Creativity and the Mind PDF Download

Author: Thomas B. Ward
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1489933301
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
In this provocative book, acclaimed psychologists Thomas Ward, Ronald Finke, and Steven Smith eloquently portray the fascinating processes of the creative mind at work, and hand us the invaluable tools with which we can mine our most valued and important resource. Creativity - and the methods by which we can heighten it - has recently become the focus of a burgeoning and exciting new field in psychology. By skillfully blending this cutting-edge scientific research with the real-world experiences of humanity's most successful creative thinkers, this provocative book isolates the mechanisms by which our mind conceives innovative and creative ideas. Since all creative thoughts emerge from skillfully drawing upon the well of knowledge we already possess, this book tackles the very nature of this knowledge. As these astute authors convincingly argue, the same mental processes that help a chemist like Kary Mullis discover a revolutionary new scientific principle or inspire an artist like Beethoven to create a marvelous symphony underlie the host of creative endeavors we all undertake. This inspiring book applies these basic tenets to a rich variety of creative pursuits, including engineering, design, writing, business, science, art, and even the challenges of our everyday lives. We learn how best to combine and play with the images, words, and concepts that spark fertile new ideas and lead to ever more impressive creative leaps.

Author: David D. Preiss
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128166142
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Creativity and the Wandering Mind: Spontaneous and Controlled Cognition summarizes research on the impact of mind wandering and cognitive control on creativity, including imagination, fantasy and play. Most coverage in this area has either focused on the negative consequences of mind wandering on focused problem solving or the positive effect of mindfulness, but not on the positive consequences of mind wandering. This volume bridges that gap. Research indicates that most people experience mind wandering during a large percentage of their waking time, and that it is a baseline default mode of brain function during the awake but resting state. This volume explores the different kinds of mind wandering and its positive impact on imagination, play, problem-solving, and creative production. - Discusses spontaneous and controlled processes in creativity - Examines the relationship between mind wandering, consciousness, and imagination - Reviews research on problem-solving, imagination, play, and learning - Highlights the positive impact of mind wandering on creative thought and output

Author: Arne Dietrich
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137501804
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
How Creativity Happens In The Brain is about the brain mechanisms of creativity, how a grapefruit-sized heap of meat crackling with electricity manages to be so outrageously creative. It has a sharp focus: to stick exclusively to sound, mechanistic explanations and convey what we can, and cannot, say about how brains give rise to creative ideas.

Author: Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698191250
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Discover the ten things highly creative people do differently. Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity? Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire’s popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking. Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes— like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration – to show that it is by embracing our own contradictions that we are able to tap into our deepest creativity. Each chapter explores one of the ten attributes and habits of highly creative people: Imaginative Play * Passion * Daydreaming * Solitude * Intuition * Openness to Experience * Mindfulness * Sensitivity * Turning Adversity into Advantage * Thinking Differently With insights from the work and lives of Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Marcel Proust, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Edison, Josephine Baker, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, musician Thom Yorke, chess champion Josh Waitzkin, video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and many other creative luminaries, Wired to Create helps us better understand creativity – and shows us how to enrich this essential aspect of our lives.

Author: Andrew Steptoe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Taking as examples the lives of creative individuals through history, Genius and the Mind considers the nature of creativity and genius from a psychological standpoint. Eleven chapters, contributed by leading researchers, span the range of approaches used to understand the subject. A discussion of heredity considers the extent to which genes play a part in giftedness. The importance of social context in defining and acknowledging creativity is explored. Several chapters look at training and skill development in exceptional individuals, and a number of contributions scrutinize the links between creativity, temperament, and mental health. Mozart's precocity, Byron's mania, the personalities of the Italian Renaissance painters, and the psychoses of many celebrated writers are all discussed, making this a fascinating text for anyone with an interest in the psychology of genius and geniuses, as well as for students and researchers in the field.

Author: Estanislao Bachrach
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0753551713
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
A publishing sensation in Argentina that has sold over 200,000 copies and topped the bestseller charts for a record-breaking two years, now available in English for the first time! The Agile Mind is about the most precious mental talent we have: the ability to imagine things which have never existed and to create new ideas. This book demystifies the preconceptions we often have about how our brains function to show how creativity really works, and how we can make it work even better. We used to think that creativity diminished through the lifespan, but we now know this is not the case. The brain can regenerate and continue learning until the last days of our lives. We can all become more creative if we use the right methods and techniques to stimulate our brains and broaden our minds. Join us on a fun and amazing journey into the deepest reaches of your brain and discover an incredible range of tips and tools to be more creative and happier in all parts of your life.

Author: Shelley Carson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118396545
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Research-based techniques that show everyone how to expand creativity and increase productivity Harvard psychologist Shelley Carson?s provocative book, published in partnership with Harvard Health Publications, reveals why creativity isn't something only scientists, investors, artists, writers, and musicians enjoy; in fact, all of us use our creative brains every day at home, work and play. Each of us has the ability to increase our mental functioning and creativity by learning to move flexibly among several brain states. Explains seven brain states or "brainsets" and their functions as related to creativity, productivity, and innovation Provides quizzes, exercises, and self-tests to activate each of these seven brainsets to unlock our maximum creativity Your Creative Brain, called by critics a ?new classic? in the field of creativity, offers inspiring suggestions that can be applied in both one?s personal and professional life.

Author: Oshin Vartanian
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262314703
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Experts describe current perspectives and experimental approaches to understanding the neural bases of creativity. This volume offers a comprehensive overview of the latest neuroscientific approaches to the scientific study of creativity. In chapters that progress logically from neurobiological fundamentals to systems neuroscience and neuroimaging, leading scholars describe the latest theoretical, genetic, structural, clinical, functional, and applied research on the neural bases of creativity. The treatment is both broad and in depth, offering a range of neuroscientific perspectives with detailed coverage by experts in each area. The contributors discuss such issues as the heritability of creativity; creativity in patients with brain damage, neurodegenerative conditions, and mental illness; clinical interventions and the relationship between psychopathology and creativity; neuroimaging studies of intelligence and creativity; the neuroscientific basis of creativity-enhancing methodologies; and the information-processing challenges of viewing visual art. Contributors Baptiste Barbot, Mathias Benedek, David Q. Beversdorf, Aaron P. Blaisdell, Margaret A. Boden, Dorret I. Boomsma, Adam S. Bristol, Shelley Carson, Marleen H. M. de Moor, Andreas Fink, Liane Gabora, Dennis Garlick, Elena L. Grigorenko, Richard J. Haier, Rex E. Jung, James C. Kaufman, Helmut Leder, Kenneth J. Leising, Bruce L. Miller, Apara Ranjan, Mark P. Roeling, W. David Stahlman, Mei Tan, Pablo P. L. Tinio, Oshin Vartanian, Indre V. Viskontas, Dahlia W. Zaidel

Author: Elkhonon Goldberg PhD, ABPP
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190466502
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
What is the nature of human creativity? What are the brain processes behind its mystique? What are the evolutionary roots of creativity? How does culture help shape individual creativity? Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation by Elkhonon Goldberg is arguably the first ever book to address these and other questions in a way that is both rigorous and engaging, demystifying human creativity for the general public. The synthesis of neuroscience and the humanities is a unique feature of the book, making it of interest to an unusually broad range of readership. Drawing on a number of cutting-edge discoveries from brain research as well as on his own insights as a neuroscientist and neuropsychologist, Goldberg integrates them with a wide-ranging discussion of history, culture, and evolution to arrive at an original, compelling, and at times provocative understanding of the nature of human creativity. To make his argument, Goldberg discusses the origins of language, the nature of several neurological disorders, animal cognition, virtual reality, and even artificial intelligence. In the process, he takes the reader to different times and places, from antiquity to the future, and from Western Europe to South-East Asia. He makes bold predictions about the future directions of creativity and innovation in society, their multiple biological and cultural roots and expressions, about how they will shape society for generations to come, and even how they will change the ways the human brain develops and ages.

Author: Ruth Richards
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137557664
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
As human beings we all have creative potential, a quality essential to human development and a vital component to healthy and happy lives. However this may often remain stifled by the choices we make, or ways in which we choose to live in our daily lives. Framed by the “Four Ps of Creativity” – product, person, process, press – this book offers an alternative understanding of the fundamentals of ordinary creativity. Ruth Richards highlights the importance of “process”, circumventing our common preoccupation with the product, or creative outcome, of creativity. By focusing instead on the creator and the creative process, she demonstrates how we may enhance our relationships with life, beauty, future possibilities, and one another. This book illustrates how our daily life styles and choices, as well as our environments, may enable and allow creativity; whereas environments not conducive to creative flow may kill creative potential. Also explored are questions of ‘normality’, beauty and nuance in creativity, as well as creative relationships.