Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci.

ISSN 0077-8923

A N N A L S O F T H E N E W Y O R K A C A D E M Y O F SC I E N C E S
Issue: The Emerging Science of Consciousness: Mind, Brain, and the Human Experience

Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity: jazz

improvisation and the scientific method
Malinda McPherson and Charles J. Limb
Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland

Address for correspondence: Charles J. Limb, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck
Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 601 N. Caroline St., 6th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21287

Creativity is a fundamental and remarkable human capacity, yet the scientific study of creativity has been limited by
the difficulty of reconciling the scientific method and creative processes. We outline several hurdles and considerations
that should be addressed when studying the cognitive neuroscience of creativity and suggest that jazz improvisation
may be one of the most useful experimental models for the study of spontaneous creativity. More broadly, we argue
that studying creativity in a way that is both scientifically and ecologically valid requires collaboration between
neuroscientists and artists.

Keywords: creativity; neuroscience; improvisation; jazz

Introduction of novelty, an unpredictable process, be predictably

Studies of the underlying neural substrates of cre-
ativity have been few and far between, and have been
limited due to the difficulty of reconciling the sci-
entific method and the creative process.1–5 While
studies of the perception of complex or creative
stimuli (such as music, film, or sculpture) are log-
ical extensions of a long line of classical studies in
neuroscience that have examined basic sensory per-
ception, the examination of artistic creativity itself
poses a far greater challenge. Much of this challenge
is due to the inherent differences between creative
processes and the scientific method. Creativity can
be broadly defined as the ability to produce work
that is both novel and in some way appropriate
for a given context.6 By comparison, the scientific
method encompasses the principles and procedures
used to systematically acquire knowledge, including
problem identification, data collection, and hypoth-
esis testing.7 Even a cursory comparison reveals an
immediate lack of easy reconciliation between sci-
ence and creativity, with at least two glaring ques-
tions of significance for the scientist: first, can cre-
ativity be systematically studied under controlled
conditions without destroying its essence or miss-
ing its essence entirely? Second, can the generation
replicated?
Controls, constraints, and creativity
The scientific process requires the establishment of
controls and constraints so that observations de-
rived from experimental manipulation of a vari-
able of interest can be reasonably interpreted. When
studying a process as elusive as creativity, however,
experimental manipulation may not be possible if
one is to maintain a natural environment for the
creator. If a creator is placed in an abnormal, con-
straining environment during the course of a scien-
tific study, the creative process itself is threatened,
calling into question the validity of any observations
made thereafter.8
We must address the question of whether it is truly
possible to study high-level creativity in the lab-
oratory. Although creativity consists of numerous
smaller components, parsing creativity into these
component parts may be a misleading way to assess
creativity as a whole, since it may indeed be greater
than the sum of its parts. Yet studying creativity as
a single entity without this reductionist approach
may leave the scientist with unwieldy data. In our
opinion, both approaches are necessary to examine

doi: 10.1111/nyas.12174
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. xxxx (2013) 1–4 
C 2013 New York Academy of Sciences. 1
Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity
creativity: a top-down approach that emphasizes
the idea that artistic creativity is best examined in-
tact, and a bottom-up approach that emphasizes the
idea that we must understand the subprocesses and
brain modules that give rise to creative behaviors. In
order to achieve this, one must recognize that there
are natural implicit and explicit limitations within
any creative domain. Recognizing the natural con-
straints that exist for a specific creative domain
is an important guiding principle for scientists as
they attempt to develop appropriate experimental
controls.
Of course, there are a range of creative domains
(that include, but are not limited to, visual art, mu-
sic, and dance), some of which lend themselves to
scientific study better than others; for example, from
a neuroscientific perspective, the process of writing
a sonnet is likely more amenable to study than the
process of writing a novel. Therefore, when choos-
ing an appropriate creative domain to study, there
are many interdependent factors that need to be ac-
counted for. For example, what is the usual venue
for the creative domain? Where and how does this
creativity naturally occur? Does the creativity occur
individually or in groups? It is also important to
consider the time over which the creative activity
occurs. For example, spontaneous musical impro-
visation and musical composition are both forms of
creativity, but they take place during vastly different
spans of time. Improvisation is conceived and real-
ized essentially at once, whereas writing a symphony
can take years of planning and editing. Finally, it is
crucial to consider the training, skill set, cultural
background, practice, and experience of the cre-
ators to be studied. Since each creative act requires
a different combination of specific skills, a clear de-
scription and understanding of what these skill sub-
sets are, will allow optimization of study design for
specific experimental purposes.
Jazz improvisation: a model
for spontaneous creativity
Thus far, we have identified the intrinsic con-
flicts that arise when scientific methods are applied
to the examination of creativity. These conflicts
are due to the very nature of creativity, which
is novel, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and per-
haps unmeasurable—all difficult attributes from the
perspective of neuroscience, which relies upon sys-
tematic measurement and control of variables of
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. xxxx (2013) 1–4 
2
McPherson & Limb
interest. When studying art and creativity, it is im-
portant to realize that neuroscience experiments dif-
fer from concerts, recitals, or gigs. The purpose of
the experiment is to allow the scientist to control
and measure whatever variables can be acceptably
approached in this manner, rather than to recreate
a concert or provide entertainment (of course, it
may be that an experiment is specifically focused on
brain mechanisms involved in concert performance,
in which case there is even less room for scientific
controls). Therefore, scientific experiments of cre-
ativity should attempt to replicate natural artistic
conditions not so that the artists can produce mas-
terpieces on demand, but instead so that artists are
comfortable and their behavior can be generally re-
flective of the creative process of interest.
Although not all creativity takes place within the
domains of art, it does appear that the domains of
art are always areas characterized by enormous cre-
ativity. In a sense, artists are creative experts—highly
trained in the skills needed to enable creative states
of mind—that can offer scientists a golden oppor-
tunity for study.9 For the development of a proto-
typical model to study creativity, certain features of
artistic behavior are more suitable for examination
than others. For example, creative domains with
relatively short time frames (on the scale of seconds
to minutes) are better suited to laboratory study
than those with relatively long time frames (weeks
to months), where practical experimental realities
are germane and repetition is vital. Artists who are
generally flexible in their approach to their craft are
also more suitable as participants in neuroscience
investigations, in comparison to artists who only
feel that they can produce creative output when all
environmental factors are optimized.
In light of these concerns, spontaneous
improvisation—especially in jazz, arguably the
most developed and advanced form of musical
improvisation—may be the best starting point for
scientific study. Jazz musicians typically produce
music that is spontaneously conceived and imme-
diately realized, with a high degree of flexibility and
time frames that are relatively short. While impro-
vising, jazz musicians often enter a state of total
focus known as a “flow” state; jazz musicians are
particularly adept at entering this state when they
improvise. When in a flow state, a person is oper-
ating at his peak of arousal and ability.10 Creativ-
ity during a flow state becomes nearly effortless in
C 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.
McPherson & Limb
that the creator may not have to consciously think
through or mediate their actions.11 Flow states likely
exist in all forms of creativity; however, it seems as if
they can be entered more quickly during tasks that
require the integration of complex sensory input
and motor output,12 such as those observed in jazz
improvisation.
As stated earlier, there is significant scientific risk
when studying creativity due to the fact that the
product of creativity is by definition novel. Although
many other domains of creativity will need to be
scientifically examined before neuroscientists can
piece together a neural model of creativity, we sug-
gest that jazz improvisation may be one of the most
reliable approaches with which to frame the study
of spontaneous creativity. Many of the difficulties
outlined above in the neuroscience of creativity can
be reasonably addressed through the use of jazz.13
Jazz musicians are trained in quickly entering flow
states and “getting into the groove” of the music.
Professional jazz musicians are specifically trained
to create novel music, a skill that classical musi-
cians, for example, may not practice as frequently.
Jazz musicians practice their technical skills until
they are masters so that they might render any mu-
sical idea they wish without being hindered by their
technique; they are experts of their instruments and
of creative improvisation. Jazz is an incredibly flex-
ible and diverse form of music, yet one that often
includes several conventions and norms. Jazz im-
provisation, for example, can be restricted by key,
tempo, meter, and mode (among other elements)
and still not hinder the jazz musicians’ improvisa-
tions to a point where they are unable to enter a
creative flow state.14 All of these characteristics that
typify jazz music and musicians make this form of
improvisation a highly suitable model for the neu-
roscientific study of creativity. Although it is impos-
sible to predict precisely what somebody will create,
the creative process itself, the act of being creative,
can be replicated. Jazz musicians practice this pro-
cess daily and in doing so, provide an ideal oppor-
tunity for the neuroscientific study of creativity.
The need for a neuroscience of creativity
Irrespective of the particular modality studied (be
it jazz improvisation or some other form of cre-
ativity), a great need exists for a neuroscience of
creativity. Indeed, there may be no single human
endeavor that is more deserving of neuroscientific
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. xxxx (2013) 1–4 
C 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.
Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity
inquiry than our capacity to create—it is the root of
all innovation and problem solving, how individual
brains generate new information, and how we col-
lectively evolve as a society.15,16 As such, we have a
pressing need to understand exactly how this pro-
cess takes place in the human brain. By character-
izing the neural mechanisms that underlie creative
processes, we can begin to understand how patho-
logic disease states relate to such behavior, and how
we might optimize brain functioning for maximal
creative output.
It is less clear, however, whether art (or artists)
really need neuroscientists. Humans have created
works of art throughout their history, independently
of whether they had any understanding of the neural
mechanisms that gave rise to the percepts induced by
their art; it is highly plausible that this process could
continue indefinitely regardless of what neurosci-
entists have to say about it. Yet it seems inarguable
that an increased understanding of all aspects of
the creative process—including its neurobiology—
would not be of extreme interest to an artist, whose
work depends entirely on this process. It is further
hoped that through cross-fertilization of ideas be-
tween artists and scientists, the importance of com-
monly held interests that pertain to how all humans
experience the world, will rise to the top. As a result
of the numerous difficulties in the neuroscience of
creativity, we feel strongly that this interchange be-
tween artists and neuroscientists must take place
so that neuroscientists can continually improve
the accuracy to which their experiments reflect artis-
tic concerns and realities. In other words, we need
more practice so that we can identify the most im-
portant questions and the most essential creative
processes, and then study them in a way that is both
scientifically valid and artistically profound.
This issue of the need for a neuroscience of
creativity underscores a critically important point:
questions about creativity cannot be solved solely
by scientists. Philosopher Daniel Dennett has
stated: “Scientists sometimes deceive themselves
into thinking that philosophical ideas are only,
at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on
the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that
they themselves are immune to the confusions that
philosophers devote their lives to dissolving.”17
Here, “philosophical” and “philosophers” could
easily be replaced with “artistic” and “artists,”
and ring true for the study of artistic creativity.
3
Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity
Scientists cannot effectively study creativity without
the intuitions and discoveries of the creative agents
themselves. Likewise, artists cannot uncover the un-
derlying neural and computational mechanisms of
their creative domains without the help of scien-
tists. Musicians, for example, have an intuitive con-
cept of what mental processes are occurring when
they are performing,18 as well as additional insights
regarding which types of environments are natural
versus unnatural. Scientists can use these intuitions
to help focus research questions and develop eco-
logically valid models of creativity. In light of all of
the above, it is evident that studying creativity re-
quires a careful untangling of the preconditions and
assumptions of both the scientific method and the
creative domain under consideration.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
References
1. Bengtsson, S.L., M. Csikszentmihalyi & F. Ullen. 2007. Cor-
tical regions involved in the generation of musical structures
during improvisation in pianists. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 19: 830–
842.
2. Berkowitz, A.L. & D. Ansari. 2008. Generation of novel mo-
tor sequences: the neural correlates of musical improvisa-
tion. NeuroImage 41: 535–543.
3. Brown, S., M.J. Martinez & L.M. Parsons. 2006. Music and
language side by side in the brain: A PET study of the gener-
ation of melodies and sentences. Eur. J. Neurosci. 33: 2791–
2803.
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. xxxx (2013) 1–4 
McPherson & Limb
4. Howard-Jones, P.A., S. Blakemore, E. Samuel, et al. 2005.
Semantic divergence and creative story generation: An fMRI
investigation. Cog. Brain Res. 25: 240–250.
5. Limb, C.J. & A. Braun. 2008. Neural substrates of sponta-
neous musical performance: An FMRI study of jazz impro-
visation. PLoS One 3: e1679.
6. Sternberg, R.J. 1999. Handbook of Creativity. Vol. 3. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
7. Merriam-Webster, 2013. Scientific Method.
8. Burgess P.W., N. Alderman, C. Forbes, et al. 2006. The case
for the development and use of “ecologically valid” measures
of executive function in experimental and clinical neuropsy-
chology. J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc. 12: 194–209.
9. Rostan, S.M. 1998. A study of the development of young
artists: the emergence of an artistic and creative identity. J.
Creat. Behav. 32: 287–301.
10. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1991. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
11. Jackson, S.A. 1995. Factors influencing the occurrence of
flow state in elite athletes. J. Appl. Sport Psych. 7: 138–166.
12. Dietrich, A. 2004. Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying
the experience of flow. Conscious. Cogn. 13: 746–761.
13. Pressing, J. 1988. Improvisation: methods and models. In
Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance,
Improvisation, and Composition. J. Sloboda, Ed.: 129–178.
New York: Oxford University Press.
14. Berliner, P.F. 1994. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Im-
provisation. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
15. Dissanayake, E. 1974. A hypothesis of the evolution of art
from play. Leonardo 7: 211–217.
16. Dissanayake, E. 2011. In the beginning, evolution created
religion and the arts. Evol. Rev.: Art, Sci., Cult. 2: 64–81.
17. Dennett, D.C. 1995. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and
the Meanings of Life. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. New
York.
18. Swanwick, K. 1994. Musical Knowledge: Intuition, Analysis
and Music Education. London: Routledge.
C 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.