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Unlocking Creative Flow
Summary: A new study unveils how the brain enters the creative flow state, famously known as being “in the zone.” By analyzing jazz improvisations through EEGs, the research confirms that creative flow combines extensive experience with a conscious release of control, allowing for automatic idea generation.
This “expertise-plus-release” model suggests that deep creative flow is more accessible to those with significant experience and the ability to let go. The findings offer a new understanding of flow, challenging previous theories and opening avenues for enhancing creativity through practice and relinquishment of control.
Key Facts:
The study supports the “expertise-plus-release” theory of creative flow, indicating that expertise and the ability to release control are essential for achieving deep creative states.
High-flow states are associated with increased activity in the brain’s auditory and touch areas, and decreased activity in executive control regions, supporting the idea of reduced conscious control during creative flow.
Practical implications suggest that achieving productive flow states requires building expertise in a creative field and then training to “let go,” enabling the brain’s specialized circuits to operate autonomously.
Source: Drexel University
Effortless, enjoyable productivity is a state of consciousness prized and sought after by people in business, the arts, research, education and anyone else who wants to produce a stream of creative ideas and products.
That’s the flow, or the sense of being “in the zone.” A new neuroimaging study from Drexel University’s Creativity Research Lab is the first to reveal how the brain gets to the creative flow state.
The study isolated flow-related brain activity during a creative task: jazz improvisation. The findings reveal the creative flow state involves two key factors: extensive experience, which leads to a network of brain areas specialized for generating the desired type of ideas, plus the release of control – “letting go” – to allow this network to work with little or no conscious supervision.
Led by John Kounios, PhD, professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and Creativity Research Lab director, and David Rosen, PhD, a recent graduate from the College and Johns Hopkins University postdoc – the team determined their results suggest that creative flow can be achieved by training people to release control when they have built up enough expertise in a particular domain.
“Flow was first identified and studied by the pioneering psychological scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,” said Kounios. “He defined it as ‘a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.’”
Kounios noted that although flow has long been a topic of public fascination as well as the focus of hundreds of behavioral research studies, there has been no consensus about what flow is. Their new study decided between different theories of how flow is involved when people produce creative ideas.
Theory: Is Flow a State of Hyperfocus?
One view is that flow might be a state of highly focused concentration or hyperfocus that shuts out extraneous thoughts and other distractions to enable superior performance on a task.
A related theory based on recent research on the neuroscience of creativity is that flow occurs when the brain’s “default-mode network,” a collection of brain areas that work together when a person daydreams or introspects, generates ideas under the supervision of the “executive control network” in the brain’s frontal lobes, which directs the kinds of ideas the default-mode network produces. Kounios likened it to the analogy of a person “supervising” a TV by picking the movie it streams.
Alternative Theory: Flow is Expertise Plus Letting Go
An alternative theory of creative flow is that through years of intense practice, the brain develops a specialized network or circuit to automatically produce a specific type of ideas, in this case musical ones, with little conscious effort. In this view, the executive control network relaxes its supervision so that the musician can “let go” and allow this specialized circuit to go on “autopilot” without interference.
The research team said the key to this notion is the idea that people who do not have extensive experience at a task or who have difficulty releasing control will be less likely to experience deep creative flow.
The study’s results support the “expertise-plus-release” view of creative flow.
The researchers tested these competing theories of creative flow by recording high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) from 32 jazz guitar players, some highly experienced and others less experienced. Each musician improvised to six jazz lead sheets (songs) with programmed drums, bass and piano accompaniment and rated the intensity of their flow experience for each improvisation.
The resulting 192 recorded jazz improvisations, or “takes,” were subsequently played for four jazz experts individually so they could rate each for creativity and other qualities. The researchers then analyzed the EEGs to discover which brain areas were associated with high-flow takes (compared to low-flow takes).
The high-experience musicians experienced flow more often and more intensely than the low-experience musicians. This shows that expertise enables flow. However, expertise is not the only factor contributing to creative flow.
The EEGs showed that a high-flow state was associated with increased activity in left-hemisphere auditory and touch areas that are involved in hearing and playing music. Importantly, high flow was also associated with decreased activity in the brain’s superior frontal gyri, an executive control region.
This is consistent with the idea that creative flow is associated with reduced conscious control, that is, letting go. This previously hypothesized phenomenon has been called “transient hypofrontality.”
For the high-experience musicians, flow was associated with greater activity in auditory and vision areas. However, they also showed reduced activity in parts of the default-mode network, suggesting that the default-mode network was not contributing much to flow-related idea generation in these musicians.
In contrast, the low-experience musicians showed little flow-related brain activity.
“A practical implication of these results is that productive flow states can be attained by practice to build up expertise in a particular creative outlet coupled with training to withdraw conscious control when enough expertise has been achieved,” said Kounios. “This can be the basis for new techniques for instructing people to produce creative ideas.”
The researchers tested these competing theories of creative flow by recording high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) from 32 jazz guitar players, some highly experienced and others less experienced. Each musician improvised to six jazz lead sheets (songs) with programmed drums, bass and piano accompaniment and rated the intensity of their flow experience for each improvisation.
The resulting 192 recorded jazz improvisations, or “takes,” were subsequently played for four jazz experts individually so they could rate each for creativity and other qualities. The researchers then analyzed the EEGs to discover which brain areas were associated with high-flow takes (compared to low-flow takes).
The high-experience musicians experienced flow more often and more intensely than the low-experience musicians. This shows that expertise enables flow. However, expertise is not the only factor contributing to creative flow.
The EEGs showed that a high-flow state was associated with increased activity in left-hemisphere auditory and touch areas that are involved in hearing and playing music. Importantly, high flow was also associated with decreased activity in the brain’s superior frontal gyri, an executive control region.
This is consistent with the idea that creative flow is associated with reduced conscious control, that is, letting go. This previously hypothesized phenomenon has been called “transient hypofrontality.”
For the high-experience musicians, flow was associated with greater activity in auditory and vision areas. However, they also showed reduced activity in parts of the default-mode network, suggesting that the default-mode network was not contributing much to flow-related idea generation in these musicians.
In contrast, the low-experience musicians showed little flow-related brain activity.
“A practical implication of these results is that productive flow states can be attained by practice to build up expertise in a particular creative outlet coupled with training to withdraw conscious control when enough expertise has been achieved,” said Kounios. “This can be the basis for new techniques for instructing people to produce creative ideas.”
Kounios added, “If you want to be able to stream ideas fluently, then keep working on those musical scales, physics problems or whatever else you want to do creatively—computer coding, fiction writing—you name it. But then, try letting go. As jazz great Charlie Parker said, ‘You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.’”
About this creativity and neuroscience research news
Author: Annie Korp
Source: Drexel University
Contact: Annie Korp – Drexel University
Berkeley Lab: It’s Hearty, It’s Meaty, It’s Mold
With animal-free dairy products and convincing vegetarian meat substitutes already on the market, it’s easy to see how biotechnology can change the food industry. Advances in genetic engineering are allowing us to harness microorganisms to produce cruelty-free products that are healthy for consumers and healthier for the environment.
One of the most promising sources of innovative foods is fungi – a diverse kingdom of organisms that naturally produce a huge range of tasty and nutritious proteins, fats, antioxidants, and flavor molecules. Chef-turned-bioengineer Vayu Hill-Maini, an affiliate in the Biosciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), is exploring the many possibilities for new tastes and textures that can be made from modifying the genes already present in fungi.
“I think it's a fundamental aspect of synthetic biology that we’re benefiting from organisms that have evolved to be really good at certain things,” said Hill-Maini, who is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley in the lab of bioengineering expert Jay Keasling. “What we're trying to do is to look at what is the fungus making and try to kind of unlock and enhance it. And I think that's an important angle that we don’t need to introduce genes from wildly different species. We’re investigating how we can stitch things together and unlock what's already there.”
In their recent paper, published today in Nature Communications, Hill-Maini and colleagues at UC Berkeley, the Joint BioEnergy Institute, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability studied a multicellular fungus called Aspergillus oryzae, also known as koji mold, that has been used in East Asia to ferment starches into sake, soy sauce, and miso for centuries. First, the team used CRISPR-Cas9 to develop a gene editing system that can make consistent and reproducible changes to the koji mold genome. Once they had established a toolkit of edits, they applied their system to make modifications that elevate the mold as a food source. First, Hill-Maini focused on boosting the mold’s production of heme – an iron-based molecule which is found in many lifeforms but is most abundant in animal tissue, giving meat its color and distinctive flavor. (A synthetically produced plant-derived heme is also what gives the Impossible Burger its meat-duping properties.) Next, the team punched up production of ergothioneine, an antioxidant only found in fungi that is associated with cardiovascular health benefits.
After these changes, the once-white fungi grew red. With minimal preparation – removing excess water and grinding – the harvested fungi could be shaped into a patty, then fried into a tempting-looking burger.
Hill-Maini’s next objective is to make the fungi even more appealing by tuning the genes that control the mold’s texture. “We think that there's a lot of room to explore texture by varying the fiber-like morphology of the cells. So, we might be able to program the structure of the lot fibers to be longer which would give a more meat-like experience. And then we can think about boosting lipid composition for mouth feel and further nutrition,” said Hill-Maini, who was a Fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley during the study. “I'm really excited about how can we further look at the fungus and, you know, tinker with its structure and metabolism for food.”
The koji mold patty after frying. (Credit: Vayu Hill-Maini)
Though this work is just the beginning of the journey to tap into fungal genomes to create new foods, it showcases the huge potential of these organisms to serve as easy-to-grow protein sources that avoid the complex ingredients lists of current meat substitutes and the cost barriers and technical difficulties hindering the launch of cultured meat. Additionally, the team’s gene editing toolkit is a big leap forward for the field of synthetic biology as a whole. Currently, a great variety of biomanufactured goods are made by engineered bacteria and yeast, the single-celled cousins of mushrooms and mold. Yet despite humanity’s long history of domesticating fungi to eat directly or to make staples like miso, multicellular fungi have not yet been harnessed as engineered cellular factories to the same extent because their genomes are far more complex, and have adaptations that make gene editing a challenge. The CRISPR-Cas9 toolkit developed in this paper lays the foundation to easily edit koji mold and its many relatives.
“These organisms have been used for centuries to produce food, and they are incredibly efficient at converting carbon into a wide variety of complex molecules, including many that would be almost impossible to produce using a classic host like brewer’s yeast or E. coli,” said senior author Jay Keasling, who is a senior scientist at Berkeley Lab and a professor at UC Berkeley. “By unlocking koji mold through the development of these tools, we are unlocking the potential of a huge new group of hosts that we can use to make foods, valuable chemicals, energy-dense biofuels, and medicines. It’s a thrilling new avenue for biomanufacturing.”
Vayu Hill-Maini is excited to see engineered fungi advance to new food products. Seen here on the JBEI balcony. (Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab)
Given his culinary background, Hill-Maini is keen to ensure that the next generation of fungi-based products are not only palatable, but truly desirable to customers, including those with sophisticated tastes. In a separate study, he and Keasling collaborated with chefs at Alchemist, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Copenhagen, to play with the culinary potential of another multicellular fungus, Neurospora intermedia. This fungus is traditionally used in Indonesia to produce a staple food called oncom by fermenting the waste products left over from making other foods, such as tofu. Intrigued by its ability to convert leftovers into a protein-rich food, the scientists and chefs studied the fungus in the Alchemist test kitchen. They discovered N. intermedia produces and excretes many enzymes as it grows. When grown on starchy rice, the fungi produces an enzyme that liquifies the rice and makes it intensely sweet. “We developed a process with just three ingredients – rice, water, and fungus – to make a beautiful, striking orange-colored porridge,” said Hill-Maini. “That became a new dish on the tasting menu that utilizes fungal chemistry and color in a dessert. And I think that what it really shows is that there's opportunity to bridge the laboratory and the kitchen.”
Hill-Maini’s work on the gene editing research described in this article is supported by the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley. Keasling’s lab is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Both received additional support from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. The Joint BioEnergy Institute is a DOE Bioenergy Research Center managed by Berkeley Lab.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to delivering solutions for humankind through research in clean energy, a healthy planet, and discovery science. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Researchers from around the world rely on the Lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Mensa Newsletter from February 29
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