Creative Problem-Solving

Puzzle-solving is an ancient, universal practice, scholars say, and it depends on creative insight, or a primitive spark. Now, modern neuroscientists are beginning to tap its source.

A

In a recent study, researchers at Northwestern University in the United States found that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine. ‘What we think is happening,’ said Dr Mark Beeman, a neuroscientist who worked on the study, 'is that the humor, this positive mood, is lowering the brain's threshold for detecting weaker or more remote connections,' which enable people to solve puzzles.

B

This suggests that the appeal of puzzles goes far deeper than the pleasant rush of finding a solution. The very act of doing a puzzle typically shifts the brain into an open, playful state that is itself a pleasing escape. Unlike the social and professional mysteries in the real world, puzzles are reassuringly solvable; but like any serious problem, they require more than mere intellect to crack. ‘It’s imagination, it's inference, it's guessing; and much of it is happening subconsciously,’ said Dr Marcel Danesi, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada. ‘It’s all about you, using your own mind, without any method or schema, to restore order from chaos,’ Danesi said. ‘And once you have, you can sit back and say, "Hey, the rest of my life may be a disaster, but at least I have a solution".’

C

For almost a century scientists have used puzzles to study what they call ‘insight thinking’, the leaps of understanding that seem to come out of the blue. In one experiment, the German psychologist Karl Duncker presented people with a candle, a box of pins, and the task of attaching the candle to a wall. About a quarter of the subjects thought to use the pins to tack the box to the wall as a support -- some immediately, and others after failed efforts to tack wax to the wall. According to Duncker, the creative leap seems to have been informed by subconscious cues. In another well-known experiment, psychologists H.G. Birch and H.S. Rabinowitz challenged people to tie together two cords; the cords were hanging from the ceiling of a large room, too far apart to be grabbed at the same time. A small percentage of people solved it without any help, by tying something else to one cord and swinging it like a pendulum so that it could be caught while they held the other cord. In some experiments researchers gave clues to those who were stumped -- for instance, by bumping into one of the strings so that it swung. Many of those who then solved the problem said they had no recollection of the clue, though it very likely registered subconsciously.

D

All along, researchers have debated the definitions of insight and analysis, and some have concluded that the two are merely different sides of the same coin. Yet in an authoritative discussion of the research carried out so far, the psychologists Jonathan W. Schooler and Joseph Melcher concluded that the abilities most strongly correlated with insight problem-solving ‘were not significantly correlated’ with solving analytical problems. Either way, creative problem-solving usually requires both analysis and insight. Adam Anderson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, Canada, argues that although when people are solving problems they may move back and forth between these abilities, they are truly different brain states.

E

At first, studies did little more than confirm that brain areas that register reward spiked in activity when people came up with a solution, that is to say once they had completed a puzzle. However, in a series of recent studies, John Kounios, a psychologist at Drexel University in the United States, has imaged people’s brains as they prepare to tackle a puzzle, but before they’ve seen it. Those whose brains show a particular signature of preparatory activity, one that is strongly correlated with positive moods, turn out to be more likely to solve the puzzles with sudden insight than with trial and error (the clues can be solved either way). Previous research has also found activation of cells in a certain area of the brain when people widen or narrow their attention -- say, when they filter out distractions to focus on a difficult task, like concentrating on someone’s voice in a noisy room. In the case of insight puzzle-solving, the brain seems to widen its attention, in effect making itself more susceptible to distraction.

F

In the humor study, Beeman had college students solve word-association puzzles after watching a short video showing a stand-up comedian. Beeman found that these students solved more of the puzzles overall, and significantly more by sudden insight, compared with when they’d seen a scary or boring video beforehand. This ‘open’ state of mind does not only apply to intellectual puzzles. In a study published last year, researchers at the University of Toronto found that people in positive moods picked up more background detail, even when they were told to block out distracting information during a computer task. The findings fit with dozens of experiments linking positive moods to better creative problem solving. The implication is that positive mood engages this broad, … attentional state that is both perceptual and visual,’ said Anderson. He explains that not only are people in a positive mood able to think more broadly, they are able to notice more visually.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The writer of some of the best-known stories in the English language, including Treasure Island and the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A

It is more than 100 years since the death of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson on the South Pacific island of Samoa. And it seems that time has not been kind to Stevenson's memory. Immediately after his death, his family and friends set to work to fashion the legend of Robert Louis Stevenson, or R.L.S as he became known -- one of the few writers familiar from his initials alone. Subsequent works of biography then turned him into a writer of almost religious importance. One example was history critic Balfour, who in 1901 portrayed Stevenson's family as ministering angels to the dying genius during his final illness. Similarly, the biographer Crouch absurdly overstated Stevenson's significance by placing in the same company as those most revered natures in English literature, Shakespeare and Keats. The reaction to this nonsense was a number of highly critical assessments of Stevenson's legacy in the 1920s.

B

Normally, the critical pendulum can be relied on to swing back again, but there are several aspects of Stevenson's work that has until recently acted against a more balanced appraisal. First is the allegation that Stevenson was a mere master of linguistic fireworks who lacked moral depth. Some critics accused him of being a literacy charlatan of juggling words very prettily to strike effects that overawed an ignorant public, and served to distract from the inadequacy of his ideas.

C

Then there has been a prejudice against the adventure story as the proper medium for deep moral seriousness, a prejudice which is still extremely influential today. It seems that we can accept that an adventure film can successfully express profound moral truths, but we reject the same idea for a book. The absurdity of this becomes apparent when we think of writers like Joseph Contrad and Graham Greene, but it is no use pretending that this bias against adventure stories is not part of our high culture. A further problem is that Stevenson has often not found favour in the land of his birth because his conservatism so often collides with the strong radical tradition in Scotland. His many escapist stories and preference for living abroad have led to accusations that he camouflaged Scotland's real problems. Lastly, the high adventure of Stevenson's own lifestyle has sometimes obscured his output. His globe-trotting, and above all the final phase of his life in Samoa, tended to make his own life a greater story than any he could devise. This was precisely what his friends feared would happen towards the end of his short life: his art might be overwhelmed by the drama of life in Samoa.

D

One consequence of this has been that Stevenson's influence on other writers has too often been neglected. The writer and poet Oscar Wilde were deeply influenced by Stevenson, even though he declared that Stevenson would have produced better work if he had lived in London rather than Samoa. Stevenson tends to stick in the throat even of those writers who would like to spit him out, such as Shaw, who claimed to have learned from him that the romantic hero is always mocked by reality. Likewise, the writer Gatsworthy, who was a determined critic, later changed his mind and said that the superiority of Stevenson over the novelist Hardy was that Stevenson was all life and Hardy, all death. The influence on the novelist Chesterton would also repay detailed study, for it was through him that Stevenson has managed to cross the ages emerging as an influence on the modernist movement and our own contemporary Latin American school of magical realism.

E

When making an assessment of his life and work, one question must inevitably be asked: was Robert Louis Stevenson Scotland's greatest writer of English prose? For most commentators this honour falls to Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe among many other classic novels, and it is true that in terms of craftsmanship, precision and the ability to minutely regulate language to create the desired effect, Scott takes the prize. However, this is not the same thing at all as inherent talent: by way of comparison one may take the example of the two great Russian composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev, of whom the former had learned more precise skills of execution but the latter's intrinsic genius was greater, and so it seems to be with Scott and Stevenson. Admittedly, Scott's detailed style does permit his stories to explore levels of tragedy that are beyond Stevenson's reach, but in this regard they have the musty smell of the museum, somehow artificial and removed from modern-day reality. On the other hand, Stevenson's skill with plotting and narrative give his books a timeless quality, so that they still live today. And Stevenson was also the shrewder judge of behavior and psychology. For example, his compelling description of a man with a split personality in the Stranger cave of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have proved so accessible and accurate that the expression 'Jekyll and Hyde' has entered common English usage. Even if we do not see a revival of critical interest in this great Scottish writer, it is to be hoped that readers go back to Robert Louis Stevenson's magnificent stories and reassess this neglected genius.