Dyslexics May Have A Cognitive Advantage That Is Vital To Humanity (M)

Dyslexia is thought to affect 20 percent of the population, although many people are undiagnosed.

Dyslexia is thought to affect 20 percent of the population, although many people are undiagnosed.


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How To Be As Unbelievably Creative As Darwin And Newton

Darwin and Wallace came up with the theory of natural selection at the same time. Why?

Darwin and Wallace came up with the theory of natural selection at the same time. Why?

New technologies and ideas emerge from our collected brains — not individual geniuses, research finds.

Innovations emerge, the paper argues, by small improvements, the mixing of ideas, situations and pure luck.

While Darwin, Newton and the rest were clearly talented and driven individuals, they were “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

The best thing you can do to be more creative, one of the paper’s authors argues, is to talk to people who disagree with you.

Dr Michael Muthukrishna, the study’s lead author, said:

“The processes of cumulative cultural evolution allow technologies and techniques to emerge, which no single individual could create on their own – because human brains, in isolation, aren’t actually all that smart.

We can see this process at work when two people have the same apparently innovative idea at the same time – such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace with the theory of natural selection.

Rather than being heroic geniuses, Darwin and Wallace were in the same ‘cultural milieu’, both reading the same books and both travelling to biologically diverse island environments.”

Societal innovation is affected by three factors, the researchers found:

  • Larger more interconnected societies where ideas can mix.
  • Easy transmission of useful knowledge between people so that it can be built upon.
  • Tolerance for deviation: trying new things is hard and the rate of failure is high. This has to be allowed for.

Dr Muthukrishna said:

“To be an innovator, it’s better to be social rather than smart.

There’s no doubt that there are variations in people’s raw skills, but what predicts the difference between a Steve Jobs and a Joe Bloggs is actually their exposure to new ideas that are wonderful and different.

If you want to be more creative the best thing you can do is to talk to people who disagree with you.”

The study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Muthukrishna & Henrich, 2016).

7 Weird Signs You Are A Really Creative Person (M)

Being sarcastic, ignoring deadlines and these five other unusual things are all linked to higher creativity.

Being sarcastic, ignoring deadlines and these five other unusual things are all linked to higher creativity.


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A Simple Imagination Test Reveals How Creative You Are

Can you stretch your imagination this far?

Can you stretch your imagination this far?

Being able to imagine situations that are far away in time and space is a sign that you are highly creative, research finds.

Creative people are better able to think 500 years into the future, transcending the here and now.

Surprisingly, creative experts use a totally different part of the brain to think beyond the present, in comparison to less creative people.

Dr Meghan L. Meyer, the study’s first author, said:

“For most people, it is difficult to transcend the here and now, but creative experts are able to imagine distal experiences much more vividly than others.

They draw on a neural mechanism, which other experts may not be able to engage as easily for this type of thinking.”

The conclusions come from a series of three studies.

In one study, 300 people were asked to “imagine what the world will be like in 500 years”, along with other similar exercises.

The results showed that more creative people were better at this imaginative exercise.

A second study compared creative and non-creative professionals.

This found that creative professionals were better at imagining the future.

Dr Meyer explained:

“Creative experts and control participants showed the same level of career success.

Yet, the creative experts demonstrated greater distal imagination.

The results illustrate that it’s the creative pursuits and not just career success, which appears to enhance transcending the here and now.”

A third study carried out scans to look at what happens in the brain when creative experts imagine a far-off future.

For distant events, experts used the dorsal medial default network, which non-experts did not use.

This area of the brain is important for empathy and thinking about other people.

Dr Meyer said:

“Many of the problems facing our society today, whether it be identifying solutions to address climate change or working with others who may have different political views, are essentially challenges that require distal thinking.

They demand that you get outside of your present point of view and try to think about how things could be different from your immediate experience.

Identifying the underlying neural mechanisms associated with this type of imagination will hopefully help us better understand the key ingredients that may be needed to solve these kinds of complex, societal problems.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Meyer et al., 2019).