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The Emergence of Creativity

Mauro Maldonato, Silvia Dell'Orco & Anna Esposito

To cite this article: Mauro Maldonato, Silvia Dell'Orco & Anna Esposito (2016): The Emergence
of Creativity, World Futures, DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2016.1262641

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World Futures, 0: 18, 2016
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ISSN: 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844 online

DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2016.1262641

THE EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY

Mauro Maldonato and Silvia DellOrco

University of Basilicata, Matera, Italy

Anna Esposito
Seconda Universit di Napoli, Dipartimento di Psicologia, Caserta, Italy

Creativity is one of the central dimensions of human achievement and social

development and has always fascinated scientists and non-scientists alike. But
what is the essential nature of creativity? And what is the role of consciousness in
the emergence of creativity? If it is true that it has been explored in many aspects
in the cognitive and neurobiological field, it is also true that the lore chest
from which the conscious mind through unconscious mechanisms extracts the
rough material that is then brought to the surfacehas been less investigated.
The purpose of this article is to give an account of how the multiplicity of levels
of awareness is made possible by a spontaneous order that has nothing to do with
a monolithic view of creativity.

KEYWORDS: Awareness, consciousness, creativity, flow, frontal and prefrontal cortex.

INTRODUCTION
The human capacity to create is a central dimension of our existence. The word
creativity is often being used in everyday life and its meaning would appear to
be clear, at least superficially. However, from the scientific point of view, creativity
can be intended in different ways. It is, in fact, an issue that has been studied from
many different disciplines: from philosophy to neuroscience, from economic to
sociology. Over time, divergent interpretations and theories have given rise to an
extensive literature (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2010).
However, beyond the wide variety of definitions, there seems to be broad agree-
ment with the following statement: a psychological process that facilitates the birth
of new and useful ideas (theoretical or practical), connections, and problem solu-
tions. In any case, the main feature of creative thinking is that it is guided by
heuristic processes rather than algorithmic (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw,
2005). As heuristics, in fact, creative thinking eludes formal logic of the ratio-
nal mind and manifests itself so quickly, that it does not cross the threshold of
consciousness (Maldonato, Montuori, & DellOrco, 2013).

Address correspondence to Mauro Maldonato, Department of Human Sciences,

University of Basilicata, Via Nazario Sauro 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy. E-mail:
[email protected]

1
2 MAURO MALDONATO ET AL.

Over the last 50 years, a growing volume of experimental evidence is showing

how false it is to believe that our mind is provided with formal schemes of infer-
ence that enable us to draw valid conclusions irrespective of the contents of the
premises. It has been shown, for example, that many individuals unconsciously
adopt rules that are quite different from those deriving from rationality. Indeed,
it has transpired that rationality is not a faculty that is innate in our species, but
a complex discipline that is attained (and maintained) only at certain psycho-
logical costs. The extraordinary quantity of creative experience that has led to
the formidable edifice of human knowledge has been underwritten by a natural
logic whose rules, for the most part unknown, have proven highly advantageous
in evolutionary terms. Formal logic invests only a part of our thought and does
not succeed in explaining its innumerable nuances. In this sense a logic of
discovery is a process of elaboration independent of any deliberate planning, a
process based on inferences that are not deductive, propositional, or conscious.
Moreover, creativity requires a special attention to the irrational and chaotic
phenomena. In Barrons (1958) words: creative individuals are more at home
with complexity and disorder than most people (p. 261). Creative thought is
marked by the active search for phenomena that destabilize order, that puzzle
cognitive schemata, that cannot be immediately understood. In this evolutionary
perspective, creativity does not simply refer to the ability to create a new product,
scientific or artistic. It is also a central process in order to adapt to environmental
change, to make sense of the complexity of the world, and to find new ways
of approaching the problems (Holm-Hadulla, 2013). The organization (self-re-
organization) of our lives, in fact, demands creativity and innovation. As shown
in Barrons studies, creativity goes beyond the old classifications, triggering a
continuous process of creation and re-creation. They acknowledge that life, and
their own lives in particular, are rich with new possibilities. The complexity
of our experience implies always contingency and change. In a fast-changing
world, often, there is not a univocal response; it is necessary to improvise.
Disorder, in this sense, offers the potentiality for new order (Montuori &
Donnelly, 2013).

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAIN?

An important cognitive component emerged in modern creativity research
and that has been widely investigated since 1950sis related to the distinction
between divergent, or associative, thinking and convergent, or analytical, think-
ing. According to the classical definition (Guilford, 1959), divergent thinking is the
ability to fully understand a situation and, in general, a deeper view of the world,
drawing on ideas from across disciplines. It usually manifests in a spontaneous
and natural way, such that many thoughts and intuitions are generated randomly.
For these reasons, divergent thinking is considered at the base of creative produc-
tion. A flexible and original searching, in fact, enables to generate many new ideas
and many correct solutions. Furthermore, creative process requires some basic ele-
ments:
 EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY 3

1. fluency (refers to the capacity to elaborate many ideas in a short time);

2. flexibility (refers to the capacity to propose, at the same time, different solu-
tions to a specific problem);
3. originality (refers to the capacity to elaborate unusual and unexpected con-
nections); and
4. processing (refers to the ability to organize all the details of an idea and to
achieve it).

Convergent thinking, on the contrary, is finalized to formulate the best solution

to a specific problem. It is a kind of fast and logical response based on information
already known simply recovered from memory and on the application of a logical
search and decision-making strategies.
In other words, if on one hand convergent thinking transforms ideas into use-
ful products and is aimed at solving problems of adaptation, on the other hand
divergent thinking is the real source of ideas and insights, and is associated with
an innovative style of problem solving (Mumford, Medeiros, & Partlow, 2012).
Edward de Bono (1970) defines these two kinds of thinking as follows: Vertical
(analytical) thinking digs the same hole deeper. Lateral thinking digs the hole in a
different place (p. 15).
The classical studies, focused on convergent and divergent thinking, urged
neuroscientists to understand if these two processes are localized in different
brain regions. Their experiments particularly those conducted in the 1960s by
Sperry and his co-workers on epileptic patients that did not benefit from classical
medical treatmentrevolutionized neurology and psychology. The only way to
end the seizures of these patients was to surgically sever their corpus callosum,
the fibrous structure that links the brains hemispheres. Sperrys (1968) split-
brainthrough a series of sophisticated experimentshas led to the discovery
that the left and right hemispheres do not process the same information.
Indeed, although the functions of the hemispheres are not yet fully known, the
accumulation of experimental evidence leaves no doubt regarding their functional
peculiarities and the attribution of convergent thinking to the right hemisphere
and divergent thinking to the left one (Guilford 1959).On the one hand the left
hemisphere has a preponderant role to play in symbolic-linguistic activity and in
computational activities, and examines details and processes them logically and
analytically. On the other hand, the right hemisphere is involved in the search
for new explanations, in the production of associations when using verbal stimuli
(Doron, Bassett, & Gazzaniga, 2012), and in artistic creation and improvisation.
To confirm this, neuroscientists noted an important correlation between lesions to
the right hemisphere (e.g., in patients with right hemisphere strokes) and the loss
of creative and artistic capacities.
The immediate resolution of a problem, moreover, essentially implies the acti-
vation of the right hemisphere (Beeman & Bowden, 2000; Fiore & Schooler,
1998). For example, the right answer in a test corresponds to the rapid activation
of the temporal lobe of the right hemisphere. The activation of the right side of the
anterior superior temporal gyrus, in particular, is proceeded by a sudden changes
in bioelectric activities of the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in several neuro-
4 MAURO MALDONATO ET AL.

physiological functions. These different competencies have led to the attribution

of the creative, affective, and instinctive functions to the right hemisphere, while
the left hemisphere is the base of rational thought (Shena et al. 2013). Kraft writes:

Consider a poem. When an individual reads it, his left hemisphere analyzes the
sequence of letters and integrates them into words and sentences, following the
logical laws governing written language. It checks for grammatical and morpho-
logical meaning and grasps the factual content. But the right hemisphere inter-
prets a poem as more than a string of words. It integrates the information with
its own prior ideas and imagination, allows images to well up, and recognizes
overarching metaphorical meaning. (Kraft, 2005, p. 20)

Dacey and Lennon (1998) also observed that cerebral activity during tasks of
divergent thinking resembles what happens during a relaxed state of mind. This
would support the importance of an incubation stage (unconscious) that precedes
the conscious production of new ideas and insights (Claxton, 2000).Despite that
the importance of incubation is amply recognized, there is no much understanding
of how it works because it occurs not consciously and cannot be verbalized.
The idea that creative thinking is the result of a process that goes through several
phases (characterized by different degrees of consciousness) has been confirmed
by observations and experiences reported by famous inventors and empirical sci-
entists. Wallas (1926) summarizes this process into four stages of thought:

preparation: the problem is investigated in all declinations. It is a hard, con-

scious, and systematic analysis that is the base out of which to construct new
ideas.
incubation: conscious thought about the problem is stopped permitting our
unconscious mind to get the better.
illumination: it is that flash of unconscious intuition that summarizes all the
fragments and ideas obtained during the preparation and incubation stage and
are now ready to emerge into a creative configuration.
verification: it is the last and conscious step in which is tested the validity of the
idea and the results are expressed in an oral or written way.

To explain the transition from the incubation to the illumination stage,

Wallas (1926) resorts to description given by the German physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz. He writes that after a long period of research in all directions,

happy ideas come unexpectedly without effort like inspiration. So far as I am

concerned, they have never come to me when my mind was fatigued, or when
I was at my working table. They come particularly readily during the slow
ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day. (p. 80)

Another emblematic example is that proposed by the mathematician Henri

Poincare, describing the way in which his great mathematical discoveries have
emerged. In his words,
 EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY 5

I then began to study arithmetical questions, apparently without any great result,
and without suspecting that they could have the least connection with my previous
investigations. Disgusted by my lack of success, I went away to spend a few
days at the seaside, and thought about entirely different things. One day, as I was
walking along the edge of the cliff, the idea came to me, again with the same
characteristics of brevity, suddenness, and immediate certainty, that arithmetical
transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms are identical with those of
non-Euclidian geometry. (cited in Patrick, 1955, p. 14)

In this meaning creativity is a subtle oscillation between conscious and uncon-

scious work.

IMIPLICIT AND EXPLICIT PROCESSES FOR THE

EMERGENCE OF NOVELTY
What is the essential nature of creativity? And what role does consciousness play
in all this? Clearly consciousness intervenes in the actions in progress in order
to expedite them; it extracts the relevant data from the available information so
as to organize the best ideas; it analyses the variables at stake; it establishes new
hierarchies of values, gives successful solutions to certain problems; it collects and
elaborates new, different evaluations.
Creativity is not the juxtaposition of interconnected entities, as if in a static
mosaic, but it is the simultaneous action of conscious and unconscious experi-
ences.
A few years ago, the concept of flow was proposed (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008),
a state of mind characterized by a sentiment of excited attention and of com-
plete involvement (Posner, 2012), characterized by a state of consciousness that
is almost automatic, effortless, and highly focused. Furthermore, it is often asso-
ciated with the almost euphoric state in which operations are carried out without
effort or fatigue, to the best of the persons capacity. Flow can concern every
mental or physical activity characterized by concentration and commitment, clear
objectives, immediate feedback, in proportion to the persons ability.
When we become aware of a perception, an idea, or a thought we are always
confronted by an enormous quantity of details and relationships that make the
boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness aleatory and ambiguous.
It is the intertwining of these two aspects that gives rise to this elusive experience:
creativity. It is a natural experience, rather than a state of things. The multiplicity
of levels of awareness is made possible by a spontaneous order that has nothing to
do with a monolithic vision of creativity. This last identifies plurality as a regres-
sive sign, minimizing the influence of the unconscious universe on conscious life.
Rather than standing in a dialectic relationship with each other, awareness and
non-awareness have a relation of profound co-implication, even of identification
from which emerges the creative experience.
The core of creativity is haunted by shadows, fantastic refractions, sudden illu-
minations that are inaccessible to our awareness.
6 MAURO MALDONATO ET AL.

Awareness re-emerges, each time, in the interludes of thought, in the self-

effacing states of meditation, in the unexpected flashes of non-awareness. There
is a spontaneous, unexpected, sudden non-awareness. As when, in the orderly
progress of our lives, something we were not expecting suddenly bursts upon us,
changing the order of things.
The existence of this automatic activity suggests that the prefrontal cortex is
not decisive in this process and that it can be conceived as being an expression of
the implicit cognitive activities (Rueda, Rothbart, Saccamanno, & Posner, 2005).
It has been observed that the explicit system, in association with the cognitive
functions of the frontal lobe and the temporal medial lobe, is responsible for cog-
nitive flexibility. In contrast, the implicit system is associated with skills-based
knowledge: it therefore depends on the basal ganglia and is more efficient. Hence,
the state of flow can be identified as a period during which a proven ability or cog-
nitive function occurs without interference from the explicit system (Caan, Perrett,
& Rolls, 1984): in other words, a transitory state of minor activity of the prefrontal
lobe which temporarily switches off the logical skills of the explicit system.
That attention is focused on a target that would appear to contradict the hypoth-
esis of a lower functionality of the frontal lobe (Oliverio and Maldonato, 2014).
This is because the flow requires concentration and therefore the activation of
the frontal network. In any case, an intense attentional activity is also present in
states of consciousness modified by the transitory hypofrontality. Furthermore,
the flow is compatible with a reduction of the prefrontal function, which leads to a
reduced degree of self-awareness. For these reasons, flow is regarded as an inferior
condition of frontal activity, except for those attentional processes that allow the
mind to focus on a target while switching off the other higher nervous functions
(Coccurello, Adriani, Oliverio, & Mele, 2000; Simonton 2003). Focus on present
activities allows the implicit processes to operate with maximum efficiency. In
this sense, creativity is generated by an enormous and complex variety of cortical
and subcortical activities, primarily starting from the correlation ventral striatum-
implicit system (for the emergence of novelty) and subsequently processed by the
prefrontal cortex to be converted into new behavioral patterns (Dietrich & Kanso,
2010).
Evidence from brain imaging shows that, even in humans, the striatum responds
to environmental challenges and generates new and congruous behavior (Graybiel,
1997). Then the prefrontal cortex appropriates the new patterns of conduct, but as
soon as it is transformed into recurring procedures, it is in turn managed by the
basal ganglia, to be converted into implicit activities. In this sense, the enormous
and complex variety of cortical and subcortical activities that allows the striatum
a formidable integrative activity to transmit it to the prefrontal cortex represents
a generative instrument capable of explaining: (a) the creative behavior of non-
human primates; (b) the transformation of learned motor activities into cognitive
mechanisms; (c) the emergence of analogies at the base of creative intuitions. It
is ever clearer thanks to an increasing volume of experimental data regarding the
brain, that the cognitive capacities depend on a variety of factors, rather than by
monocausal explanations. Also for these reasons, the classic schema leftright
 EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY 7

hemisphere alone is not adequate to accurately reflect the complexity of creative

thinking (Oliverio and Maldonato, 2014).
A considerable body of evidence now exists in support of the hypothesis that
creativity should be considered on the basis of its cognitive and neural correlates
(implicit and explicit strategies, primary and secondary states of mind, executive
abilities, behavior directed toward a purpose, emotiveness), as well as considering
the adaptive processes to the environment by means of new and original strategies.
According to Darwinian theory, there would be a change from rigid and specialized
behavioral pattern to others flexible and nonspecialized. Given this multiplicity of
relations between the cerebral structures and creativity must always be considered
that the originality and creativity, as well as nonconformism, should be favored,
from an early age, by activities such as free social relations, recreation, and imag-
ination (Oliverio, 2008).

CONCLUSION
Creativity can be inscribed within the broader framework of the evolution of the
brain and social life. During the natural history of mammals, higher cognitive
activities have emerged for a progressive expansion of the cortical areas (especially
frontal and prefrontal cortex), which played a decisive role compared to other sub-
cortical structures such as the basal ganglia. However, the variation-selection pro-
cesses, implicit and explicit, leading to innovation and creativity, would not be
unimaginable without the enormous work of consciousness, with its huge variety
of discriminations (qualia and internal and external sensory phenomena) involved
in the distributed and dynamics activity of the thalamocortical system. The future
research programs on a so crucial function of human evolution are inextricably
linked to the clarification of the relationship between brain and consciousness.

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