Imaging the Aha! Moment

The Neural Basis of CreativityLisa Aziz-Zadeh, PhDUniversity of Southern California

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You might think that it is love or madness or money that is driving him to this act. But what if I told you that what propelled him to run through the streets naked was nothing more than an idea?2

3Archimedes of Syracuse provided the archetypal story of the aha moment when he discovered the principle of displacement. After days of belabored thought over a problem, he discovered the solution in his bathtub, and was so inspired that he supposedly ran down the street shouting Eureka! without remembering to put on his clothes. This story reveals the intensity of such insight moments, their sudden appearance in thought and gestalt-like quality, and the uniqueness and creativity of the solution.

About 2300 years ago the king of Greece wanted a golden crown and so he gave a lump of gold to the royal jewellers. But he did not trust the jewellers and so he weighed the lump of gold before giving it to the them, knowing he would weigh the crown after it had been made.Suddenly the king realised that the jewellers could use another substance (iron maybe) to make up the weight. He knew that he needed to know both the mass of the crown and also the volume. If both were the same as the original lump then his crown was pure gold. But how could he possibly find the volume of the funny shaped crown with melting it down. He called his chief mathematician Archimedes and asked him how he could find the volume of his crown without mashing it up. Archimedes didn=t know and went away to think about the problem. Like many people Archimedes thought best when he was relaxing in the bath and when he got home he started running a nice hot bath thinking about the King=s problem all the time. When he got into the bath he suddenly noticed the water level rise. He jumped out of the bath and ran down the road totally naked shouting AEurika, Eurika@ which means A I have found the answer, I have found the answer.@Archimedes had found that you could find the volume of an object by putting the object in water if you measured the amount of water that was >displaced= then you also found the volume of the object.Next day Archimedes told the king of his discovery and the king found the volume of his new crown. The crown did not have the same volume as the original lump of gold and so must be impure so the jewellers must have cheated him out of gold. He immediately had the jewellers executed.

The sudden hunch, the creative leap of the mind that sees in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way Martin Gardner, mathematician

that moment of insight becomes the creative act as a joining of two previously incompatible ideas Watson, biologist

Problem Solving StrategiesSearchMemory RetrievalAha! / Pop-out / Insight Solutions

5Search is also called grind-out-the-solution problem (Metcalfe & Wiebe 1987).

Search StrategyEffortful, deliberate, and largely consciousProceeds incrementally from beginning to solution state Intermediate results are available to working memory Gradual accumulation of partial knowledge can be tracked while the problem is being solved Examples: physics word problems, multiplying multi-digit numbers, playing chess

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Memory RetrievalSolution may also pop into the mind automatically from memory. Difference with the aha moment: a lack of greater insight Examples: solving single-digit multiplication problems and playing speed-chess

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Aha! SolutionRequires restructuring of the problem in a new wayIntermediate steps are not consciously available to the solverFeeling of sudden insight

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9See Ohlsson 1984 for a review. But people like Duncker 1945, Maier 1931Gestalt view: reconstruturing, obtained by retrieving relavant but previously unattended information from memory, leads to a new interpretation that suggest alternative operators that may be applied to yield a traditional search solution (knoblich et al 1999; ohlsson, 1984b, chronicle et al, 2001)

Explain this:A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender takes out a shot-gun and points it at the man. The man says thank you and walks out.

10Metcalfe: refers to these as subjectively catastrophic solutions. Others as pop-out compelling phenomenological experience.Takes 20-120 min to get this. To get the solution, you must activate something already stored in long term memory the fact that surprise cures hiccups

Gestalt View:The sudden emergence of the insightful solution and the accompanying aha! sensation is due to the sudden re-organization of ones understanding of the problemThe decisive points in thought-process, the moments of sudden comprehension, of the Aha!, of the new, are always at the same time moments in which such a sudden restructuring of the thought-material takes place (Dunker, 1945)

11What happens outside of awareness mimics the solvers phenomenology.

Behavioral Study on Aha! Moment (Novick & Sherman 2003)Documented that anagrams were unique in that they could yield both pop-out and search solutions in expert subjects. Examples:iasydnadtsghtin

12Daisy, stand, night

graph

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Q: What are the neural correlates of these different solution strategies?

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Methods: fMRI

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tiplo

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pilot

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Aha or search?

MethodsTake images of brain activations during an Aha! strategyTake images of brain activations during a Search strategyFind the brain activity that is uniquely involved in the Aha! strategy

Results

tiplo

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Areas related to emotional component

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ResultsRight and left hemispheres are both involved in Aha! momentsBilateral frontal language and premotor regionsBilateral prefrontal cortexReward circuit may be related to the feeling of insight

Question: Is activity in both brain hemispheres necessary for creative processing?

Visual Creativity

Methods: fMRI

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Stimuli

MethodsTake images of brain activations during the visual creativity taskTake images of brain activations during the visual non-creative taskFind the brain activity that is uniquely involved in visual creativity

Results for Visual Creativity

Visual Creativity ResultsAdditional left hemisphere activity --- activity in both hemispheres for creativityPrefrontal activity for organizing and planning problem solvingMotor regions for implicit mental imagery of moving the pieces around

Even when the task is a specialty of the right hemisphere the left hemisphere is additionally recruited during creativity!

Common findings for both verbal and visual creativityPrefrontal activation in both hemispheresBilateral activation for specialized regions (language processing or visuo-spatial processing)Motor activation

The art of unleashing creativity in self or others

Applications to lifePracticing problems that require insight rather than search or memory retrieval

One of the first things is that creativity is like a muscle the more you practice it, the better you get at it.36

Practice creative problem solvingMemorize a problem know the solution to 1 problemImprove creative problem solving skills know how to solve numerous problems

Ways to induce insight solutions

Mental state shift: Creativity techniques designed to shift a person's mental state into one that fosters creativity. (e.g., relax after intensively trying to think of a solution.)Problem reframing: e.g. reconsidering one's goals by asking "What am I really trying to accomplish?"

Ways to induce insight solutions contdMultiple idea facilitation: Increase the quantity of fresh ideas (hoping one of them has value; brainstorming)Inducing change of perspective: e.g., What would Gandhi say about this? How would Picasso draw this? What would Iron Man or Harry Potter do in this situation?

Inducing Change in PerspectiveUsing any of the symbols, make this statement true:

10 10 10 = 9.50

+ - x \ Answer:

10 10 10 = 9.50

Change perspective from math problem to time/clock frame

Applications to lifePracticing problems that require insight rather than search or memory retrievalAha! moment and creativity in general are their own reward

Traits of Creative ThinkersCuriosity PassionNovel PerspectivesKnowledge SeekingHard workingAbility to focus on problem huge challenge in multitasking cultureSkepticism (doubting and suspending judgment)Can handle uncertaintyAre comfortable with their areas of ignorance or completely changing their views

Curiosity -- (did you ask any good questions today?)Passion seed of geniusObtaining new info christoph coch reads 20 journals a week

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Applications to lifePracticing problems that require insight rather than search or memory retrievalAha! Moment/Creativity is its own rewardUtilize tasks that naturally engage the two hemispheres

Creative problem solving techniques contd

Using a new medium Draw a picture instead of an essay to describe your view on XX.Use multiple media (visual art/music and language; collage)

AcknowledgementsVerbal Insight StudyJonas KaplanTennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, UCLAVisual Creativity StudySook-Lei LiewFrancesco DandekarDornsife Imaging Center, USC

thank you!

workshop

Apple watch

http://www.apple.com/watch/films/#film-design

Your task:List 5 potentially unforeseen benefits of the apple watchList 5 potential problems of the apple watch (or wearable smart devices in general)

Problem solving strategies:Multiple idea facilitation: brainstormingProblem reframing: e.g. reconsidering one's goals by asking "What am I really trying to accomplish?Mental state shift: Creativity techniques designed to shift a person's mental state into one that fosters creativity. (e.g., relax after intensively trying to think of a solution.)Inducing change of perspective: e.g., How would Gandhi approach this? Doctors? Insurance companies? Picasso? An architect? Einstein? Biologists? SciFi writer? Hollywood? Priests? Massage therapists? Tobacco companies? Etc.Using a new medium Draw a picture Use multiple media (visual art/music and language; collage)