Read Online Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jonah Lehrer
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However, the entire army was needed to capture the fortress; an attack by one small group could not succeed. The general therefore divided his army into several small groups. He positioned the small groups at equal distances from the fortress along different roads. The small groups simultaneously converged on the fortress. In this way the army captured the fortress.
When the tumor puzzle was preceded by this military tale, nearly 70 percent of subjects came up with the solution. Because the subjects were able to see what the different stories had in common, they generated a moment of insight; the answer emerged from the analogy. (If you are still wondering, the solution to the doctor’s problem is to mount ten separate ray guns around the patient and set each of them to deliver 10 percent of the necessary radiation. When the ray machines are all focused on the stomach, there is enough radiation to destroy the tumor while preserving the surrounding tissue.)
How can we get better at conceptual blending? According to Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak, the psychologists behind the tumor puzzle, the key element is a willingness to consider information and ideas that don’t seem worth considering. Instead of concentrating on the details of the problem — most people quickly fixate on tumors and rays — we should free our minds to search for distantly related analogies that can then be mapped onto the puzzles we’re trying to solve. Sometimes, the best way to decipher a medical mystery is to think about military history.
The importance of considering the irrelevant helps explain a recent study led by neuroscientists at Harvard and the University of Toronto. The researchers began by giving a sensory test to eighty-six Harvard undergraduates. The test was designed to measure their ability to ignore outside stimuli, such as the air conditioner humming in the background or the conversation taking place in a nearby cubicle. This skill is typically seen as an essential component of productivity, since it keeps people from getting distracted by extraneous information. Their attention is less likely to break down.
Here’s where the data get interesting: those undergrads who had a tougher time ignoring unrelated stuff were also seven times more likely to be rated as “eminent creative achievers” based on their previous accomplishments. (The association was particularly strong among distractible students with high IQs.) According to the scientists, the inability to focus helps ensure a richer mixture of thoughts in consciousness. Because these people had difficulty filtering out the world, they ended up letting more in. Instead of approaching the problem from a predictable perspective, they considered all sorts of far-fetched analogies, some of which proved useful. (Another useful trick for inciting insights involves a quirk of language. According to an experiment led by Catherine Clement at Eastern Kentucky University, one way to consistently increase problem-solving ability is to change the verbs used to describe the problem. When the verbs are extremely speci fi c, creativity is constrained, and people struggle to fi nd useful comparisons. However, when the same problem is recast with more generic verbs, people are suddenly more likely to uncover unexpected parallels. In some instances, Clement found, the simple act of rewriting the problem led to stun-ning improvements in the performance of her subjects. Insight puzzles that had seemed impossible — not a single person was able to solve them — were now solved more than 60 percent of the time.)
“Creative individuals seem to remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment,” says Jordan Peterson, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto and lead author on the paper. “The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities.”
3.
Marcus
When the tumor puzzle was preceded by this military tale, nearly 70 percent of subjects came up with the solution. Because the subjects were able to see what the different stories had in common, they generated a moment of insight; the answer emerged from the analogy. (If you are still wondering, the solution to the doctor’s problem is to mount ten separate ray guns around the patient and set each of them to deliver 10 percent of the necessary radiation. When the ray machines are all focused on the stomach, there is enough radiation to destroy the tumor while preserving the surrounding tissue.)
How can we get better at conceptual blending? According to Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak, the psychologists behind the tumor puzzle, the key element is a willingness to consider information and ideas that don’t seem worth considering. Instead of concentrating on the details of the problem — most people quickly fixate on tumors and rays — we should free our minds to search for distantly related analogies that can then be mapped onto the puzzles we’re trying to solve. Sometimes, the best way to decipher a medical mystery is to think about military history.
The importance of considering the irrelevant helps explain a recent study led by neuroscientists at Harvard and the University of Toronto. The researchers began by giving a sensory test to eighty-six Harvard undergraduates. The test was designed to measure their ability to ignore outside stimuli, such as the air conditioner humming in the background or the conversation taking place in a nearby cubicle. This skill is typically seen as an essential component of productivity, since it keeps people from getting distracted by extraneous information. Their attention is less likely to break down.
Here’s where the data get interesting: those undergrads who had a tougher time ignoring unrelated stuff were also seven times more likely to be rated as “eminent creative achievers” based on their previous accomplishments. (The association was particularly strong among distractible students with high IQs.) According to the scientists, the inability to focus helps ensure a richer mixture of thoughts in consciousness. Because these people had difficulty filtering out the world, they ended up letting more in. Instead of approaching the problem from a predictable perspective, they considered all sorts of far-fetched analogies, some of which proved useful. (Another useful trick for inciting insights involves a quirk of language. According to an experiment led by Catherine Clement at Eastern Kentucky University, one way to consistently increase problem-solving ability is to change the verbs used to describe the problem. When the verbs are extremely speci fi c, creativity is constrained, and people struggle to fi nd useful comparisons. However, when the same problem is recast with more generic verbs, people are suddenly more likely to uncover unexpected parallels. In some instances, Clement found, the simple act of rewriting the problem led to stun-ning improvements in the performance of her subjects. Insight puzzles that had seemed impossible — not a single person was able to solve them — were now solved more than 60 percent of the time.)
“Creative individuals seem to remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment,” says Jordan Peterson, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto and lead author on the paper. “The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities.”
3.
Marcus
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