Woke early in my folks house this morning… which was no surprise as that’s where I’d gone to sleep last night.. . I spent the early morning with my folks talking to my parents about the brain, memory and our ability … or inability to remember, concentrate.. etc. Coincidentally, that was the topic of a radio program that was on as I drove back up here to Vermont. In part of the show Jonah Lehrer was being interviewed about his new book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” . I haven’t read the book.. but based on the interview.. and the cool piece on brainstorming I read by Lehrer in the New Yorker I plan on reading it soon. In today’s interview Lahrer was talking about the role of the prefrontal cortex.. or more specifically the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex in the process of creativity. . The prefrontal cortex is the late developing part of the brain that is responsible for impulse control in adults. The fact that this part of the brain does not fully develop in people until about age 23 is supposedly one of the reasons that teenagers supposedly have less impulse control than adults. That’s the central thesis of books like “Yes, your teen is crazy” (its an average thing.. I know plenty of restrained teens and impulsive adults) .. Anyway… in this piece today., Lehrer described several studies… including one in whih jazz pianists were put in a functianl MRI machine and asked to play a rehearsed piece of music.. then to play an improvisational piece.. While the prefrontal cortex was fully engaged in a technical and rehearsed piece In the improv piece, the artists seemed to have a way to turn down the activity of that part of the brain. . The thinking is that’s the part of the brains saying “don’t screw up.. don’t play the wrong note”.. By suppressing that, good musicians are able to “go with it” and improvise.. just like children.. Lehrer went on to say that this is the part of the brain development that seems to be developing during the ‘4th grade slump’ .. when kids start to question the quality and execution of their own creative work…. interesting. On that point, The most interesting study Jonah mentioned was one in which two groups of people were asked to do a set of creative tasks around idea generation.. Their output was scored (somehow ) on quantity and quality.. one group was asked ot do the tasks as they were.. the other group was asked to imagine that they were doing the tasks as 7 year olds.. The latter group came out with significantly more and better ideas…. just because they were pretending to be kids…
Here’s to immaturity !
nite all, nite sam
-me
ps. Please check out this great piece on our neighbor and freind Pat Quinn that was on WCAX last night. Pat’s been our next door neighbor for 30 years.. all three of the boys spent a whole bunch of time at his and Janet’s house over the years.. He’s an amazing guy !
