IMPROVING CREATIVE ABILITIES
Suppose you want to invent a recipe for dinner or decorate1 your room. These things require you to use your creative abilities. People might also need to be creative at their workplace – for example, if the company they work for asks them to improve a certain product. But it is not always easy to think of creative ideas, either at home or at work. The good news is that studies have shown there are ways to increase creativity2.(lines 1–5)
To study the subject, researchers need a reliable way to measure a person's creative abilities. The most widely used method is the Alternative Uses Test (AUT): Participants in the experiments are given three minutes to write down new ways of using a common object such as a brick3. They get extra points for their more original ideas, and their final score shows how creative they are.(lines 6–9)
Using the AUT, psychologists have recently found that taking a break4 during work increases creativity. "Your break can be for something as simple as having a cup of coffee," says psychologist Stella Doran. "But the timing5 makes a difference – the break only has an effect if you take it while you're working on the problem. We don't understand why. It’s definitely something I'd like future brain research to find out."(lines 10–14)
Researchers have also tried to see what else can improve creativity. They have found that increasing brain activity – for example, by solving puzzles – seems to help. It is also known that brain activity increases when we multitask – that is, do several things at the same time. This led Shimul Melwani, a professor of psychology, to wonder if multitasking could make us more creative. She decided to test that idea.(lines 15–19)
In one experiment, Prof. Melwani and her team gave the AUT to 105 waiters on several nights, after they had finished work. On evenings when the restaurant was full, the waiters were multitasking all the time; on quiet evenings, they didn't need to. The study found that on busy nights, their AUT scores were the highest. "These findings are very exciting and mean we might have to think differently about multitasking," says Doran. "Most studies show the disadvantages of multitasking. However, according to Melwani's study, when we need to be creative it is beneficial."(lines 20–25)