The Neuroscience of Creativity

Discover how the creative brain works across musical, literary, visual artistic, kinesthetic and scientific spheres, and how to study it.

Anna Abraham (Author)

9781316629611, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 October 2018

386 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.66 kg

'It occupies a useful and necessary niche, with distinction. Of all the books I have recently read on the neuroscience of creativity (even beyond those reviewed here), it is a clear first choice as a prospective classroom text for this intersection of topics.' Aaron Kozbelt, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

What happens in our brains when we compose a melody, write a poem, paint a picture, or choreograph a dance sequence? How is this different from what occurs in the brain when we generate a new theory or a scientific hypothesis? In this book, Anna Abraham reveals how the tools of neuroscience can be employed to uncover the answers to these and other vital questions. She explores the intricate workings of our creative minds to explain what happens in our brains when we operate in a creative mode versus an uncreative mode. The vast and complex field that is the neuroscience of creativity is disentangled and described in an accessible manner, balancing what is known so far with critical issues that are as yet unresolved. Clear guidelines are also provided for researchers who pursue the big questions in their bid to discover the creative mind.

1. What is creativity?
2. How can creativity be assessed?
3. Cognitive explanations of creativity
4. Brain-based global explanations of creativity
5. Brain-based local explanations of creativity
6. Neuroscientific methods in the study of creativity
7. Unique problems in the neuroscientific study of creativity
8. Musical creativity
9. Literary creativity
10. Visual artistic creativity
11. Kinesthetic creativity
12. Scientific creativity
Afterword – from cave art to latte art.

Subject Areas: Popular psychology [VSP], Neurosciences [PSAN], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Psychology: emotions [JMQ], Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology [JMM], Psychology [JM]