Allowing the Mind To Wander Aids Creative Problem Solving

ananyo writes "From the Nature story: 'Scientists from Archimedes to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are said to have had flashes of inspiration while thinking about other things. But the mechanisms behind this psychological phenomenon have remained unclear. A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.' The researchers gave 145 students 2 minutes to list as many possible uses for an everyday object (the creative thinking task). Participants then either rested, undertook a demanding memory activity that required their full attention or engaged in an undemanding reaction-time activity known to elicit mind-wandering. A fourth group of students had no break. The researchers then set the students a second set of unusual-uses tasks and found those that had, in the interim, been set the undemanding task that encouraged mind-wandering performed an average of around 40% better than they did before. The students in the other three groups showed no improvement."

Comments

Creativity

[The God of Code]

rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.

And this is why mild drugs should be legal. The effects greatly increase mind wandering and in right amounts, lead to highly increased creativity. I don't support highly abusive drugs as they have risky side effects, but for example marijuana should be legal.

It is actually even more healthy and good for the society than alcohol. For most people alcohol drinking tends to bring out their bad sides like aggressiveness, health problems and uncontrolled thinking. Pot on the other hand increases creativity, brings relaxation and has no negative effects on your health (especially if you don't smoke it but eat with browns or pizza [tastes like oregano actually, but better]).

Re:Creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

In AA I was introduced to the M.M.P., Marijuana Maintenance Plan.

Basically for an Alcoholic that is drinking enough to eventually kill them it provides them a very effective way to quit drinking. And eventually they "should" quit smoking pot after they have gotten over the worst parts of early sobriety. And quitting pot is so so so much easier than quit drinking.

This has saved hundreds of lives, but it's illegal.

Re:Creativity

[mcgrew]

And this is why mild drugs should be legal.

No, mind-altering drugs should be legal because there should be no law against harming yourself. Marijuana should be legal because there's no reason whatever (besides right-wing lies) why it should be illegal. And yes, it does help creativity. Often some of my best stories come from a pot haze. Unfortunately half the time I forget what I was going to write before I get it written down.

As to the study, once again science has proven that which most of us have noticed. But proving it scientifically is a GOOD thing. Without testing one can never be sure.

Re:Creativity

[spiffmastercow]

No, mind-altering drugs should be legal because there should be no law against harming yourself

The self-harm argument falls to pieces when you consider that people are not islands unto themselves, and that the actions of one person often have detrimental effects on others. Pot should be legal because its social benefits outweigh the risks. Meth should be illegal because 99.9% of meth users eventually start stealing or killing to support their habit. I wouldn't mind if meth users simply killed their brain cells and then left the rest of us alone, but that's simply not the case.

Re:Creativity

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I'm sorry. I was busy being creative on your time... What was your question again? Surely, you don't mind repeating, if only to allow more opportunity for me to develop my brilliance! :-)

Re:Creativity

[vlm]

Meth should be illegal because 99.9% of meth users eventually start stealing or killing to support their habit

As an ex totally legit chemist not involved even remotely in the amateur pharm trade, I none the less know that the cost of precursor chemicals would make legal meth roughly (very roughly) as expensive as your average OTC generic pharmaceutical. There's nothing in that chemical structure that should cost much more than psuedoephedrine cold medicine and its biologically active "around" that level. A couple days worth of the stuff, if legalized, would cost about as much as a weeks worth of cold medicine, in other words pretty damn cheap compared to the cost of food, etc.

When you have to steal copper cable every day to get one day's illegal supply society has a big problem. When the cost of a 6-pack of beer is more than the cost of a months supply then society has no real problem. It is true that scum occasionally kill for the cost of a soda, but its rare enough to be an outlier, thankfully.

It would be cheap enough that junkyards could give it away in order to improve their public image (hey general public, we don't accept stolen goods anymore because we give the addicts stuff for free, so stop blaming us for your stolen catalytic converters, mkay?)

Its much harder on the body than alcohol, so unlike drinking where you have senior citizen bums, meth heads, especially if given all-you-can-smoke-for-free would not live long, leading to a ridiculously lower total lifetime cost and a much smaller population.

Re:Creativity

[PopeRatzo]

No, mind-altering drugs should be legal because there should be no law against harming yourself.

Well, yes and no. While I agree that mind-altering drugs should be legal, there are behaviors that are self-destructive that end up costing society a whole lot, say, motorcyclists not wearing a helmet or at least goggles. When I first started riding in my late teens, I never wanted to put anything on my head and goggles interfered with my then-long hair flowing in the wind making me look just a little less cool. I was on 94 headed out toward the Western Suburbs when a small stone got kicked up and sent right into my eye. The weather was perfect, but it sent me into a long slide that could have easily ended up with a lot more people hurt or dead besides just me. After that, I always wore goggles, and after a close friend who was doing an emergency room rotation back then told me she wouldn't be my friend any more unless I started wearing a helmet, I actually managed to live long enough to see the wisdom in these simple requirement. About the same time, I realized that no, I did not in fact drive better after getting a few ounces of ethanol behind my belt. Funny, I was absolutely sure about that one, but no. Also, that the fragrant and sticky red bud did not actually improve my musical ability.

Nobody's behavior is unconnected to other peoples' lives. Nobody makes it all on their own and nothing a person do "has no effect on anyone else. The "this is a free country and if I want to kill myself I will" argument makes a lot more sense before you grow up than after.

But certainly there is no good reason to make the growing or use or purchase of marijuana illegal. And sale and distribution should be regulated, if only to make sure one doesn't end up being sold an ounce of rosemary for $120 by those high school juniors over on Jackson Blvd. The little shits.

Re:Creativity

[spiffmastercow]

Fair enough on the cost of the product itself.. And I think your argument would actually go a long way in regards to something like heroin. I was wrong to state that the meth addicts steal or kill to support their habit.. They steal and kill because meth eats away everything but the base animal instincts, and they essentially steal and kill for fun at that point. Also, unlike heroin addicts, meth users tend to have lots of children to whom they do irreparable harm. If we had a program of "all you can smoke, provided you are permanently sterilized and live in this fenced off area away from people who actually contribute to society", I'll be all for it.

Re:Creativity

[spiffmastercow]

Protip: 99.9% of the time, when someone says "99.9% of x", they're saying it to illustrate a point, and not to cite an actual statistic.

Re:Creativity

[SomeJoel]

I blogged about your comment on angrylibertarian.tumblr.com if you care (I did it even if you don't care too).

This is from your blog:

Iâ(TM)m pretty sure that nobody in their right mind is claiming that âoeWhat I do doesnâ(TM)t affect youâ but rather the claim is âoeNot everything that affects you allows you to legitimately respond with violenceâ.

Now since you were responding to me, and I was talking about helmet laws, how do you get "respond with violence" from "require motorcycle riders to wear helmets or goggles"?

I think this is how libertarians get their reputation as being a little bit goofy.

Hey man, calm down, there's no reason to get all violent!

Re:Creativity

[cheekyjohnson]

Nobody's behavior is unconnected to other peoples' lives.

Suddenly we're limiting people's freedom simply because something may inadvertently affect others in some way if something goes wrong. I'd much rather accept the occasional casualties just like I'd much rather accept the risk of terrorist attacks than resort to idiocy like the Patriot Act and the TSA (which, most likely, don't accomplish anything, anyway).

The "this is a free country and if I want to kill myself I will" argument makes a lot more sense before you grow up than after.

Right. They just need to grow up if they don't agree with you.

Re:Creativity

[Capsaicin]

Right. They just need to grow up if they don't agree with you.

I think the point is that the angry young libertarian males need to grow up if they are still manifesting their late adolescent rejection of paternal authority after about the age of 24. From the point of view especially of those of us who used to identify as "libertarian" (even though in years past that may have meant an anti-properterian libertarianism, or even anarcho-communism), older men who persist in imagining that political utopia is to be found in their unresolved familial issues seem slightly pathetic.

Re:Creativity

[cheekyjohnson]

meth can be stopped by simply regulating the ingredients necessary to make it.

What would prevent them from creating it in another country and bringing it here? You'd need nearly universal regulations.

And I don't care too much for that solution, anyway. I say if someone wants to take drugs, let them. If they then commit a crime, punish those people.

Re:Creativity

[hazah]

Growing up doesn't mean you realize you don't have the right to piss in the swiming pool. On the contrary. It's realizing that you do, just as much as others have the right to punch you for it.

Re:Creativity

[mcgrew]

Meth should be illegal because 99.9% of meth users eventually start stealing or killing to support their habit.

So, you think Minority Report's precrime unit is a good thing? Stealing and killing are already against the law. "Put him in jail because he might steal or kill" is a terrible argument. I'll bet you thought 1984 had a utopian society, too.

Re:Creativity

[mcgrew]

Well I have and I've seen pieces of shit steal copper wiring out of houses and kill dogs for fun at 3 am

Again, look up sociopathy. I've seen stone cold sober rednecks deliberately run over cats because they just hate cats. The same mechanism that makes these evil people use the drugs (and not all the drug users are stealing, see below) makes them theives.

It's been said (and the city denies it) that mine is the third most dangerous city in the US. There's a bar I frequent in the very worst part of town with a very wide variety of patrons. The bar's owner also owns a construction company, half of his bar customers are his construction employees and the rest run the gamut from business owners to state employees to the chronically unemployed. Many of these people are addicted to meth and crack, but only half of these people are sociopaths (the sociopaths usually wind up barred before too long).

Sleep depravation does cause damage to the brain, but so does alcohol. Yet I don't see alcoholics stealing copper for their next drink; it usually results in them winding up in jail for DUI.

Do you know what the very worst abusable substance there is for your brain? Toluline; paint thinner. The idiots who huff this stuff get so brain damaged that they develop speech impairmants that don't go away when they're sober. Yet toluline is legal and available at any hardware store, and so cheap that these morons don't steal for it (most of them are selling dope to get money).

In the Shower

[InfiniteZero]

Some of the best ideas I've come up with happened in the shower, usually after a long day of working on a project.

Re:In the Shower

[mindwhip]

For me its not dreams, rather its lying in bed late at night or on lazy Sunday mornings daydreaming for an hour or two. I'll just let my mind run 'in neutral' not thinking about anything in particular. Sometimes I'll end up thinking about what I did today or will be doing tomorrow. Sometimes its more abstract stuff like what does the square root of -1 actually mean. Sometimes its about the people around me, either friend or foe. Sometimes just about one pointless thing like a slashdot post I made, over and over again but considering it from every angle.

Every so often these random 'wanderings' result in me linking two previously unrelated facts together to get a better understanding or in me having an idea to solve some problem or issue.

Either way without letting my mind wander I wouldn't have anywhere near as many 'eureka' moments and would probably have missed out on promotions etc as a result.

Camping

[Hatta]

This is why I like camping. Nothing like being stuck outside, hopefully far away from any sort of electrical devices, alone with nothing but your mind and dappled sunlight through the trees to keep you company. I'm never more productive than the week after I spent a weekend sleeping under the stars.

Stuck at home, my hobbies use a lot of the same parts of the brain my work does. But I enjoy them more, so I work harder at them. That often leaves me wearier on Monday than I was on Friday.

Re:Camping

[strength_of_10_men]

Nothing like being stuck outside, hopefully far away from any sort of electrical devices, alone with nothing but your mind and dappled sunlight through the trees to keep you company.

I guess along the same line, if I'm ever stuck on a hard problem, I either go for a long bike ride or a long steady run; something that's not so hard that I have to focus on form. Some of my best problem solving has been done while on a contemplative ride or run, by myself, in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know if it's the release of endorphins or the tranquility that the setting provides, or the isolation from distractions such as phones and email (and yes, people) that does the trick but if I'm struggling on something, I grad the bike or running shoes and head out the door.

Plus it allows me to eat a little more for dinner. :)

It's the step back effect

[jholyhead]

I expect those of us in intellectually demanding jobs have encountered the step back effect.

You'll spend three hours banging your head against your desk trying to find a solution to a tricky problem. Eventually, the caffeinated beverages you've been throwing back conspire against you and you have to make a trip to the bathroom. I solve more tricky problems during those 2 minute bathroom breaks than at any other point in the day.

Incidentally I find I can use this effect to justify all kinds of frowned upon office behaviour. I'm not watching cat videos on Youtube, I'm stepping away from the problem. I'm not browsing the Dilbert archives, I'm putting some distance between myself and the dilemma. I'm not facebook stalking the temp on reception, I'm seeking an alternative perspective on the issue du jour.

Yes yes yes!

[ohnocitizen]

When I am working on a particularly difficult problem, I read Slashdot for a bit. After drinking down an article about the TSA or censorship, boom! The solution just pops into my head and away I go. That's the Slashdot Advantage(tm)!

Re:Yes yes yes!

[PRMan]

I'm not sure if you are joking, but this totally happens to me all the time.

Re: Or dreams

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

When it's something I work really intensely, I often come up with the best solutions indirectly in a dream. That is, I'll dream of a solution - usually it's not directly helpful, but upon waking it's easy to follow the impractical dream solution to its roots and find the real answer. Usually in a "oh that's so obvious, why didn't I see it sooner?!" kind of way.

Walking is another good time for me - unless I"m listening to an audiobook, which seems to suppress the necessary 'mind wandering'.

Re: Or dreams

[s.petry]

I have had these also, usually very early REM sleep I wake up and say "Wholly crap that is the Fix!". I found at least for myself that I don't even have to keep a pencil and paper near the bed. These ideas are remembered in the morning, and usually refined while getting ready for work.

For TFA, I wonder what they did for "mind wandering" activities? They don't mention their specific method, and most that I know of like meditation require training.

What they aren't saying:

[Poltron Inconnu]

An undemanding task that lets the mind wander... I think they're not wanting to come right out and admit that most people do their best thinking on the toilet.

Huh?

[kbob88]

I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was, uh, solving problems...

In Your Face Dad!

[noc007]

When I was in elementary school and day dream, my dad would tell me that I needed to "stop going to 'la la land'".He would even mockingly imitate me in "la la land" in the most obnoxious manner possible. This is one of the many BS things my parents did to me and my dad really doesn't get why our relationship is always on pins and needles. My mom OTOH doesn't realize our relationship is on pins and needles and copes with her own undiagnosed ADHD with a 2 liter diet soda everyday. My dad going diagnosed with ADD a few years ago and is completely ashamed of it; he doesn't want to talk about it, thinks everyone else must accommodate his BS because he has it, and refuses to accept that it's a reason for the behavior now but not an excuse now that he's diagnosed.

Seriously didn't find out that I was ADD until my ADHD wife told me I'm probably ADD, would benefit by getting tested, and then working with professionals on finding the best solutions to my problems. Found out a couple of years later from my mom that they knew I probably had ADD, but didn't want to get me any help (drugs or otherwise). Instead yelling at me about was their accepted solution.

My future daughter and potential children, I hope, will benefit from our experience as there's a good chance they'll have ADD. Pediatrician has already forbade computers and TVs being viewable by the munchkin; noise from the TV is discouraged as well, but classical music is encouraged. /Yeah I mommy and daddy issues. Hopefully my children won't.

And yet ...

[PPH]

... Slashdot has a -1 Offtopic mod.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

[simoncpu was here]

I don't have ADHD, I'm just creative!

It's good to have proof because...

[nashv]

Try explaining to your boss or spouse, that the time spent playing a mindless game on the computer is actually an intense mind-wandering session that is going to boost your productivity. Or that you need this time to be your creative best.

In my experience, few people 'get it'.