Hopkins Vineyard to Host ‘The Nature of Wine’ Mini-Workshop and Tasting as Part of Creativity Workshop in Connecticut

Hopkins Vineyard is hosting a special event on “The Nature of Wine,” exploring the intersection of creativity, wine and the brain. The event is Saturday, Sept. 28, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at 25 Hopkins Rd. in New Preston, Conn., and presented by the New Milford, Conn.-based International Centre for Creativity and Imagination.

Participants will explore how master sommeliers learn to understand wine, what's happening in the brain when they taste wine -- and how they transfer this knowledge and experience to others. Participants will practice looking at, smelling and tasting wines as the experts do, sampling four of Hopkins wines in the process -- all while continuing to explore the nature of creativity through this local example of creative placemaking.

This experience is based on an experiment conducted between a master sommelier -- with 25 years of experience teaching thousands of people how to taste wine -- and a behavioral scientist. They sought to better understand how experts recognize aromas and flavors, as well as how to create a model to transfer this knowledge to others. The mini-workshop will engage participants in activities from the experiment, while helping them understand how the eyes and the nose affect what’s happening in the brain. This whole experience will also raise questions about how the brain affects ALL aspects of learning, not just learning to taste wine.

The event will feature Hopkins’ Vineyard Manager and Winemaker Jim Baker and the International Center for Creativity and Imagination Director Steven Dahlberg, along with Hopkins’ Winery Manager Rachel Greklek and Irish Poet Anne F. O’Reilly.

This event will conclude a daylong workshop on “The Nature of Creativity,” which is being held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 28 at the Center for Innovation at South Kent School in South Kent, Conn. This workshop explores how nature inspires us to be more creative, and is open to everyone – from teachers, business people and artists to community leaders, environmentalists and individuals looking to create positive change.

The wine event is $40/person and includes the mini-workshop on creativity, wine and the brain; a Hopkins wine tasting with cheese; and a keepsake wine glass from Hopkins. Participants can register for the daylong workshop and wine event together for a discount, or either event separately. Full details are available at http://natureofcreativity.org.

For more information, contact: Steve Dahlberg at news@appliedimagination.org or http://www.appliedimagination.org.

The International Centre for Creativity and Imagination is dedicated to applying creativity to improve the well-being of individuals, organizations and communities. Through its programs, the centre collaborates regularly with artists, scientists, business people, educators, museum professionals, community leaders and others to help people deliberately unleash and harness their creative thinking skills. Find more at:
http://www.appliedimagination.org

Hopkins Vineyard is a heritage farm set in the hills of Litchfield County overlooking Lake Waramaug. In 1979, Bill and Judith Hopkins transformed their dairy farm into a vineyard, one of the first in what has become a thriving Connecticut industry. Since then, it has consistently produced award-winning whites, reds and sparkling wines. Hopkins Vineyard grows 11 varieties of grapes. Find more at:
http://www.hopkinsvineyard.com

Oliver Sacks says: This Year, Change Your Mind

... One does not have to be blind or deaf to tap into the brain’s mysterious and extraordinary power to learn, adapt and grow. I have seen hundreds of patients with various deficits -- strokes, Parkinson’s and even dementia -- learn to do things in new ways, whether consciously or unconsciously, to work around those deficits. That the brain is capable of such radical adaptation raises deep questions. To what extent are we shaped by, and to what degree do we shape, our own brains? And can the brain’s ability to change be harnessed to give us greater cognitive powers? The experiences of many people suggest that it can. ... Neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to create new pathways — is a crucial part of recovery for anyone who loses a sense or a cognitive or motor ability. But it can also be part of everyday life for all of us. While it is often true that learning is easier in childhood, neuroscientists now know that the brain does not stop growing, even in our later years. Every time we practice an old skill or learn a new one, existing neural connections are strengthened and, over time, neurons create more connections to other neurons. Even new nerve cells can be generated. ... Whether it is by learning a new language, traveling to a new place, developing a passion for beekeeping or simply thinking about an old problem in a new way, all of us can find ways to stimulate our brains to grow, in the coming year and those to follow. Just as physical activity is essential to maintaining a healthy body, challenging one’s brain, keeping it active, engaged, flexible and playful, is not only fun. It is essential to cognitive fitness. [31 December 2010 - New York Times - By Oliver Sacks - More]

How Aha! Really Happens

The theory of intelligent memory suggests that companies relying on conventional creativity tools -- such as brainstorming, where people are encouraged to turn off their analytical left brain and turn on their creative right brain to produce new ideas -- are getting shortchanged. [4 January 2011 - strategy+business - By William Duggan - More]

Visual/Performing Artists Health Issues Conference - April 14 in Connecticut

The International Centre for Creativity and Imagination is pleased to be one of more than 100 arts, health, educational and advocacy organizations co-sponsoring the Artists in Transition conference on April 11, 2010, in Danbury, Connecticut. Additional co-sponsors include Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, Actors Fund of America, Chamber Music America, and Merce Cunningham Foundation, among others. Steven Dahlberg will be leading a session (I-9) on "Creative Thinking, Aging and Living: Engaging our Strengths, Living our Purpose." This session will take participants on a journey through creativity, more specifically the creative thinking process, which engages our strengths and purpose. You will explore insights about positivity, strengths, adaptability, and neuroscience in tapping into and harnessing one's creativity in living more meaningful lives.

[1 March 2010 - Artists in Transition] Artists in Transition -- an organization that works with artists and performers facing physical and/or mental health issues that affect their ability to create or perform -- is having its inaugural conference on Sunday, April 11, 2010, from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut, USA.

The conference is being co-sponsored by more than 100 local, state and national arts, health, educational and advocacy organizations.

Inspiring architect/sculptor Tom Luckey will keynote the event and awesome musical entertainment will be provided by Our Time Theatre. There will be outstanding networking opportunities and 15 information-packed breakout sessions on diverse subjects such as healthcare, maximizing employment potential, grant writing, creativity and purpose, etc. Speakers will include artists and performers who themselves are dealing with health and disability issues and making their art and lives a creative force.

Sign up now to be part of this informational and inspirational event. Check out the event Web site for complete conference and registration information (REGISTRATION CLOSES MARCH 13).

• Breakout Descriptions
• Registration Information

Getting scientific about arts education: Education, arts and neuroscience

[24 May 2009 - Los Angeles Times] A new interdisciplinary field researches the effects of learning fine arts on a student's brain. ... For years, school systems across the nation dropped classes in the fine arts to concentrate on getting students to pass tests in reading and mathematics. Now, a growing body of brain research suggests that teaching the arts may be good for students across all disciplines. Scientists are looking at, for instance, whether students at an arts high school who study music or drawing have brains that allow them to focus more intensely or do better in the classroom. Brain research in the last several years has uncovered startling ideas about how students learn. First came proof, some years ago, that our brains do not lose brain cells as we get older, but are always capable of growing. Now neuroscientists are investigating how training students in the arts may change the structure of their brains and the way they think. Does putting a violin in the hands of an elementary school student help the child do math better? Will learning to dance or paint improve a student's spatial ability or ability to learn to read? Research in those areas, Harvard University psychologist Jerome Kagan said, is "as deserving of a clinical trial as a drug for cancer that has not yet been shown to be effective." There aren't many conclusions yet that can be translated into the classroom, but an interdisciplinary field is emerging between education and neuroscience. More

How learning shapes successful decision making in the human brain

[13 May 2009 - Cell Press via EurekAlert!] New research significantly advances our understanding of the brain mechanisms that link learning with flexible decision making. The study, published by Cell Press in the May 14 issue of the journal Neuron, demonstrates that the brain does not just learn the structure of the physical world but, through learning, encodes rules that regulate how we interpret future sensory information. More and More

Ken Robinson Encourages Creativity, Passion and Talents

[15 January 2009 - Applied Imagination - By Steven Dahlberg, International Centre for Creativity and Imagination] Creativity writer and consultant Ken Robinson launched his new book, "The Element," last night at the Ridgefield Play House in Connecticut at an event sponsored by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Robinson began by reminding the audience of the power of the imagination. "All cities owe their existence to imagination," he said. "It's this power of imagination will take us into the future -- or not. And it's this kind of imagination that's most at risk. I think we squander it. Not only squander it -- but suppress it ruthlessly."

Robinson went on to talk about his concept of "the element," which includes:

1. Discovering what one's talents are. Doing something for which one has a natural aptitude. Doing something with which one resonates. "Many people have never discovered their real, natural talents."
2. Doing something one loves to do. "People achieve their best when they do what they love."
   

"Aptitude has to meet passion," he said. "And you'll never 'work' again."

He said finding one's element(s) is not only essential to finding personal fulfillment, purpose and meaning, but it's essential to the balance of our communities. Plus, he said it has a bottom-line economic implication. "We are living in times of absolute revolution," he told the audience of more than 500 people. "Revolution demands that we think differently."

He urged people to pay attention to what assumptions they make and what they take for granted. "Things we take for granted turn out not to be true," he said.

Robinson suggested this country has a "crisis of human resources" in which people area unaware of what they are good at, what talents they have, and how to do what they love to do. "Human resources are often buried deep," he said. "You have to go looking for them."

He said the conditions need to be right for these resources to reveal themselves -- and then one has to be ready to do something with them when they appear. He used the example of the flowering of the normally barren Death Valley in 2005 as an example how deeply buried seeds can lay dormant for scores of years waiting for the conditions to be right to sprout and flower. "Death Valley is dormant, not dead," he said.

Photo taken in the Ashford Mill and Jubilee Pass area by Ranger Alan Vanvalkenburg

As always, Robinson critiqued education's overemphasis on particular kinds of thinking and learning (a la his TED presentation on "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" which has been viewed online by a couple of million people).

"Education was devised to develop a particular type of talents," he said, adding that people think they are not smart because of the hierarchy of what kind of thinking is taught and shown importance.

Robinson shared what the three founders of The Blue Man Group are doing to address the lack of creativity in education. They have founded The Blue School. This will be something to watch -- if not participate in.

His final message came from the tag line of his book:
"Finding your passion changes everything."

===

I was honored to also participate in a pre-lecture Roundtable on "Innovation in Our Schools" with colleagues from education, arts, business and government. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum hosted the Roundtable as a means of bringing together creativity advocates from different fields to move forward creativity and education topics. The question the Aldrich organizers asked was:

"What does it look like, feel like and sound like when all of the partners in a student's learning community (i.e. peers, teachers, administrators, parents, coaches, community organizations, businesses, etc.) model creativity and innovation in a way that serves the student?"

A brief summary of responses included suggestions to focus on:

• What "success" looks like and how it is defined -- and to include such components as passion, talents and creativity, as described above by Ken Robinson.
• Mentoring.
• The power of process.
• Communicating creative and critical thinking processes.
• The "making" of things.
  

Gardner Promotes "Five Minds" for the Global Future

[29 September 2008 - By Steven Dahlberg - Report from the Global Creative Leadership Summit] "What kinds of minds do we want to cultivate?" asked Howard Gardner last week at the Global Creative Leadership Summit. "What kinds are most important?"

Gardner, who is a professor of education at Harvard University, described five minds that are important -- disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical -- and require different kinds of intelligence.

"You can't have it all," he said. "There are tensions between these kinds of mind." He suggested that education policies need to address these conflicting tensions. He further described each of these "minds":

• DISCIPLINED: knowing something well and working on it.
• SYNTHESIZING: the ability to deal with inundation of information; understanding what to pay attention to, what to ignore; and how to put this information together.
• CREATING: thinking outside the box; having new ideas. "You can't think outside the box unless you have a box," said Gardner. "You need the disciplined mind, too."
• ETHICAL: asking what one's responsibilities are as a worker or citizen; not "what are my rights?"
• RESPECTFUL: more than tolerance of differences; cultivating respect and emotional and interpersonal intelligence.

Gardner added that sometimes respect and ethics can clash.

"You can't develop all these minds in every single person," he said. "The society in which one lives decides what we should be emphasizing." For example, Gardner pointed out that some East Asian countries overemphasized discipline at the expense of creativity.

"Each person needs to figure out the right blend of these minds," concluded Gardner.

Gardner shared these ideas during the Global Creative Leadership Summit opening session on "What If? Scenarios: The Futures of Globalization." It was held September 21, 2008, in New York.

ABOUT THE SUMMIT AND SPONSOR: The Global Creative Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Louise Blouin Foundation, is a three-day forum that brings together great international minds -- including heads of state, CEOs, Nobel Prize-winners and acclaimed artists -- to address pressing global issues, including geo-economics, foreign policy, education, health, poverty and climate change. The Summit also has a goal to work with developed and developing nations alike in order to best address global issues. The Louise Blouin Foundation is an international nonprofit organization that seeks to provide a globalization platform to address challenges in such diverse areas as international trade, foreign policy, education and the environment through the lens of culture and neuroscience.

Creativity, Education and the Brain

[22 September 2008 - By Steven Dahlberg - Reporting from the Global Creative Leadership Summit] In his introduction to the panel on "Education, Creativity and the Mind," neuroscientist and moderator Antonio Damasio raised several questions about the intersection of these three topics:

• How might education promote cultural understanding? Not just skills and knowledge; but becoming citizens who understand the working of societies, or respect the well-being of the other.
• How might culture be used to promote the well-being of others?
• How might the arts and humanities fields be used in schools to promote cultural understanding?
  

Damasio is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute. He said classrooms and textbooks are no longer the necessary basis for what's going on in learning and education. When they are used, they need to be put to the right service to be effective.

He said one way that neuroscience can be used in support of education is to better understand how neurobiology illuminates the social process -- what brains are doing when they are engaged in social interaction..

Highlights and comments from the rest of this session:

• "Play is a child's work," said Hasbro Chairman Alan Hassenfeld. He is also working to set up one global human rights standard for toy safety.
• Seattle-based artist Susan Robb said she frequently asks students WHO they want to be rather than WHAT they want to be. She also suggested used Visual Thinking Strategies as a tool for helping young people understand art.
• Architect Richard Meier said that new thinking and new ways of rebuilding our cities -- such as post-Katrina New Orleans -- are being ignored.
• Australian neuroscientist Richard Silberstein said there's been an explosive pathologizing of ADHD with three- to nine-percent of the population supposedly afflicted by it. This caused him to wonder if some people being medicated for a pathological condition labeled "ADHD" might actually have something else going on. That is, might there be a spectrum of thinking styles, which ranges from more convergent and orderly thinking (the kind often found in classrooms) to more divergent and dynamic thinking. In a study that is just beginning to produce some results, he is finding connections between ADHD, high IQ and high levels of creativity. Using the Torrance Tests for Creative Thinking and neuroscience measurements, he is looking at connections between creative thinking and the way that regions of the brain communicate with each other. He said that the brain states required for focused work are not the same as those necessary for high creativity. Finally, he talked about the connection between motivation and hope and the importance of a neurobiology of hope. He said hopelessness lowers the neurotransmitters that make learning possible.
• Allan Goodman, president and CEO of Institute of International Education, said brains need safety. He talked about the issues of mobility and safety for scholars, especially in countries with high levels of threats and violence.
• Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Majid Fotuhi said that "learning requires a healthy brain." He pointed out the connection between obesity and dementia, and said that childhood obesity is affecting the brains of children both now and in the long term. Brains of overweight children do not get enough oxygen, which in turn affects the overall health and functioning of the brain.
• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales talked about the importance of informal learning communities and how technology and informal processes can enhance and encourage creative exploration and the playing with ideas.
• Oxford neuroscientist Colin Blakemore raised the interplay between common sense, education, science and the brain. For instance, he asked why many schools have not changed their language-teaching curriculums to teach languages to children younger than 10, rather than in middle and high school were many students still begin learning languages. Brain research shows the brain's great capacity to learn languages in the first 10 years of its development, yet schools often teach language after the brain as foreclosed on its peak language-learning capacity. He advocated for a new biologically based science of education, which better integrates neurosciences insights about learning into how society does education. Finally, he talked about the importance of learning in real situations versus structured, metaphorical ways; and the importance of teachers conveying their own passion and enthusiasm. "Great teachers convey the great enthusiasm that drives them."
• MIT neuroscientist Nancy Kanwisher asked: How can education enhance our capacity to express empathetic understanding? How might we use the Web to create cheaper versions of cultural and educational exchanges for young people, given the great impact of such face-to-face exchanges?
• Oxford physiologist John Stein emphasized again the importance of active learning as a much better way for teaching children. He said many communities and schools have an obsession with safety that has outweighed the opportunities for play and for being in nature. Talking about visually dyslexic people, he said many of them are incredibly creative, though they have problems reading. He's interested in the ways and the why that dyslexics are creative. He also shared his research about the impact of poor nutrition on learning and the brain. He has found impaired brain cells in dyslexics and his research has shown positive improvements in some people when they increase their intake of vitamins, minerals and Omega-3 fatty acids. He said a deficiency in nutrition can lead to an inability to pick up social cues. In one of his prison studies, he found that by addressing nutrition deficiencies in prisoners, there was a one-third reduction in further offending.
• The Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende summarized what he heard from these contributors: the importance of informal learning and its relationship to the formal classroom; responsible citizenship is core to a good society; the role of culture and art and whether one's country or community has a stimulating climate of culture; and the importance of education for positive social interaction.
• Gerard Mortier, director general of the Paris National Opera, said art is not an appendage of society, but at its center.
• Finally, Teachers Without Borders founder Fred Mednick asked how might we scale goodness?

ABOUT THE SUMMIT AND SPONSOR: The Global Creative Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Louise Blouin Foundation, is a three-day forum that brings together great international minds -- including heads of state, CEOs, Nobel Prize-winners and acclaimed artists -- to address pressing global issues, including geo-economics, foreign policy, education, health, poverty and climate change. The Summit also has a goal to work with developed and developing nations alike in order to best address global issues. The Louise Blouin Foundation is an international nonprofit organization that seeks to provide a globalization platform to address challenges in such diverse areas as international trade, foreign policy, education and the environment through the lens of culture and neuroscience.

For a Sharp Brain, Stimulation

[13 May 2008 - New York Times] AMERICANS may worry about heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but they downright dread Alzheimer’s disease, a recent survey found. For good reason. One in eight adults over 65 is affected by the disease. Those who are spared know they may end up with the burden of caring for a parent or a spouse who is affected. Even though the number of older adults with dementias is rising rapidly, only a few drugs that have been approved to treat symptoms are on the market, and they slow down the disease but do not cure it. Researchers, however, are more optimistic than ever about the potential of the aging brain, because recent evidence has challenged long-held beliefs by demonstrating that the brain can grow new nerve cells. "For a long time, we held the assumption that we’re born with all the nerve cells we’re ever going to have, and that the brain is not capable of generating new ones — that once these cells die we’re unable to replace them," said Molly V. Wagster, chief of the Neuropsychology of Aging branch of the National Institute on Aging. "Those assumptions have been challenged and put by the wayside." ... "Another thing that’s important as people get older is to maintain flexible attitudes and be willing to try new things," said K. Warner Schaie, who in 1956 started the Seattle Longitudinal Study, which follows the psychological development of participants through adulthood. "You have to expect things will shift over time and won’t be the same as when you were young. Those who manage to roll with the punches, and enjoy change rather than fighting it, tend to do well." More

Folding your arms can help your brain

[6 May 2008 - Canada.com] The mere act of folding your arms increases perseverance and activates an unconscious desire to succeed, new research shows. University students randomly assigned to sit with their arms crossed spent more time on an impossible-to-solve anagram, or word scramble, in one experiment, and came up with more correct solutions to solvable anagrams in another than those told to sit with their hands on their thighs. The study is the first to show that arm crossing affects people's thinking without them being consciously aware of it. Normally, it's thought that it's a psychological state that leads to a body movement. The study suggests it goes both ways, that a body movement also can trigger a psychological state. More

Continental Creative President: European Leader Calls for Culture, Diversity and Openness to Solve Global Problems

[25 September 2007 - Applied Imagination - By Steven Dahlberg, Editor, Reporting from the Global Creative Leadership Summit, New York] The Global Creative Leadership Summit, hosted by the Louise T. Blouin Foundation, wrapped up today in New York. Among the Nobel Prize winners, global CEOs, neuroscientists and artists who participated in dialogues about global issues were several enlightened political leaders -- including the president of Iceland, the lieutenant governor of Louisiana and the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

In the United States, advocates of creative community and economic development are hard pressed to find leadership at the federal level of government -- starting with the omission of creativity and arts in most of education. Yet at the state level, leaders such as Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu are spearheading projects like Louisiana's Cultural Economy Initiative to help put the state's culture and arts sector at the center of development -- including rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

I was particularly pleased that President Barroso's closing keynote of the three-day summit made a strong case for the role of creativity, innovation and diversity for addressing global problems such as climate change and fighting poverty. "Those are the two main tasks of leadership in the 21st century," he said. The other global issue linked with solving climate change and poverty is culture. "Culture is a solution."

Though President Barroso's call for creativity was somewhat aimed at the role that Europe can play in addressing global problems, it also is relevant to the rest of the world for engaging people, organizations and communities in creative problem solving.

I will let President Barroso's final words speak for themselves:

Because it is with a paradigm of openness, of acceptance of the difference ... almost the love of difference, to like the difference ... and to see the difference not as a problem, but as something that increases the variety. It is with this attitude that we can face those challenges we have today.

We are now in the position of moving from a parochial system to a real open paradigm where we accept the difference -- not tolerate, but to accept the difference (I don't like the word "tolerance") -- as something that increases the variety and the richness of our world.

We have some common rules, of course, and those common rules have to be based in the old principles of freedom and democracy ... but that sees differences, including multi-culturalism, as something that is positive, not as a challenge. So the increased plurism in our society, as a multi-cultural society, is being something good, the cross-fertilization being something good for mankind, for the economy, for the culture, in general.

And this is the change, the evolution, of the paradigm that we need today, where no regional diversity should be pushed out, no culture should be destroyed, that individual identities are strengthened in order to play on the new global stage.

Some days ago I was in Kassel at Documenta, the most important contemporary art event in the world. It was amazing there! It was the best school of globalization I've seen recently because African culture, Latin American culture, Asian culture were not treated as folkloric as (they were) before, but at the same level of respect with European or American culture.

So what's going on in the field of culture, of art, is really amazing. And we should find there the inspiration also for many of the political problems we are now facing.

What we should now do and work (toward as) political leaders, as creative people, from the sciences, is precisely:

• Proposing, not imposing, solutions.
• Not imposing results, but proposing solutions.
• Asking questions where we try to establish the links and the connectivities between creativity and innovation.
  

We need at the same time, all the benefits of the innovation that is now brought by technological discoveries; but (also) the creativity making, very often, the links with the old humanities.

This is where we bring the idea of connection -- using knowledge effectively from science AND culture (when I say "culture" I include the poetry, I include the arts) -- bringing together those aspects, not just technological innovation, but creativity of spirit.

And this is the kind of leadership we need -- leadership that brings humanism back into (the) question. In the European Union, we can give a contribution to this because we are trying to promote an open, outward-looking, engaged society. That is why I believe we have to do that with others (around) the world. Not with the old idea of sovereign states that try to rule the world, but precisely working with the member states, with the idea of a "community of interest" with an ethic of a global responsibility. In Europe we are well-placed to do that and we want to do that with our good friends around the world.

In the United States, we need to start advocating for a similar approach and taking deliberate steps to make policies that both support and apply creativity in our cities, states and nation. Perhaps we will begin to hear more specifics about "creative communities" from the U.S. presidential candidates (are we moving that direction?). Indeed, such a position might even help that candidate differentiate himself or herself from the other candidates -- and make an important contribution to 21st century challenges at home and abroad.

Like other aspects of modern life, schools must change

[10 January 2007 - Half Moon Bay Review - Opinion] ... One of CASA's guiding principles, which specifically addresses individual needs, is Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In our society, we often think of people who are "good at" math or language as "smart," yet we don't offer that same mark of respect to gifted artists or musicians. Why is that? When I was young, my mom would say things like "So-and-so is smart at cutting hair" or "smart at fixing cars," and it wasn't until recently that I realized how true her words were: It's all brain power. It's all intelligence. The holistic approach adopted by CASA acknowledges and nurtures this belief, allowing the students to access the curriculum through their strengths, develop in many different areas, and recognize intelligence in others as well as in themselves. More

Research: Laughter is contagious

[13 December 2006 - Wellcome Trust] Laughter is truly contagious, and now, scientists studying how our brain responds to emotive sounds believe they understand why. Researchers at University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London have shown that positive sounds such as laughter or a triumphant "woo hoo!" trigger a response in the listener's brain. This response occurs in the area of the brain that is activated when we smile, as though preparing our facial muscles to laugh. The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Action Medical Research and the Barnwood House Trust, is published today in the Journal of Neuroscience. Led by Dr Sophie Scott, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, the research team played a series of sounds to volunteers while measuring their brain's response using an fMRI scanner. Some of the sounds were positive, such as laughter or triumph, while others were unpleasant, such as screaming or retching. All of the sounds triggered a response in the volunteer's brain in the premotor cortical region, which prepares the muscles in the face to respond accordingly, though the response was greater for positive sounds, suggesting that these were more contagious than negative sounds. The researchers believe this explains why we respond to laughter or cheering with an involuntary smile. More