Science Reveals: How Does Your Brain Be Creative?
How can we use knowledge exploration to spark creativity?
We must use all of our prior knowledge while trying to come up with a creative idea. But how does this take place in our thoughts and brains? Two semantic memory search mechanisms that are involved in creativity have been uncovered by Emmanuelle Volle’s group (Inserm) at the Frontlab of the Brain Institute in association with the Institute of Technology.
Creativity is not something that just happens. But it’s still a mystery how creative thoughts develop in our minds. According to current theories, it is partly dependent on how our information is organized in semantic memory and how we search for concepts there.
“What actually happens when we look for a new idea? Until now, we didn’t have a clear idea about the processes that allow us to navigate our semantic memory and be creative,” explains Marcela Ovando-Tellez, a postdoctoral fellow at Frontlab and the first author of the study.
Semantic memory and creativity
Semantic memory may be seen as a network of associations between things and ideas that are more or less connected to one another. For instance, the word “apple” will be closely related to the category of “fruit,” as well as to the ideas of “sweet,” “vegetable,” and even further-off phrases like “fairytale” (if you have read Snow White). We are able to make sense of the world because of all these concepts that are stored in our semantic memory.
The network’s structure and how we move across it are directly related to executive control procedures, and these two factors are crucial to creativity. It is simpler to come up with creative thoughts if the semantic linkages are set up such that connections between far-off items can be made with ease. Read More...
