from someone else’s point of view. 

 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter

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Turns out being bilingual makes you a better multitasker. 
Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.

The Benefits of Bilingualism by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, NYTimes.com

If you have a baby, expose them to two languages. 

If children are exposed to two languages before their first birthday, this has unanticipated benefits. You can measure them in the laboratories when you bring these babies in.  They are better able to, for instance, resolve conflict cues. They are better able to unlearn a rule that they learned.  So for instance, if they learn that pulling on a string leads to a mobile moving or something else that they like, if the rule suddenly changes, they’re more rapidly able to resolve that conflict and learn the new rule. 

Bilingualism Will Supercharge Your Baby’s Brain by Sam Wang, BigThink.com

As for adults, well, learning a second language protects against Alzheimer’s.

 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

The Week's Links (3/18/12)

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All the links posted to Twitter, Facebook and Google+ this week: 

  • Five things (What I Learned This Week)owl.li/1i8qEu
  • Ex-employees of Google, Goldman Sachs, and Yahoo have their say owl.li/9IY2n
  • Whole brain creativity owl.li/9D9JS
  • The new economics of entertainmentowl.li/9hYDk
  • 10 Ways Your Brain and Feelings Influence Each Other owl.li/9AxJD
  • Vulnerability (A TED Remix): Daring Greatlyowl.li/9HCz2 Updated, perfect Friday afternoon viewing.
  • The Genius Who Invented Brunch owl.li/9AuMQ
  • Collected Wisdom: 25 Bits of Advice on Making Ideas Happen owl.li/9rspd
  • You Call that a Punctuation Mark?! The Interrobang Celebrates its 50th Birthdayowl.li/9DIRw
  • David Lynch on Finding Ideas owl.li/9hYCC
  • The Social Map - NYC branding map.owl.li/9DoBX Reminds me of Logorama:owl.li/9DoBY /via @qpslgs
  • Project Re: Brief by Google owl.li/9DoaE Re-imagining classic ads for the web.
  • Ballet In Advertising owl.li/1i3YUa
  • The Co.Create Virtual Panel: Brand Contentowl.li/9Dnti
  • How To Manufacture Desire owl.li/9Dnb0
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s Resume owl.li/9hYzR
  • Leonard Bernstein’s Masterful Lectures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Recorded in 1973)owl.li/9DbXZ
  • Unlimited Vacation Doesn’t Create Slackers—It Ensures Productivity owl.li/9Dbxm
  • Berliner Philharmoniker: Instruments From The Inside owl.li/1i2mUD
  • Ha! Happy Pi Day. I should’ve posted this today:owl.li/9EeGp
  • New research finds a work of musical theater can impact the way audiences think about a social issue. owl.li/9rrLr
  • After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses owl.li/9DHyT The future is here.
  • Creativity Top 5: March 13, 2012 owl.li/1i1gG6
  • Education friends check out the newTED-Ed: Short lessons for teachers and students to spark curiosity owl.li/9D8qV
  • Weird, or just different? owl.li/9hYxP
  • Steal Like an Artist: Creativity in the Age of the Remix owl.li/9AyRA
  • Marvel offering free digital downloads with physical comic purchases owl.li/9AuOj Best of both worlds.
  • An idea is only as great as the movement it effects. /via @leeclowsbeard
  • The Art of the Dumb Question owl.li/9rsm9
  • Easy As Pie owl.li/1i0CH6
  • Khan Academy Enters Next Era With iPad Appowl.li/9AqVV
  • Listen To Cake Topple Your Brain owl.li/9hYuu
  • 10 Ways To Fix The Agency Pitch Processowl.li/9AqLw
  • Are Smartphones Changing What It Means to be Human? owl.li/9rsDc
  • Whether the glass is half full or half empty depends on who you’re selling it to. /via @leeclowsbeard
  • 12 Famous Book Titles That Come From Poetryowl.li/9rs1T
  • Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium - PBS Arts: Off Book owl.li/1hZ25i
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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.