Chase, Chance, and Creativity

by James H Austin

  to. Advertising Age, July 23, 1973, p. 68.

  tt. A. Burg, "How Much Caffeine in the Cup," Tea and Coffee Trade journal (Jan. 1975).

  12. The Coca-Cola Company, Consumer Services Department, 1973.

  13. Tea Council of the U.S.A., Inc., 1973.

  14. N. O'Donohue and W. Hagamen, "A Map of the Cat Brain for Regions Producing Self-Stimulation and Unilateral Inattention," Brain Research 5 (1967): 289-305.

  15. T. Crow, P. Spear and G. Arbuthnott, "Intracranial Self-Stimulation with Electrodes in the Region of the Locus Coerulcus," Brain Research 36 (1972): 275-87.

  16. C. Sem-Jacobsen and A. Torkildsen, "Depth Recording and Electrical Stimulation in the Human Brain," in Electrical Studies on the 11nanaesthetized Brain, E. Ramey and D. O'Doherty, eds., (New York: Hoeber, 1960), ch. 14.

  17. M. Olds and A. Yuwiler, "Effect of Brain Stimulation in Positive and Negative Reinforcing Regions in the Rat on Content of Catecholamines in Hypothalamus and Brain," Brain Research 36 (1972): 385-98.

  18. B. Eiduson, Scientists: Their Psychological World (New York, Basic Books) 1962.

  19. K. Dewing and G. Battye, "Attention Deployment and Nonverbal Fluency," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 17 (1971): 214-18.

  20. J. P. Houston and S. A. Mednick, "Creativity and the Need for Novelty," lour- nal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 66 (1963): 137-41. The Remote Associates Test used in this study is not a "pure" test for creativity; it also depends on intelligence.

  21. H. Haywood, "Novelty-Seeking as a Function of Manifest Anxiety and Physiological Arousal," Journal of Personality 30 (1962): 63-74.

  22. D. Berlyne, "Arousal, Reward, and Learning," Annals of the New York Academy of Science 459 (1969): 1059-70.

  27. Right Brain/Left Brain; One Brain

  1. D. Galin and R. Ornstein, "Lateral Specialization of Cognitive Mode: An EEG Study," Psychophysiology 9 (1972): 412-18.

  2. M. Durnford and D. Kimura, "Right Hemisphere Specialization for Depth Perception Reflected in Visual Field Differences," Nature 231(1971): 394-95. A. Luria and E. Simernitskaya, "Interhemispheric Relations and the Functions of the Minor Hemisphere." Neuropsychologia 15 (1977), 175-178.

  3. R. Harding, An Anatomy of Inspiration (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, 1942), p. 72.

  4. M. Gazzaniga, "The Split-brain in Man," Scientific American 217 (1967): 2429; J. Levy, "Lateral Specialization of the Human Brain: Behavioral Manifestations and Possible Evolutionary Basis," in The Biology of Behavior, ed. J. Kiger (Corvallis, Ore.: Oregon State University Press, 1972).

  5. G. McKee, B. Humphrey and D. W. McAdam, "Scaled Lateralization of Alpha Activity During Linguistic and Musical Tasks," Psychophysiology 10 (1973): 44143; see also Galin and Ornstein, "Lateral Specialization of Cognitive Mode."

  6. A. Sugerman, L. Goldstein, G. Margerrison and N. Stoltzfus, "Recent Research in EEG Amplitude Analysis," Diseases of the Nervous System 34 (1973): 162-66.

  7. L. Goldstein, N. Stoltzfus, and J. Gardocki, "Changes in Inter-hemispheric Amplitude Relationships in the EEG During Sleep," Physiology and Behavior 8 (1972): 811-15.

  8. E. Beck, R. Dustman and T. Schenkenberg, "Life Span Changes in the Electrical Activity of the Human Brain as Reflected in the Cerebral Evoked Response," in Neurobiology of Ageing, ed. J. Ordy and K. Brizzee (New York: Plenum Press, (1975),16:187.

  9. J. Risberg, J. Halsey, E. Wills and E. Wilson, "Hemispheric Specialization in Normal Man Studied by Bilateral Measurements of the Regional Blood Flow," Brain 98 (1975): 511-24.

  10. P. Bakan, "Hypnotizability, Laterality of Eye Movements and Functional Brain Asymmetry," Perceptual and Motor Skills 28 (1969): 927-32. In this study, "right movers" were less readily hypnotizable and were more often found in natural science majors (as opposed to the humanities and social sciences) at Michigan State University. See also K. Kocel, D. Galen, R. Ornstein and E. Merrin, "Lateral Eye Movement and Cognitive Mode," Psychonoinic Science 27 (1972): 223-24; W. Weiten and C. Etaugh, "Lateral Eye Movement as Related to Verbal and Perceptual-motor Skills and Values," Perceptual and Motor Skills 36 (1973):423-28; P. Bakan and F. Strayer, "On Reliability of Conjugate Lateral Eye Movements," Perceptual and Motor Skills 36 (1973): 429-30; and M. Kinsbourne, "Direction of Gaze and Distribution of Cerebral Thought Process," Neuropsychologia 12 (1974): 279-81.

  tt. R. Gur, R. Gur and L. Harris, "Cerebral Activation, as Measured by Subjects' Eye Movements, is Influenced by Experimenter Location," Neuropsychologia 13 (1975): 35-44; D. Galin and R. Ornstein, "Individual Differences in Cognitive Style-I. Reflective Eye Movements," Neuropsychologia 12 (1974): 367-76; D. Hines and C. Martindale, "Induced Lateral Eye-movements and Creative and Intellectual Performance," Perceptual and Motor Skills 39 (1974): 153-54.

  12. C. Pribram and A. Luria, eds., Psychophysiology of the Frontal Lobes (New York: Academic Press, 1973).

  13. A. Katz, "Creativity and the Cerebral Hemispheres," in The Creativity Research Handbook, Vol. 1, ed. M. Runco (Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1997), pp. 203-226.

  14. J. Bogen and G. Bogen, "The Other Side of the Brain, III: The Corpus Callosum and Creativity," Bulletin of the Los Angeles Neurological Society 34 (1969):191-217.

  is. D. Galin, "Implications for Psychiatry of Left and Right Cerebral Specialization," Archives of General Psychiatry 31 (1974): 572-83.

  16. J. Austin and S. Takaori, "Studies of Connections Between Locus Coeruleus and Cerebral Cortex," Japanese Journal of Pharmacology 26 (1976): 145-60.

  17. J. Austin, "Consciousness Evolves When the Self Dissolves," Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (11-12), (2000): 209-230.

  1s. A. Revonsuo, M. Wilenius-Emet, J. Kuusella, et al., "The Neural Generation of a Unified Illusion in Human Vision," NeuroReport 8 (1997): 3867-3870.

  19. J. Austin, "Consciousness Evolves When the Self Dissolves."

  28. The Quest; The Quests

  1. A. Maslow, "The Creative Attitude," in Explorations in Creativity, ed. R. Mooney and T. Razik (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 43-54.

  2. V. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965).

  3. R. Dubos, A God Within (New York: Scribner, 1972).

  4. H. Gutman, "The Biological Roots of Creativity," in Explorations in Creativity, p. 30.

  29. The Creative Setting

  i. Throughout the literature on creativity, one sees emphasized the fact that creativity is cultivated rather than that it is genetically determined. Still, in animals, it is simple to breed strains that are "bright" at solving maze problems, and surely many of the same principles apply to humans, as Francis Galton has argued in Hereditary Genius. But for sound ethical reasons, one does not remove identical twins at birth from creative or noncreative parents, then rear one twin in an impoverished environment, the other in an enriched environment, and retest them at intervals thereafter. For these reasons, it is next to impossible to prove with scientific certainty that heredity plays an obvious role in creativity in man while sharply separating genetic influences from all the cumulative effects of environmental (including parental) influences.

  If we content ourselves with the facts, and don't bother trying to untangle the nature/nurture contribution, it is of interest that five families have a Nobelist parent-child combination. These families include the Braggs, the Thomsons, the Curies, the Bohrs, and the von Eulers. The two Tinbergen brothers also were separately awarded the Nobel Prize, one in Economics and one in Medicine (H. Zuckerman, personal communication, 1977).

  2. G. Domino, "Maternal Personality Correlates of Son's Creativity," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 33 (1969): 180-83.

  3. L. Datta and M. Parloff, "On the Relevance of Autonomy: Parent-Child Relationships and Early Scientific Creativity," Proceedings of the American Psychological Association, 75th Convention (1967): 149-50.

  4. B. Eiduson, Scientists: Their Psychological World (New York: Basic Books, 1962).

  5. A. Ziv, "Facilitating Effects of Humor on Creativity," Journal of Educational Psych
ology 68 (1976): 318-22.

  6. R. Crutchfield, "Instructing the Individual in Creative Thinking," in Explorations in Creativity, ed. R. Mooney and T. Razik (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 196-205. The study has the advantage of numbers, because 267 children were the test subjects and 214 of their classmates served as controls.

  7. S. Parnes, "Can Creativity be Increased?" in A Source Book for Creative Thinking, S. Parnes and H. Harding, eds. (New York: Scribner, 1962), pp. 185-91.

  8. F. Barron, "The Disposition Toward Originality," in Scientific Creativity: Its Recognition and Development, C. Taylor and F. Barron, eds. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963), ch. 11.

  9. H. Anderson, "Creativity in Perspective," in Creativity and Its Cultivation, ed. H. Anderson (New York: Harper Brothers, 1959).

  to. M. Wallach and N. Kogan, "A New Look at the Creativity-Intelligence Distinction," Journal of Personality 33 (1965): 384-96.

  ii. D. Pelz, "Creative Tensions in the Research and Development Climate," Science 157 (1967): 160-65.

  12. W. Cannon, The Way of An Investigator (New York: Hafner, 1965).

  13. H. Jatzkewitz, "Zwei typen von cerebrosid-schwefelsauerestern als sog. 'pralipiode' and speichersubstanzen bei der leukodystrophie, typ Scholz," Hoppe-Seiller's Zeitschrift fiir Physiologische Chemie 311 (1958): 279.

  14. OMIM is (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?db=OMIM).

  is. 1 subscribe to this hypothesis (the "Ortega hypothesis"). However, in physics at least, arguments have been presented to the contrary. For a discussion of this issue, see J. Cole and S. Cole, "The Ortega Hypothesis," Science 178 (1972): 368-75.

  16. W. Krivit, E. Shapiro, W. Kennedy, et al. "Treatment of Late Infantile Metachromatic Leukodystrophy by Bone Marrow Transplantation," New England Journal of Medicine 322 (1990): 28-32.

  17. S. Arieti, Creativity: The Magic Synthesis (New York: Basic Books, 1976), p. 329.

  18. H. Zuckerman, Scientific Elite (New York: Free Press, 1977), p. 81.

  19. Ibid. Could information about the role of Jewish mothers (and fathers) in these families clarify the basis for this interesting difference?

  20. Ibid., p. 74.

  21. H. Lehman and P. Witty, "Scientific Eminence and Church Membership," Scientific Monographs 33 (1931): 544-49.

  22. Zuckerman, Scientific Elite, p. 251.

  23. D. Hoops, The American bnpressionists (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1972).

  24. F. Ingelfinger, "'Obfuscation' in Medical Writing," New England Journal of Medicine 294 (1976): 546-47.

  25. R. Strub and F. Black, "Multiple Authorship," The Lancet, Nov. 13, 1976, pp.1090-91.

  26. S. Parnes, "Effects of Extended Effort in Creative Problem-Solving," Journal of Educational Psychology 52 (1961): 117-22.

  27. P. Abelson, "Conditions for Discovery," Journal of the American Medical Association 194 (1965): 1363-68.

  28. H. Zuckerman and J. Cole, "Research Strategies in Science: A Preliminary Inquiry," Creativity Research Jotirnal7 (1994): 391-405.

  29. C. Dragstedt, "Who Killed Cock Robin?," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 5 (1962): 364-76.

  30. D. Ingle, Principles of Research in Biology and Medicine (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1969), pp. 114-15.

  31. A. Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam, 1970).

  30. The Creative Prelude

  1. B. Ghiselin, "The Creative Process and Its Relation to the Identification of Creative Talent," in Scientific Creativity: Its Recognition and Development, ed. C. Taylor and F. Barron (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963): pp. 355-64.

  2. L. Kubie, Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process, Porter Lectures, series 22 (Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas Press, 1958).

  3. C. Nicolle, Biologic de ('Invention (Paris: Alcan, 1932), p. 69.

  4. H. Poincare, "Mathematical Creation," in The Creative Process, ed. B. Ghiselin (New York: Mentor, New American Library, 1952), pp. 39-40.

  31. Moments of Creative Inspiration

  1. One wonders whether the possibility that a louse might get on his own clothing occurred to Nicolle just as he stepped over the patient.

  2. R. May, The Courage to Create (New York: Norton, 1975), p. 62.

  3. C. Martindale, "Biological Bases of Creativity," in Handbook of Creativity, ed. R. Sternberg (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 137-152.

  4. R. May, op. cit.

  s. A. Maslow, "New Introduction: Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences" (new edition), Journal of Transpersonal Psycho) ,t'y 2 (1970): 83-90.

  6. J. Perkins, "Regulation of Adenylate Cyclase Activity by Neurotransmitters and Its Relation to Neural Function," in The Nervous System, ed. R. Brady, (New York: Raven Press, 1975), 1: 381-94.

  7. R. Harding, An Anatomy of Inspiration (Cambridge, England: Hefter and Sons, 1942), p. 59.

  8. S. Rosner and L. Abt, The Creative Experience (New York: Grossman, 1970).

  9. A. Koestler, The Act of Creation (New York: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 120, 706.

  io. Harding, An Anatomy c f Inspiration, p. 40.

  11. B. Kaltsounis, "Effect of Sound on Creative Performance," Psychological Reports 33 (1973): 737-38.

  12. H. Hughes, "individual and Group Creativity in Science," in Essays on Creativity in the Sciences, ed. M. Coler (New York: New York University Press, 1963), pp. 93-101.

  13. Hughes identifies seven other variations on the creative theme, based on what kind of creative product ensues. The variations include: replacement-this involves providing a new alternative solution to a previous problem; deliberate invention-in this instance one consciously introduces a number of associations and then tries to find some logical connections among them. The technique called "brain storming" is an example of deliberate invention. Recognition of errors-here, one looks at existing solutions to find out what is wrong with them, and on this basis then goes onto define new solutions; routinizing-means reducing a complex recurring problem to a simple routine; generalizing-means recognizing whole classes of problems that are solvable by known means. Stimulation and release-refers to the ability some people have to stimulate others and release creative energies in them, although they may not be especially creative themselves. Through collaboration one extends with ingenuity the ideas of another person.

  14. D. Stumpf, J. Austin, A. Crocker, et at., "Mucopolysaccharidosis Type VI (Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome) I. Sulfatase B Deficiency in Tissues," American Journal of Diseases of Childhood 126 (1973): 747-755.

  32. Follow Through, A More Personal View

  1. T. Maugh, "Creativity: Can It Be Dissected? Can It Be Taught?," Science (June 21, 1974): 1273.

  2. F. Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View' of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 74.

  33. All Quiet on the Eastern Front?

  1. M. MacCallum, "Transcendental Meditation and Creativity," in Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Program, Collected papers, ed. D. Orme-Johnson and J. Farrow (New York: M.I.U. Press, 1975), vol. 1. Box 370, Livingston Manor, New York. It is difficult to separate the effect of meditation per se from the total program of expectation in which it is enclosed.

  2. G. Schwartz, cited by C. Martindale and O. Hines, "Creativity and Cortical Activation During Creative, Intellectual and EEG Feedback Tasks," Biological Psychology 3 (1975): 91-100.

  3. A. Watts, The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage, 1957).

  4. J. Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).

  5. J. Austin, "Six Points to Ponder," Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3) (1999): 213-16.

  6. J. Austin, "Consciousness Evolves When the Self Dissolves," Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(1-12), (2000): 209-30.

  7. J. Austin, "Zen and the Brain: The Path" and "The Brain and Zen," in Contemporary Neuropsychiatry, eds. K. Myoshi et al. (Tokyo: Springer, 2001), pp. 62-8, 94-7.

  a. J. Austin, "Suchness and the Noumenon, in an Allocentric Perspective," in Holistic Science and Huna
n Values, eds. R. Burnier et at. (Adyar, Chennai, India: Vasanta Press, 2001), 24-36.

  9. J. Austin, "Neuroimaging: One Part of a Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Meditative and Alternate States of Consciousness," in Proceedings: Bridging Worlds and Filling Gaps in the Science of Healing, eds. R. Chez et al. (Corona del Mar, CA: Samueli Institute, 2002), 236-43.

  to. J. Austin, "Your Self, Your Brain, and Zen," Cerebrum (The Dana Forum on Brain Science) (2003), 47-66.

  ii. Austin, note 7, supra.

  12. D. MacPhillamy, "Some Personality Effects of Long-Term Zen Monasticism and Religious Understanding," journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25 (1986): 304-319.

  13. Austin, notes 5, 6, supra.

  14. Austin, Zen and the Brain.

  15. Austin, "Consciousness Evolves When the Self Dissolves."

  16. Austin, notes 4, 6, 8, 10, supra.

  17. Austin, notes 8, 10, supra.

  18. Austin, Zen and the Brain.

  19. Ibid.

  20. C. Peirce, in C. Frankel, The Pleasures of Philosophy (New York: Norton, 1972), p. 176.

  21. R. Wallace, H. Benson and A. Wilson, "A wakeful hypometabolic physiologic state," American Journal of Physiology 221 (1971): 795-99.

  Is meditation really any more than sleep or drowsiness? Experienced meditators who have been studied while meditating have momentary bursts of theta activity in their EEG. They describe an accompanying pleasant sensation, insisting that they are awake and aware of the reality of their surroundings (R. Herbert and D. Lehman, "Theta Bursts: an EEG Pattern in Normal Subjects Practising the Transcendental Meditation Technique," EEG and Clinical Neurophysiology 42 [1977]: 397-405). Still, the issue is currently being debated (Science 193 [1976]: 718-20). It suffices to note here that meditation, like creativity or sleep, is not a uniform phenomenon. There are multiple gradations of experience within meditation, and even within the same person these stages of meditation vary observably from one day or month to the next. Despite this complexity, it is evident from a subjective point of view that special states of clear awareness sometimes do occur in meditation that are obviously different from what we usually think of as sleep or drowsiness. The psychophysiological correlates of such states remain to be fully defined, but reference 4 considers some promising leads on pp. 93-99.