Scientists have found out how the brains of smart or creative people and ordinary people differ. It turns out that you can calculate the idea generator using an MRI scan.
Creativity is not only the ability to write "I remember a wonderful moment" or the painting "The Cossacks are writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan." And in everyday life there is a place for creativity. Why would one hostess easily make a gorgeous dinner out of leftover food in the refrigerator, while another will leave unexpected guests hungry? Some parents are able to build a superhero costume for their child for a New Year's party in five minutes from old things found in the closet, while others from year to year, except for a "bunny" with tights on his head, nothing comes out.
What determines the ability to gush with ideas?
A study on this topic was conducted by a group of American scientists led by Roger Beaty from Harvard University. The neuroscientists recruited 163 volunteers and offered them a test for divergent thinking. This is when the same problem must be solved in several ways. In particular, the participants in the experiment had to come up with the most unexpected ways to use completely ordinary objects. For example, what can you do with a regular sock? Put it on your leg? For this trivial answer, the volunteer received minimum points. But the entertainer, who proposed to build a water filter from it, was awarded the "Nobel Prize" from the organizers of the experiment …
During the tests, all participants underwent an MRI scan of the brain to measure blood flow to certain areas. It turned out that creative thinking is not turned on by pressing one "switch". It involves complex interactions between the three major brain networks. The greatest activity during creative tests was demonstrated by:
1.the left anterior insular lobe (its function is perception, self-awareness);
2. the right dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex (her area of responsibility is self-control, the choice of optimal motives and thoughts);
3. the cortex of the posterior cingulate gyrus (it is responsible for switching attention).
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“In a simplified way, the work of the brain of a creative person can be represented as follows,” says Biti. - Firstly, he has a high performance brain area responsible for spontaneous thinking, the ability to think, dream, imagine something. This network is number 1, it plays a key role in the birth of original ideas, it is used during brainstorming. Network No. 2 specializes in conscious thinking, its task is to control intellectual activity, to assess how adequate and rational new ideas are. And network # 3 is a mechanism for switching the brain from the mode of spontaneous thinking (generation of ideas) to the mode of evaluation.
Scientists point out that creative thinking has one thing: these three networks cannot work at the same time. For example, when the mode of evaluating ideas is activated, the brain can no longer invent anything new. And vice versa.
This is probably why talented people are often brought in. When they are in a state of searching for brilliant thoughts, they are unable to control themselves. It is worth remembering at least the story of Archimedes, who, while taking a bath, discovered the law of hydrostatics and with shouts of "Eureka!" ran out naked into the street.
By the way, determining the type of neural architecture of the brain using MRI scans, Beaty and his colleagues have learned to predict quite accurately whether this or that person has high creative abilities or not. On the one hand, this method offers fascinating prospects: after all, one can easily distinguish a slow-witted from an "Einstein". But would people want to open this Pandora's box?
It can also be considered that the number and complexity of neural connections, and the ability to create and maintain them. Actually, no other differences were found physiologically. Everything else is in the psyche.
The brain of people who have achieved a lot in life is different from the brain of those who are inferior to them in intellectual or communication abilities, the Independent retells. Scientists have analyzed the connections between different parts of the brain in hundreds of healthy people, explains journalist Steve Connor. "As a result, a correlation was found between the richness of these connections and a person's cognitive abilities, as well as his overall success in life," the article says.
Scientists have compiled two lists: "positive" and "negative" traits and facts of biography. It turned out that "positive" traits (rich vocabulary, good memory, life satisfaction, high income, length of study) are significantly correlated with a closer "connectedness" of brain regions associated with higher cognitive abilities.
On the contrary, people with pronounced "negative" qualities, characteristics and facts of biography (drug addiction, irritability, tendency to break rules, poor sleep) showed significantly weakened connectivity of the brain, the article says.
“We were trying to test how we can relate what we see inside the brain to behavioral skills that we are able to measure in different people,” said study leader Stephen Smith (University of Oxford). The results are published in Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers analyzed the connectomes of 461 people ("these are, so to speak, snapshots of live 'electrical circuits', through which signals travel from one part of the brain to another," the author explains). They looked for a correlation with 280 different qualities and metrics, including vocabulary, educational level, and income.
Scientists hope that the ability to measure the "connectedness" of parts of the brain will shed light on the nature of intelligence, as well as teach to improve this connectedness and, therefore, achieve more in life.
The level of intelligence determines what a person pays his attention to in the first place.
The higher the level of intelligence (IQ) of a person, the more he is focused on little things. A person with a low IQ, however, notices mainly large, voluminous, large-scale. For example, a sage will notice a fly on an elephant, but he will only glance at the elephant itself. This paradoxical conclusion was reached by psychologists from the University of Rochester (USA) after a series of experiments. Several dozen volunteers with IQs from 80 to 140 watched videos in which black and white figures moved randomly - appearing and disappearing. Moreover, the largest figures flashed in the center of the field of view, where it was easiest to detect their appearance. And the small ones were grouped at the edges and in the background. During the experiments, the eye movements of the volunteers were monitored using special equipment on a computer monitor.
And it turned out that the smarter the subject was, the better he was able to track small objects. And volunteers with low intelligence quickly spotted large ones.
“A high IQ helps the brain filter information better, so smart people are more attentive to little things,” explained the head of the study, Professor Due Tadin. - In some situations, this feature of the "point" outlook is beneficial. For example, when in a crowded place - an office or an Internet cafe - you need to focus on working at the computer. Or look for a microscopic particle of the universe - the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider.
But focused intellectuals have their drawbacks. The inability to ignore the "elephants" leads to the fact that these people often become unadapted to everyday life. It is not for nothing that many films play out the image of a crazy professor - untidy dressed, with tousled hair, living in a house where disorder reigns.
The striking absent-mindedness of some geniuses is known from the historical archives. So, the French philosopher Diderot forgot the days, months, years and the names of loved ones. And the famous physicist Ampere once, leaving his apartment, wrote in chalk on his door: "Ampere will be at home only in the evening." But he returned home in the afternoon. I read the inscription on my doors and went back, because I forgot that he himself is Ampere.
There is a known case when Newton, having conceived to boil an egg, took a watch, noticed the time and after a couple of minutes found that he was holding an egg in his hand and was cooking a watch. When the great physicist wrote his works, absorbed in thoughts, he forgot to dress and eat.
Albert Einstein, meeting his friend, absentmindedly said: “Come to me in the evening. I will have Professor Stimson too. " His puzzled friend objected: "But I am Stimson!" Einstein replied: "It doesn't matter, come anyway!"
The father of Russian aviation, Zhukovsky, once, having talked the whole evening with friends in his own living room, suddenly got up, looking for his hat, and began to hastily say goodbye, muttering: "However, I stayed too long with you, it's time to go home!"
Therefore, geniuses so need loyal helpers who will notice the elephant in time and will not let the talent die under its feet.
Now psychologists, having figured out how smart and stupid people see the world, argue that a person's intellectual abilities can be determined within 1 - 2 minutes using a simple visual test. But, however, with special equipment.
TEST
Do you want to know if the other person is listening to you carefully? Ask him this question: "How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark?" If they answer you - "in a pair", then you are listened to with half an ear. After all, this is a mistake, not only in the number of saved animals, but in the authorship of the ark: after all, Noah built it. This test is called the "illusion of Moses".
Scientists claim that today more and more respondents answer this question immediately incorrectly, at least mentally. And only on reflection, they think about the apparent discrepancy between the biblical names.
Absent-mindedness is not unique to intellectuals. Scientists have found an excuse for those people who are accused of often blurting out some nonsense during a conversation. It turned out that it was not stupidity, but inattention.
“The habit of listening half-heartedly is just a defensive reaction,” says lead author of the study, Professor Hartmut Lezold of the University of Glasgow. - The fact is that often many of us turn out to be inattentive because we protect our brain from overstrain.
Scientists claim that at the present time of global informatization, the brain is not able to process all messages that come to us from hundreds of sources - the World Wide Web, television, radio, SMS messages, advertising posters. If we digest all this thoroughly, then we will quickly go crazy. Therefore, today psychologists have noticed: in order to protect itself from unnecessary news, the brain begins to save resources. And we begin to listen to even close people absentmindedly, isolating only key words from their conversation. Therefore, we often answer inappropriately.
“Especially absent-minded are those who surf the Internet for several hours every day,” explains Professor Lesold. “These people have learned not only to read, but also to listen“diagonally”.
Ladies, psychologists from McMaster University have found, very quickly grasp the outlines of strangers' faces without even thinking about it. In the experiments, women and men were seated in front of a monitor on which portraits of people flashed. A special technique tracked their eye movements and recorded the time they spent looking at people's lips or eyebrows. It turned out that the weaker sex clearly sees every feature of the human face, and men remember the appearance only in general terms.
Why are ladies so attentive? According to researchers from the Darwin Museum, the reason is that in ancient times, the stronger sex were hunters, and the weak were gatherers.
“Women had very well developed eyesight in order to see a wide variety of all colors and shades,” explains the candidate of biological sciences Georgy Voronov. “And this gave them the opportunity, for example, to choose the most delicious roots and berries for their family.
But not only the search for delicious food sharpened the brain of the weaker sex. But also a craving for beauty. Columbia University researchers showed men and women paintings and photographs, asking them to rate them. During this time, using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), scientists recorded which part of the brain was activated when the participants viewed the images. The scans showed that the same parts of the brain were involved in the work of men and women. But the male gender also activated the area associated with volumetric thinking, and women - with the detailed one.
- Perhaps it's all about the genetic purpose of men: their brain was originally invented by nature in such a way as to force a person to use spatial vision of objects during a hunt, - suggests the biologist Voronov. - And for the woman - the keeper of the hearth - and now it is important to pay attention to the little things: from what the food is prepared, whether dust has accumulated on the shelves, whether the clothes of the children and husband are dirty.
But if you believe in this theory, it turns out that we women are smarter than men? After all, like geniuses, we see a "fly", not an "elephant".
