Creativity: new stages from old pages?

Having written an article on applying stage theories of creativity, I was aware that different thinkers have broken the creative process down into different numbers of stages. However, I was unaware that another stage was hidden in plain sight in the classic 1920's work of Wallas. Typically, those citing Wallas's work refer to four main stages in the creative process: (1). an initial preparatory phase, (2) an incubation phase when the creative task is left aside for sometime (and, it is often presumed, unconscious processes are at work), (3). an illumination phase, when there is some kind of breakthrough in the creative process and (4). a verification phase, when the creative idea is tested, probed or checked for its quality.

However, in a recent article, Eugene Sadler-Smith proposes that intimation is a further stage in the creative process, between incubation and illumination. This is described as a fringe consciousness that links incubation to illumination. It could be described as straddling conscious and unconscious thinking. An indicative description (taken from conversation with a civil servant) is how a person can sense that the solution is coming, but they do not yet know what form this solution will take.

A bit embarrassing that I only encountered this idea recently, but the 4-stage description has been quite pervasive. To me, this extra stage does seem to place an emphasis on more active unconscious processes than other factors that break "writer's block" or comparable phenomena in other creative domains, such as forgetting an unhelpful conceptualisation of a problem, reduction in fatigue or serendipitous discovery of a helpful method of approaching the problem. It will be interesting to see if more researchers and thinkers start trying to pin this stage down in more detail in the coming years.

Sadler-Smith, E. (2015). Wallas’ four-stage model of the creative process: More than meets the eye? Creativity Research Journal, 27(4), 342-352.


Related posts: 
Two different ways 


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International literature festival Dublin: Insider's guide to publishing

The International Literature Festival Dublin is a great series of events-I had the good fortune to attend Patrick McCabe and Nicole Flattery in conversation about their influences (with Flattery counting McCabe, author of "The Butcher Boy" as one).

Given that I'm currently writing a book, I was particularly psyched to attend the full-day Insider's Guide to Getting Published.

The first panel, of five different agents, didn't always have the same preferences for submissions or how to handle them. Nonetheless, they give a clear sense of an agent's remit (and repeatedly emphasize not to sign a contract with a publisher until the agent has had a look!) We also get some useful advise on editing, and three authors (with work spanning literary to more commercial work) describe how their debuts got published. Vanessa Fox-O'Loughlin (who writes as Sam Blake) also delivers a commendably clear solo masterclass on nailing your synopsis, pitch and cover letter.

The main reason I'm at this event is that I was selected for a 10 minute one-on-one with a literary agent. The 60 people put forward for this 'date' with an agent have been selected from circa 480 submissions. Speaking to a few of them during the day, I was surprised at the extent to which some struggled to give a concise pitch about their work. Even when getting set up to meet an agent, it's easy to forget that beyond writing your work, there is a separate skillset to flogging your work!

Not that I'm so great in this regard either. I have a few pithy elevator pitch statements to make about my book, but at the meeting with the agent it's clear that my synopsis can undermine the apparent marketability of the book. It can be difficult to sell something that's straddling two different areas of literature, particularly at as broad a level as combining fiction and non-fiction (what shelf is the book going to go on?). So even if I go with fiction with non-fiction elements, it's best to pigeonhole the book as one or the other. Given that I'm not going "high" literary with this book, the agent's suggestion that I include a student's perspective on the lectures makes a lot of sense (it might be a big ask for a mainstream audience to spend an entire book in the mind of such an unlikeable/alienating protagonist as David Hector).

It's certainly made me think a bit about what I want to do with my book. From the Q & A at the broader sessions, it's clear most people taking part (myself included) are probably engaging in certain number of cognitive biases (confirmation) to keep ourselves going in the face of the challenge of actually getting published. But who knows-one of the debut authors giving a talk was in the audience five years ago.


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Conference review: British Neuroscience Association Festival of Neuroscience

For the first time, the British Neuroscience Association held its Festival of Neuroscience outside the UK. Risking a Brexit crash-out which thankfully didn't come to pass a couple of weeks before the festival, BNA2019 was co-hosted with Neuroscience Ireland at the Convention Centre in Dublin city. The venue was a good size for the meeting. Although the posters covered everything from benchwork to animal models to my own poster describing reminiscence therapy and a rare memory disorder, the poster space was physically concentrated enough to get a good level of engagement going. The exhibitors included not just the usual publishing houses and companies with new toys for technique junkies, but also a career zone for job networking and a "credibility zone" to act as a thinktank for increasing factors such as reproducibility to allow neuro- and other scientists to be better able to stand over the validity of findings.

Speaking of which, a highlight of the conference was the chance to see autism researcher Uta Frith grapple with the thorny issue of the replication crisis within psychology (and empirical research in general). She called for a move towards "slow science", with theories being tested more carefully, and resisting the temptation to publish anything as fast as you can out of a fear of getting scooped. Perhaps the most impressive research plenary came from Ileana Hanganu-Opatz, who is using electrophysiological techniques to study connectivity in the brain. John Cryan (pictured centre below), whose group I have worked with, also chaired an interesting symposium on diet, brain and microbiome.

There was a great breakout session on political advocacy. Although it could have been better attended, there was a serious discussion from those in attendance about issues around how to make biggest impact in getting through to politicians (and indeed others in the public sector who are less visible but perhaps more influential) about the importance of investing in neuroscience funding. There was a particularly interesting case study of when the BBSRC made major cuts to brain research around the start of this decade, and how brain scientists leveraged the media to push back.

But this wasn't just talks and posters: this was a festival of neuroscience. There were a ton of events around the city, including theatre, dance, music and visual art. I got to the opening of Joanna Hopkin's "Connecting" exhibition. (I felt I had better show up as I had helped Hopkins to access an MRI scanner to inform this piece.) The minimal techno of the scanner pervaded the exhibit, a highlight of which was the strange homonculus pictured below. The work conjures up images of embodied cognition under an anatomical gaze. 

The Age of Arts was a great way to finish up, with a performance from the MISA choir and a commandeering of the audience by Jane Bentley to produce a percussive musical act. There were also talks from a number of people at the Global Brain Health Institute, and a representative from the Bealtaine festival, with a spirited discussion on whether the intersection between art, science and health could be used to undermine the inherent value of the arts. As a psychologist I know that it's easy to describe projects in any funding bid I write as being about all these things and more.

BNA2019 has been a huge undertaking, and any individual's perspective can only capture a snapshot of this event. I've come away with a renewed enthusiasm for the creativity that goes into both science and art. Francesca Farina noted at Age of Arts that science and art may not always have been thought of as separate endeavours; perhaps they are drawing closer together once again.

You can follow me on Twitter: @ArchivePsych

Back with blog and book

Hello there, after a hiatus I'm back to this blog. Since my last post I have been working on an awesome/cool/savage podcast with writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, Psychology in Mind.  I've also set up a Twitter specific to my blog: follow @ArchivePsych 

I've been working on a book, a sort of fiction/non-fiction hybrid. Expect some excerpts to appear here in the coming months. Here's a brief outline:

"Manipulate" (working title) comprises an introductory lecture series to psychology, juxtaposed with the life of Professor David Hector, who is delivering these lectures. During his lectures, David espouses high ethical standards (albeit in a cynical manner). Outside of teaching hours, David emotionally abuses his husband and mistress, bullies his colleagues and is facing accusations of sexual harassment. Although he has thus far led a charmed life, his increasingly brazen manipulation of others is causing his professional and personal life to unravel.

The segments of the book include (a). events in David’s personal life, (b). a lecture from his introduction to psychology module - these lectures are interspersed with David’s thoughts as he delivers the lecture, and (c). events in his work at the university.

Pressing pause

Hello all,

I'm taking a hiatus for the next few months to focus on the podcast Psychology in Mind with Gareth Stack, see below for episode one:

https://garethstack.com/2018/01/30/psychology-in-mind-episode-1/

We've done a few episodes so far on creativity, heuristics and biases, ethics in psychology and memory (with the latter guest-starring Dr Richard Roche). Check it out!

And do have a look through the archive of this blog-I plan to return next year.

Restaurant review: The Greenhouse

"There is no such thing as a neutral context" Professor Charles Spence on eating

The lighting focuses on the tables, creating a sense of the table as a stage. The waitress lays out the napkins with a white glove. A song from "Moon Safari" quietly playing in the background gives a nostalgic retro-futurist Gallic soundtrack. 

Greenhouse, Dawson Street. Daniela has the four-course dinner menu; I go for the vegetarian equivalent. Being a veggie I am unqualified to comment on Daniela's menu; suffice to say she enjoyed it. Since the Greenhouse are known for working with a pretty serious sommelier, we go with the discovery wine selection. The amuse boches (pictured) include crispy seaweed and a pleasantly warm blue cheese.

First course: ravioli of comté, onion buillon. It's served in one of those huge bowls where the rim takes up most space, with the content in a central indent. The ravioli is pleasantly creamy, and a gang of tangy little mushrooms are swimming in the onion buillon. Wine: Riesling with a citrus acidity. Daniela's has a different Riesling that is bigger on acidity but also on sweetness.

Second course: roast cauliflower, hazelnut, truffle, sheep's curd. Having one medium sized piece of cauliflower as the centre of attention in a dish is ballsy. But it's great; caramelised dark brown on top with a milky, creamy stalk. Wine; Chardonnay; a hint of Belgian beer.

Third course: hand-rolled gnocchi, hen of the woods, parmesan, vin jaune. Form is important here-I always think of gnocchi as imperfect spheres, but here they are handrolled into fat snakes, and the hen of the woods cuts a different dash than the average mushroom. This dish follows the culinary adage that you should use as much salt as is just short of too salty.  Wine: pinot noir - a very subtle red that pulls things back compared to the Chardonnay.

Dessert: chocolate soufflé, vanilla ice cream. The late Paolo Tullio, who previously wrote a rave review of this place, had a memorable moment when he dipped his cutlery into a chocolate pudding on RTÉ's "The Restaurant" and exclaimed "gooey choccie!" while bouncing in his seat. The chocolate soufflé here too had a liquid centre (although the exterior was more crispy than a pudding). There was a saltiness to the dessert as well that was complemented by the ice cream. Wine: a lovely Madeira.

Espresso with petit fours-choux pastry with hazelnut cream and a chocolate passion fruit. I made the mistake of knocking the latter back in one go, giving a slightly overwhelming hit of the passion fruit.

The Greenhouse is definitely a treat for the senses. The dishes are all well presented, although none showboat excessively with the sauces etc. Daniela mentions a feeling of fullness that has as much to do with richness of the dishes as fullness of the stomach. The staff are attentive and friendly. It is quite expensive but worth it for a special occasion; regardless of why you go, once you're inside you definitely won't feel that you're approaching the food in a neutral context. 

Related posts:
TV review: Chef's Table

Conference review: "Research and Healthcare Responses to the Challenge of Brain Conditions in Ireland"

With Brain Awareness Week underway, the timing was ripe for this week’s joint conference of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland and the Irish Brain Council: Research and Healthcare Responses to the Challenge of Brain Conditions in Ireland. It was a half-day event, packing a lot of interesting talks into a slim timeline.

Mark Ferguson of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) opened the day with a discussion of SFI’s past and future, underlining SFI’s extensive collaboration with industry. He also highlighted plans to create a more targeted funding mechanism for PhD students; previously, although a lot of PhD students have been hired via SFI funding, this has been a lot more “top-down”, i.e. coming from Professors with the more major research grants SFI is known for.

Speaking of which, David Henshall’s talk on FutureNeuro struck me as a real template on how to get a large tranch of funding from SFI, but more importantly it represents an ambitious research program targeting motor neuron disease and epilepsy. The project aims to further knowledge in both diagnosis and treatment for these disorders; for example, how molecular therapies (which tend to be relatively bulky) can cross the blood-brain-barrier. The work of FutureNeuro also covers the increasing electronic storage of health records, with a view to creating greater use of genetic information as this becomes recorded in a greater number of patients.

The Promethean ambition of Henshall’s work was matched that of Ian Robertson, who discussed the work of the Global Brain Health Institute in training research fellows, identifying risk factors for the development of dementia and initiatives to prevent/offset the development of dementia. He spoke about cognitive reserve (a favourite topic of Robertson’s), as well as how dopaminergic function in striatal regions may underlie what is ostensibly more cortically-based decline in cognitive performance in older adults. In closing, Robertson paid emotional tribute to Chuck Feeney, highlighting how Atlantic Philanthropies (which recently came to a close) is to thank for the Global Brain Health Institute.

Cora O’Neill highlighted her work at the Cork Neuroscience Centre at University College Cork, linking the brain-gut-microbiome axis to a molecule associated with Parkinson’s disease (alpha synuclein). She highlighted the broader area of changes in the microbiome with age, and particularly between residential, nursing home care and older adults living in the community. O’Neill also gave generous coverage to work by John Cryan and Ted Dinan at UCC, including a mention of the dementia caregiver study I have worked on with Gerard Clarke.

At coffee/tea it was great to see a couple of posters looking at caregivers for people with other serious neurological problems, including one on carers for people in a persistent vegetative state as well as a poster on acquired brain injury in general.

The second session of opened with a more frontline clinical perspective from Timothy Lynch, who spoke about neurology services in Ireland. Although things are improving in terms of waiting lists, there is a need for greater multidisciplinary teamwork in Ireland; there is a serious lack of clinical neuropsychologists, and even if all the necessary funding to hire them were there, there still wouldn’t be enough suitably qualified people to fill the posts.  

The meeting closed with by a representative of Fred Destrebecq, Executive Director of the European Brain Council, highlighting the health economics of brain diseases and mental disorder, which is somewhere in the order of €800 billion for Europe. He also drew attention to the Value of Treatment white paper, which outlines unmet need in early diagnosis and treatment of mental/neurological disorder in Europe.

The meeting as a whole indicated the scale of health challenges facing our society. It demonstrated the ambition of those researching this most complex area, and the determination of those treating the people these issues affect.

Related posts

Caregiver stress seminar

Dementia and brain imaging conference

Why not check out the "Psychology in Mind" podcast with Gareth Stack: https://garethstack.com/2018/01/30/psychology-in-mind-episode-1/