Abstract
Creativity emerges from the individual or collective intellect, in order to unfold the conundrum of life and give rise to meaningful deliberations for the attainment of a flourishing life. More specifically, creativity is commonly defined, within the framework of psychology, as an act or product that shall fulfill three main criteria: originality, unexpectedness, and usefulness. The cognitive science approach to creativity investigates the intellectual processes and representations concerned with the creative thinking. The methodologies of cognitive science, derived from the technological advancements of the past sixty years, have begun to adopt a more definitive and systemic perspective. Neuroscience has emerged, under this context, as the scientific study dedicated to explore the biological substrates of the nervous system, by utilizing a multitude of techniques such as neuroimaging. Cognitive neuroscience, in particular, studies the neural correlates of mental processes, and it constitutes the central approach herein adopted to examine musical creativity as a product of the human mind. In the present section, a definition plus historical evolvement of creativity are firstly provided together with an overview of its developments in psychometry. Secondly, a comprehensive description regarding the scientific advances about the topic, and within the field of cognitive neuroscience, is described according to: (1) the model on the four types of creativity and (2) the main categories of experimental designs implemented so far. Lastly, the latest advancements on the study of musical creativity, in particular musical improvisation, will be addressed under the neuroimaging framework.
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Notes
- 1.
These attributes were not necessarily pejorative. They might be constructive as well as destructive.
- 2.
This idea was recovered, during nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to name eccentric and erratic behaviors.
- 3.
- 4.
In agreement with the Investment Theory of Creativity (Sternberg and Lubart 1999, p. 11).
- 5.
Historiometric methods are drawn upon quantitative data extracted mostly from historical documents.
- 6.
Interestingly, it was shown that notable scientists are more likely to be firstborns than creative writers.
- 7.
A corollary of this statement is that the few individuals, who demonstrate outstanding capacities, use cognitive processes very different from those employed by the majority of the people and, thus, methods of cognitive science are not suffice to characterize such processes (Hershman and Lieb 1988).
- 8.
Willed actions can be described as self-generated behaviors, involving: (i) attention and conscious awareness; (ii) choice and control, and (iii) intentionality (Jahanshahi and Frith 1998). They thus fall within the class of behavioral models, which are pointed to be part of the creative act.
- 9.
We often assume that if we don’t notice our thoughts they don’t exist, (…) When we don’t notice them is when we may be thinking most creatively.”—Dr. Kalina Christoff, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Hotz 2009).
- 10.
- 11.
Alpha waves (8–13 Hz) occur while awake, under relaxation and with eyes closed.
- 12.
The tests of creativity used in this study were the Alternate Uses Test and the Remote Associates Test.
- 13.
Brick Test.
- 14.
Master of Fine Arts.
- 15.
Delta waves (0.5–5 Hz) occur during sleep.
- 16.
Beta waves (13–30 Hz) occur due to increased alertness and focused attention.
- 17.
Gamma waves (>30 Hz) are presumably implicated in creating the unity of conscious perception.
- 18.
Alternative Uses Test.
- 19.
Close to the temporoparietal junction.
- 20.
Heinrich Schenker theorized on the model of the two levels of musical formulas (or musical schemata, i.e., the archetypal patterns which define a musical style (Gjerdingen 1988, 2007)). Such model attempts to describe the structural basis of tonal improvisation. The first level relates to bass lines and their harmonic progressions (harmonic progressions can be defined as musical treatises presented in a systematic, simplified, and stylistic neutral fashion, such as a block of chords), whereas the second consists on perceiving such harmonic progressions idiomatically, i.e., through the use of melodic figures (Rink 1993). Pressing (1984) denominates the first level as referent. The referent is thus a structure of events in which improvisation can be crafted. Also, and according to Pressing’s terminology, the second level represents the knowledge used to build the “musical surface” of the underlying referent. From the cognitive perspective, the referent allows for the internalization of certain features in musical language, so that they can be conceived with some degree of automaticity. On the other hand, conscious attention mechanisms regulate decision-making cognition on higher-level musical processes (e.g., relationships between events, form, and feel).
- 21.
- 22.
The presupplementary motor area was also significant activity in the main effect of melodic improvisation.
- 23.
- 24.
The Musical Improvisation Questionnaire (Lopata et al. 2017) was used to assess the improvised performances. Qualified judges were asked to rate the records according to criteria which provide benchmarks for discriminant validity testing, such as technique or aesthetical appeal. This questionnaire was developed based on The Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile 1982), which takes a broad definition of creativity to include aspects related to both performance and outcomes. By this way, the final scores are intended to translate the overall value of the creative behavior.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter features an updated version of the first chapter included in the author’s Ph.D. Thesis with the following title: “Inside of the Creative Mind: Unravelling the Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Musical Creativity”. The author is thus thankful to all supervisors, in particular Fredrik Ullén and Örjan de Manzano, for their mentorship in the course of her doctoral studies on the present topic.
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Pinho, A.L. (2018). The Neuropsychological Aspects of Musical Creativity. In: Kapoula, Z., Volle, E., Renoult, J., Andreatta, M. (eds) Exploring Transdisciplinarity in Art and Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76054-4_4
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