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Improvisation: the neural foundation for creativity

Published: 26 October 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Nearly all neuroimaging studies of creative behavior investigate verbal associations. These studies find an involvement of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). In contrast, two recent studies of pianists found the right DLPFC to be linked with non-verbal creative behavior. Musicians, however, often communicate on stage through their playing. But does this improvised interaction involve left- or right-lateralized prefrontal brain regions? To investigate this, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment where participants had to improvise a musical answer to a given musical rhythmic phrase. We found that only the left DLPFC was activated during response creation compared to control, indicating that musical communication resembles that of linguistic behavior rather than strictly non-linguistic behavior.

References

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Cited By

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  • (2016)The Association between Resting Functional Connectivity and Visual CreativityScientific Reports10.1038/srep253956:1Online publication date: 3-May-2016
  • (2013)Perspectives on design creativity and innovation researchInternational Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation10.1080/21650349.2013.7546571:1(1-42)Online publication date: Jan-2013
  • (2012)A Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems: Computational Creativity Evaluation Based on What it is to be CreativeCognitive Computation10.1007/s12559-012-9156-14:3(246-279)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2012

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    C&C '09: Proceedings of the seventh ACM conference on Creativity and cognition
    October 2009
    520 pages
    ISBN:9781605588650
    DOI:10.1145/1640233

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 26 October 2009

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    Author Tags

    1. creativity
    2. improvisation
    3. music creation

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    C&C '09
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    C&C '09: Creativity and Cognition 2009
    October 26 - 30, 2009
    California, Berkeley, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 108 of 371 submissions, 29%

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    View all
    • (2016)The Association between Resting Functional Connectivity and Visual CreativityScientific Reports10.1038/srep253956:1Online publication date: 3-May-2016
    • (2013)Perspectives on design creativity and innovation researchInternational Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation10.1080/21650349.2013.7546571:1(1-42)Online publication date: Jan-2013
    • (2012)A Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems: Computational Creativity Evaluation Based on What it is to be CreativeCognitive Computation10.1007/s12559-012-9156-14:3(246-279)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2012

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