The Secret to Creativity

So I need you to answer a question. You only have five seconds to respond and you can have as many answers as you like. Ready? How many uses can you think of for this brick? This is an alternative uses test. They're used to measure creative thinking and how flexible people are in approaching a task. Here's one of the tests I prepared earlier. Yeah, you could make very interesting cookie patterns, I guess. You could use it like you would a domino in a Rube Goldberg machine. You could put it in a tin can and make a rattle out of it. Where creativity comes from has mystified us for centuries. Throughout history, we believe creativity was rare and seen in a small elite – professional painters, poets, performers, and musicians. For a long time, creativity was an enigma, beyond the reach of science. But today, we know that it takes creativity to solve problems. It's an aspect of human intelligence. We find creativity in architecture, science, engineering, and even in nature. Creativity is everywhere, and in the past few decades, there have been dozens of studies exploring it using brain imaging technology. We've found you don't just use the left or right hemisphere of your brain when you're thinking creatively. There isn't one single brain area or circuit for creativity. Professional artists suffering from damage to different brain regions continue to produce art showing similar creativity. Over 40 different brain areas are involved in creativity. I could list them all for you, but your mind might start to wonder. Which might be a good thing! Humans spend an average of 30% of our day engaged in mind wandering. A lot of these studies say that mind wandering helps get our creativity flowing. But why? How can we not pay attention and manage to hit on an idea that's just right? Some scientists think that mind wandering might distract you from your perceived obstacles, or it may allow your subconscious to keep working on the problem without your higher cognitive functions getting involved. Mind wandering may also promote your brain's ability to restructure the way you look at a problem. Perhaps you'll make connections between seemingly unrelated things and come up with novel creative solutions. Oh! You could melt it and then pour it into a mould and sculpt something else out of it! Okay, so everyone's mind wanders. Then why aren't we all creative geniuses? Well, our biology may play a part too. In one study, families who collectively scored higher on musical aptitude and creativity tests were more likely to have an extra copy of the glucose muterotase gene. The gene is involved in the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that promotes neural connections. The extra copy increases the production of serotonin and the brain's ability to reuse it. Researchers have also found that personality traits such as risk-taking and openness to experience contribute to creativity as an individual ability. But creativity can also be trained, honed or taught. In separate studies, professional dancers, artists and musicians were all compared against novices in their fields. During active or mental improvisational sessions where participants were asked to compose a five-note tune, mentally compose a drawing or mentally perform a dance, those who were professionally creative actually thought about the task differently, engaging different areas of their brain than the novices. And then there's a point where nature and nurture meet, which kind of happens all the time. In The Genetics of Creativity, Barbo, Tan and Grigorenko write, it is important to see creativity not only as an individual ability, but also as a cultural and time-specific phenomenon that is biologically grounded and has a social purpose. They suggest that cultural factors, like the reception of creative works, influences our biological factors, like how willing we are to take risks, and the two have a dynamic relationship. Still, while some people may have small biological advantages to be more creative, anyone can be creative. You just need to nurture your creativity, practice your craft, try approaching problems in unique ways and let your mind wander. So what could you do with this brick? I love that neither of us have said anything that has to do with actually building with Legos. Maybe you could connect it to another Lego brick and make something that way. We haven't had many bricks, you just said we had a brick. I know, minimalist Lego sculptures, just one brick.