AUTHOR=Flinn Mark V. TITLE=The Creative Neurons JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.765926 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.765926 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Creativity generates novel solutions to tasks by processing information. Imagination and mental representations are part of the creative process; we can mull over ideas of our own making, and construct algorithms or scenarios from them. Social scenario-building can be viewed as a human cognitive “super-power” that involves abstraction, meta-representation, time-travel, and directed imaginative thought. We humans have a “theater in our minds” to play out a near-infinite array of social strategies and contingencies. Here we propose an integrative model for why and how humans evolved extraordinary creative abilities. We posit that a key aspect of hominin evolution involved relatively open and fluid social relationships among communities, enabled by a unique extended family structure similar to that of contemporary hunter-gatherer band societies. Intercommunity relationships facilitated the rapid flow of information—“Culture”—that underpinned arms-races in information processing, language, imagination, and creativity that distinguishes humans from other species.