Creativity and the Wandering Mind PDF Download

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: David D. Preiss
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 9780128164006
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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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.

Author: Michael C. Corballis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623861X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Corballis argues that mind-wandering has many constructive and adaptive features. These range from mental time travel?the wandering back and forth through time, not only to plan our futures based on past experience, but also to generate a continuous sense of who we are--to the ability to inhabit the minds of others, increasing empathy and social understanding. Through mind-wandering, we invent, tell stories, and expand our mental horizons. Mind wandering , hardly the sign of a faulty network or aimless distraction, actually underwrites creativity, whether as a Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud, or an Einstein imagining himself travelling on a beam of light. Corballis takes readers on a mental journey in chapters that can be savored piecemeal, as the minds of readers wander in different ways, and sometimes have limited attentional capacity.

Author: Moshe Bar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408888041
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
'An original, provocative and fascinating new theory by one of the world's leading neuroscientists about why the mind wanders - and when and why it's good for you' Daniel Gilbert Your brain is noisy. Certain regions are always grinding away at involuntary activities like daydreaming and intrusive thoughts – taking up to forty-seven percent of your waking time. This is mindwandering. Mindwandering is the first popular book to explore the phenomenon of our wandering minds and the cutting-edge new research behind it. Cognitive neuroscientist Moshe Bar combines his decades of research to explain the benefits and the possible cost of mindwandering within the broader context of psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy. He provides you with practical knowledge that can help strengthen your relationships with others, increase your concentration at work and reduce your anxiety. 'Bar's revelatory, pioneering studies are finally available for everyone to enjoy, so we can optimally direct our states of mind to better align with the moment' David Eagleman, New York Times-bestselling author of Incognito and Livewired 'Highlights the role of mindwandering in solving problems, inducing happiness and in teaching us to bring the right mind to the right time' Dr Nancy Etcoff, psychologist at Harvard Medical School 'A gentle and humane book that should be read by everyone interested in the human mind and the human brain' Andy Clark, Professor of Cognitive Philosophy, University of Sussex

Author: Kieran C.R. Fox
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190464763
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
Where do spontaneous thoughts come from? It may be surprising that the seemingly straightforward answers "from the mind" or "from the brain" are in fact an incredibly recent understanding of the origins of spontaneous thought. For nearly all of human history, our thoughts - especially the most sudden, insightful, and important - were almost universally ascribed to divine or other external sources. Only in the past few centuries have we truly taken responsibility for their own mental content, and finally localized thought to the central nervous system - laying the foundations for a protoscience of spontaneous thought. But enormous questions still loom: what, exactly, is spontaneous thought? Why does our brain engage in spontaneous forms of thinking, and when is this most likely to occur? And perhaps the question most interesting and accessible from a scientific perspective: how does the brain generate and evaluate its own spontaneous creations? Spontaneous thought includes our daytime fantasies and mind-wandering; the flashes of insight and inspiration familiar to the artist, scientist, and inventor; and the nighttime visions we call dreams. This Handbook brings together views from neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, phenomenology, history, education, contemplative traditions, and clinical practice to begin to address the ubiquitous but poorly understood mental phenomena that we collectively call 'spontaneous thought.' In studying such an abstruse and seemingly impractical subject, we should remember that our capacity for spontaneity, originality, and creativity defines us as a species - and as individuals. Spontaneous forms of thought enable us to transcend not only the here and now of perceptual experience, but also the bonds of our deliberately-controlled and goal-directed cognition; they allow the space for us to be other than who we are, and for our minds to think beyond the limitations of our current viewpoints and beliefs.

Author: Michael Easter
Publisher: Rodale Books
ISBN: 0593138775
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
“If you’ve been looking for something different to level up your health, fitness, and personal growth, this is it.”—Melissa Urban, Whole30 CEO and New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries “Michael Easter’s genius is that he puts data around the edges of what we intuitively believe. His work has inspired many to change their lives for the better.”—Dr. Peter Attia, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlive Discover the evolutionary mind and body benefits of living at the edges of your comfort zone and reconnecting with the wild—from the author of Scarcity Brain, coming in September! In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort. Easter’s journey to understand our evolutionary need to be challenged takes him to meet the NBA’s top exercise scientist, who uses an ancient Japanese practice to build championship athletes; to the mystical country of Bhutan, where an Oxford economist and Buddhist leader are showing the world what death can teach us about happiness; to the outdoor lab of a young neuroscientist who’s found that nature tests our physical and mental endurance in ways that expand creativity while taming burnout and anxiety; to the remote Alaskan backcountry on a demanding thirty-three-day hunting expedition to experience the rewilding secrets of one of the last rugged places on Earth; and more. Along the way, Easter uncovers a blueprint for leveraging the power of discomfort that will dramatically improve our health and happiness, and perhaps even help us understand what it means to be human. The Comfort Crisis is a bold call to break out of your comfort zone and explore the wild within yourself.

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: 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: Maciej Karwowski
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128099054
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
The Creative Self reviews and summarizes key theories, studies, and new ideas about the role and significance self-beliefs play in one's creativity. It untangles the interrelated constructs of creative self-efficacy, creative metacognition, creative identity, and creative self-concept. It explores how and when creative self-beliefs are formed as well as how creative self-beliefs can be strengthened. Part I discusses how creativity plays a part in one's self-identity and its relationship with free will and efficacy. Part II discusses creativity present in day-to-day life across the lifespan. Part III highlights the intersection of the creative self with other variables such as mindset, domains, the brain, and individual differences. Part IV explores methodology and culture in relation to creativity. Part V, discusses additional constructs or theories that offer promise for future research on creativity. - Explores how beliefs about one's creativity are part of one's identity - Investigates the development of self-beliefs about creativity - Identifies external and personality factors influencing self-beliefs about creativity - Incorporates worldwide research with cross-disciplinary contributors

Author: Roya A Azadi
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743588577
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
How to Be a Creative Thinker is a map to your creative mind, the places your creative potential resides, and the allies and enemies along the way. It’s a practical guide to the science and the psychology of creativity and the conditions required for cultivating it. We think creativity is for those lucky enough to be born with it – something you either have or you don’t. But this is untrue. Creativity is more than God-given talent, and it’s more than artistic flair. It’s the ability to come up with a new idea in any area or setting. And most importantly, it can be learned by anyone. In How to Be a Creative Thinker, professional creative and strategic designer Roya Azadi teaches you techniques to encourage creative thinking and shows how you can unlock your creative potential. She reveals that technology is inhibiting our ability to daydream and explains why this headspace is so important if you want to ‘catch a live one’. You’ll learn to not fear failure by understanding that it’s actually fertile ground for creativity. Throughout the book there are interviews, quotes, explainers and activities to inspire creative thought along the way. By the end of the book, you’ll be bubbling with creative force to take out into the world and make real change. The Survive the Modern World series tackles big subjects in a fun and digestible way. The tone is frank and chatty, but the content is comprehensive. Upskill and expand your knowledge with these accessible pocket guides. 'The hardest part of being creative lies in simply deciding to do so. And, after you've done that, Roya's astonishingly useful book is a great place to begin.' Seth Godin, author of The Practice.