UCL Neuroscience

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UCL Neuroscience. It is part of Inspiring Science 2013, the British Library’s

celebration of the sciences.

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Tonight we invite you to explore and celebrate the wonder of your brain.

18:30-19.30 Your Creative Brain Show Illuminating introduction, Vince Walsh

The Table, Blind Summit Theatre

Parallels between art and science, Arthur Miller

19:40-20:00 Interval Take a break and chat with the presenters and performers

20:00-21:00 Your Creative Brain Show Creativity through history, Chiara Ambrosio

Myth of the muse, Milton Mermikides

Final thoughts, Vince Walsh

Q&A with all speakers

Everyone knows what creativity is…or do we? Creativity can mean

different things to different people. Do you even think of yourself

as creative? Tonight we ask if there are ways to better understand

imagination and invention and what it is that makes us creative.

Welcome! What is creativity?

“ Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.” – Steve Jobs

The human brain is one of the most complex living structures known to man. It needs to be; it is the control centre of the body, directing every thought and action, from movement and learning to emotion and creativity. Everyone’s brain is different and unique. It is hardly surprising then, we are capable of producing such a huge variety of creative outputs. While we’re all familiar with the idea of artists, authors and musicians being creative, we often don’t consider just how much inventiveness we are each capable of every day. Creativity isn’t just about the highbrow, but is visible in places you may not think to look!

“ The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein

Creativity in your BrainThe brain is made up of many billions of individual cells called neurons, which form trillions of connections with one another. Groups of cells in your brain connect with one another in remarkably specific and complicated patterns to form intricate circuits which have specific jobs. In order to do these jobs, neurons communicate with one another using signals called nerve impulses.

For years IQ tests were used to test for creativity, however we now know that intelligence and creativity are not the same. Psychologists and neuroscientists use a range of different tools to try to understand what happens in our brains during the creative process. These range from simple tests of creative ‘behaviours’ to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) – a medical scanning technique that shows what parts of the brain are active while undertaking a creative task. Results show us that there is no ‘Creativity Centre’; no one area in your brain that’s responsible for creativity, instead lots of parts of your brain contribute to the creative process. While science hasn’t solved the mystery of creativity quite yet, it’s exciting to think of the discoveries that lie ahead!

Want to know more?Public information on neuroscience and the latest research brainfacts.org/

For more detailed information on the latest research findings use Europe PubMed Central to access free, full text, peer reviewed, scientific articles at EuropePMC.org/

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Our thoughts on CreativityVince WalshBeing creative is difficult. Doing something new is tough. The truth is that the people who have the best ideas are usually the ones who have the greatest drive, focus and work the hardest. Creative people often have an obsession for what they do and spend years dedicating themselves to their interests. There is however no one way to be creative and therefore creativity is an impossible recipe to write down. Historically it has also been notoriously difficult to measure or test for. In recent years neuroscientists have begun to study aspects of creativity, but the nature of creativity is such that we only recognise it after the fact and so it is very difficult to study creativity in action. I’m therefore not at all sure that neuroscience can meaningfully add to our understanding just yet. I may change my mind.

“ He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

Milton MermikidesThe term ‘creative’ is often used in reference to musicians, but is seldom well defined. Some use the term to describe anyone who occasionally dabbles at the piano, while others reserve it for a small and elite pantheon of musical game-changers. What is certain is that within music, inventiveness is found everywhere and exists in a variety of forms, from the jazz improvisor ‘plucking notes out of thin air’, the composer meticulously crafting a work over many years, the violinist finding a freshness in a well-worn piece and the songwriter intuitively finding the perfect balance between popular accessibility and expressive depth. What it means to be musically creative and how it might be encouraged, are questions that are not easily answered. However the fast growing – and overlapping – fields of neuroscience, psychology, practice as research and computer modelling are gaining new and fascinating insights into this most primal and deeply felt of human activities.

“ Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” – Frank Zappa

Blind Summit TheatreFor Blind Summit the creative process is more like archaeology. We don’t feel like we are so much inventing as unearthing something that is already there. Occasionally you stumble across a great find, but often we uncover less good stuff. The challenge is finding ways to present both of these to audiences. Ultimately they are the judges.

Arthur I. MillerI believe that creativity can be unravelled, but not just yet. To do so we will need new sciences formed by fusing together ones we already have – like physics, computer science, neuroscience and cognitive science, in as-yet-undreamt of ways. Only then may we even begin to fathom the mind’s ability to produce sublime music, fantastic scientific theories, spell-binding literature and mind-bending paintings. In my opinion, the following issues need to be considered for understanding the creative process: What are the conditions for creativity? What are the hallmarks? Can computers be creative? What are the differences and similarities between creativity in art and creativity in science? Do we all have the ability to be creative? The results can supply grist for the mill of the exciting theories of creativity appearing in neuroscience and cognitive science, serving as tests and as hints as to how to proceed further. In my talk I will bring these critical issues alive.

“ There was a moment when I knew how nature worked…The theory had elegance and beauty. The goddamn thing was gleaming” – Richard Feynman

Chiara AmbrosioA common assumption about creativity is that it consists of “breaking the rules”. There is a lot of truth in this statement, but it often overshadows a more fundamental step: one needs to know “the rules” before being able to break them. Creativity requires perseverance and training, along with a great deal of tacit knowledge that is often not formalised in manuals and handbooks. Being creative involves mastering a field before being able to bring about a radical change. Working within certain constraints is the pre-condition for turning an impossibility into an opportunity, and this is true for any domain – the pursuit of new scientific hypotheses, literature and poetry, music, art, theatre and even successful comedy. When it comes to understanding creativity we still have a great deal to learn, and perhaps thinking about the role of rules and constraints is a good place to start.

Who we are: Presenters & Performers

Chiara AmbrosioChiara Ambrosio is a Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science at the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London. Her research focuses on the relations between art and science, as well as general topics in history and philosophy of science. She regularly works in close collaboration with artists, scientists, museums and galleries across London to ensure that her (occasionally quite abstract) philosophical ideas find a concrete counterpart in real life.

Blind Summit TheatreBlind Summit Theatre are puppetry innovators. The company was formed in 1997 by Mark Down and Nick Barnes to reinvent traditional Japanese Bunraku for contemporary western audiences. They present new puppets in new places in new ways, seeing puppetry as a radical part of the reinvention of theatre in our time. Blind Summit produce and tour their own productions around the world, and also provide puppetry for productions including opera, theatre, TV and the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. The Table, their award winning show from which tonight’s extract is taken, is the story of a cantankerous puppet having an existential crisis on a table. The people behind the puppet are Nick Barnes, Mark Down and Mabel Jones. See www.blindsummit.com

Milton MermikidesMilton Mermikides is a Lecturer at the University of Surrey, a Professor of Jazz Guitar at the Royal College of Music and a professional composer, performer and producer. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as Pat Martino, John Williams, Tod Machover, Steve Winwood, Tim Minchin and Brian Eno. Son of a CERN nuclear physicist, he has maintained a deep interest in the sciences and their role in musical perception, performance, learning and experience.

Arthur I. MillerArthur I. Miller is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is fascinated by the nature of creative thinking and, in particular, creativity in art and in science. What are the similarities, what are the differences? His books include 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession; Insights of Genius; and Einstein, Picasso, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His forthcoming book is The New Avant‑Garde: Dispatches from the Edge of Art and Science. See www.arthurimiller.com.

Vincent WalshVincent Walsh leads the Visual Cognition group at UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. He is a Royal Society Industry Research Fellow and works closely with industry, music and sport. Making science work in the real world is a whole new challenge and creatively demanding.

The British Library and UCL Neuroscience would like to thank all those involved. An additional, special thank-you to Karen Walshe.

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About UCL NeuroscienceUCL is one of the world’s best places for neuroscience research. Neuroscience is a major priority for UCL, and the key to our success lies in our world-class facilities and the people who are responsible for Neuroscience at UCL. Our vision is to build upon our existing excellence by investing in research teams that make fundamental discoveries linking neural circuits and behaviour, and to translate these findings into new ways of diagnosing and treating neurological diseases.

UCL Neuroscience is also passionate about our research, and many of our scientists are keen to engage with the public in events like ‘Your Creative Brain’ to talk about the work that they do.