Creativity and the brain: An editorial introduction to the special issue on the neuroscience of creativity

A 1 ( The creative ability of the human brain, among the newest prodcts of 3.8 billion years of evolution on Earth, may be humanity’s most dentity-defining feature in the age of artificial intelligence. Many of he most complex things humans do are now done —or soon will be one —far better by computers. Creativity projects to be the greatest xception. There has never been more widespread recognition that unerstanding and fostering human creativity is a priority for scientific esearch. The capacity to generate ideas that are both divergent and seful is widely recognized as valuable for learning and practice in the rts and sciences, and as a driver of the modern innovation economy. his value will only increase in the foreseeable future. Because creativty has such broad and diverse impacts, the neuroscience of creativity s being pursued by a diverse set of researchers. As is generally true n the early stages of a field, research endeavors into creativity neuoscience have often been undertaken separately by researchers siloed ithin sub-disciplines of psychology, education, industry, and clinical euroscience. For the neuroscience of creativity to fulfill its considerable otential, it is important to develop greater mutual awareness and coheion among researchers, and communication with educators and other takeholders, so that priority directions can be identified and pursued. eeting this need is a primary objective of the Society for the Neurocience of Creativity (SfNC). This special issue (SI) on the neuroscience f creativity, guest-edited by a group of us who serve on the SfNC Exective Committee, is aimed at bringing together both expository and new mpirical work from creativity neuroscience labs across the globe. We ope that this SI can contribute to (1) mapping the diversity of creativty neuroscience to increase mutual awareness within the field, while ncreasing awareness of creativity neuroscience across the broader cogitive neuroscience community; and (2) highlighting promising research irections toward stronger coalescence around methods and questions hat have potential to catalyze basic understanding of how creativity ccurs in the brain and how to enhance it. In this editorial, we attempt o summarize the results and theories reported in this SI, situate them ithin a larger cognitive neuroscience framework, and provide a modest ist of research priorities for the field.