Farther to Go!

Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

  • Home
  • About
    • Farther to Go!
    • Personal Operating Systems
    • Joycelyn Campbell
    • Testimonials
    • Reading List
  • Blog
  • On the Road
    • Lay of the Land
    • Introductory Workshops
    • Courses
  • Links
    • Member Links (Courses)
    • Member Links
    • Imaginarium
    • Newsletter
    • Transformation Toolbox
  • Certification Program
    • Wired that Way Certification
    • What Color Is Change? Certification
    • Art & Science of Transformational Change Certification
    • Certification Facilitation
    • SML Certification
  • Contact

Brain & Mind Roundup 3

June 30, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

Here are some recent stories about what goes on in the brain when we’re writing, making music, and appreciating art.

Click on the titles to read the complete articles.

Our Brains Are Made for Enjoying Art

Ann Lukits (The Wall Street Journal)

Analysis suggests art appreciation is a natural biological process.

“Viewing paintings engages a number of different regions of the brain, suggesting art appreciation is a natural biological process, according to the report in the June issue of the journal Brain and Cognition. The study found that paintings activated areas of the brain involved in vision, pleasure, memory, recognition and emotions, in addition to systems that underlie the conscious processing of new information to give it meaning.”

This is Your Brain on Writing

Carl Zimmer (The New York Times)

Becoming skilled at writing may activate the same areas of the brain that are activated in people who are skilled at other things, such as sports or music. This study showed that the areas of the brain activated in novice writers were not the same as those activated in the skilled, “professionally trained,” writers.

“During brainstorming, the novice writers activated their visual centers. By contrast, the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions involved in speech.”

It would appear that training is training is training—no matter what the training is for.

Musical Training Increases Executive Brain Function in Adults and Children

Jeremy Dean (PsyBlog)

“Both the brains and behaviour of adult and child musicians were compared with non-musicians in the study by researchers at the Boston Children’s Hospital. They found that adult musicians compared to non-musicians showed enhanced performance on measures of cognitive flexibility, working memory, and verbal fluency. And musically trained children showed enhanced performance on measures of verbal fluency and processing speed.”

Music Changes the Way You Think

Daniel A. Yudkin and Yaacov Trope (Scientific American)

Different music encourages different frames of mind.

“Tiny, almost immeasurable features in a piece of music have the power to elicit deeply personal and specific patterns of thought and emotion in human listeners….Ponderous, resonant, unfamiliar tonalities—the proverbial “auditory forest”—cause people to construe things abstractly. By contrast, the rapid, consonant, familiar chords of the perfect fifth—the “auditory trees”—bring out the concrete mindset….That music can move us is no surprise; it’s the point of the art form, after all. What’s new here is the manner in which the researchers have quantified in fine-grained detail the cognitive ramifications of unpacked melodic compounds.”

Filed Under: Brain, Brain & Mind Roundup, Creating, Learning, Living, Writing Tagged With: Art Appreciation, Brain, Cognition, Mind, Music, Writing

Comments

  1. Donald T. Morgan says

    June 30, 2014 at 8:52 am

    Wanted you to know I’m quoting the part of this blog (This is Your Brain on Writing) to my Wordwrights Writing Class at North Domingo Baca this afternoon.

    Reply
    • Joycelyn Campbell says

      June 30, 2014 at 9:22 pm

      Thanks for sharing, Don. I hope you had a great meeting!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to Farther to Go!

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new Farther to Go! posts by email.

Search Posts

Recent Posts

  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
  • Always Look on
    the Bright Side of Life
  • The Cosmic Gift & Misery
    Distribution System
  • Should You Practice Gratitude?
  • You Give Truth a Bad Name
  • What Are So-Called
    Secondary Emotions?

Explore

The Farther to Go! Manifesto

Contact Me

joycelyn@farthertogo.com
505-332-8677

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • On the Road
  • Links
  • Certification Program
  • Contact

Copyright © 2025 · Parallax Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in