According to a popular view, creativity is a product of the brain’s
right hemisphere — innovative people are considered “right-brain thinkers”
while “left-brain thinkers” are thought to be analytical and logical.
Neuroscientists who are skeptical of this idea have argued that there is not
enough evidence to support this idea and an ability as complex as human
creativity must draw on vast swaths of both hemispheres. A new brain-imaging
study out of Drexel University’s Creativity Research Lab sheds light on this
controversy by studying the brain activity of jazz guitarists during
improvisation.
The study, which was recently published in the journal NeuroImage,
showed that creativity is, in fact, driven primarily by the right hemisphere in
musicians who are comparatively inexperienced at improvisation. However, musicians
who are highly experienced at improvisation rely primarily on their left
hemisphere. This suggests that creativity is a “right-brain ability” when a
person deals with an unfamiliar situation but that creativity draws on
well-learned, left-hemisphere routines when a person is experienced at the
task.
By taking into
consideration how brain activity changes with experience, this research may
contribute to the development of new methods for training people to be creative
in their field. For instance, when a person is an expert, his or her performing
is produced primarily by relatively unconscious, automatic processes that are
difficult for a person to consciously alter, but easy to disrupt in the
attempt, as when self-consciousness causes a person to “choke” or falter.
In contrast,
novices’ performances tend to be under deliberate, conscious control. Thus,
they are better able to make adjustments according to instructions given by a
teacher or coach. Recordings of brain activity could reveal the point at which
a performer is ready to release some conscious control and rely on unconscious,
well-learned routines. Releasing conscious control prematurely may cause the
performer to lock-in bad habits or nonoptimal technique.
The study was
led by David Rosen, PhD, a recent Drexel doctoral graduate and current
co-founder and chief operations officer of Secret Chord Laboratories, a
music-technology startup company; and John Kounios, PhD, professor of
psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied and cognitive brain
sciences in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences.
The team
recorded high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) from 32 jazz guitar players,
some of whom were highly experienced and others less experienced. Each musician
improvised to six jazz lead sheets (songs) with programmed drums, bass and
piano accompaniment. The 192 recorded jazz improvisations (six jazz songs by 32
participants) were subsequently played for four expert jazz musicians and
teachers individually so they could rate each for creativity and other
qualities.
The researchers
compared the EEGs recorded during highly rated performances with EEGs recorded
during performances that were rated to be less creative. For highly rated
performances compared with less-creative performances, there was greater
activity in posterior left-hemisphere areas of the brain; for performances with
lower ratings compared with those with higher ratings, there was greater
activity in right-hemisphere, mostly frontal, areas.
By themselves,
these results might suggest that highly creative performances are associated
with posterior left-hemisphere areas and that less-creative performances are
associated with right-hemisphere areas. This pattern is misleading, however,
according to the researchers, because it does not take experience of the
musician into consideration.
Some of these
musicians were highly experienced, having given many public performances over
decades. Other musicians were much less experienced, having given only a very
small number of public performances. When the researchers reanalyzed the EEGs
to statistically control for the level of experience of the performers, a very
different pattern of results emerged. Virtually all of the brain-activity
differences between highly creative and less-creative performances were found
in the right hemisphere, mostly in the frontal region.
This finding is
in line with the team’s other research that used electrical stimulation to
study how creative expression is generated in musicians’ brains and its study
of how experienced and inexperienced jazz musicians reacted to being exhorted
to play “even more creatively.”
The new study
reveals the brain areas that support creative musical improvisation for highly
experienced musicians and their less-experienced counterparts and addresses the
controversial question of the roles of the left and right hemispheres in
creativity. Furthermore, it raises an important issue that goes to the heart of
the definition and understanding of creativity.
“If creativity is defined in terms of the quality of a product, such as a
song, invention, poem or painting, then the left hemisphere plays a key role,”
said Kounios. “However, if creativity is understood as a person’s ability to
deal with novel, unfamiliar situations, as is the case for novice improvisers,
then the right hemisphere plays the leading role.”
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