Science and humanities: across two cultures and into science studies

An EEG study on artistic and engineering mindsets in students in creative processes

This study aims to take higher-education students as examples to understand and compare artistic and engineering mindsets in creative processes using EEG. Fifteen Master of Fine Arts (MFA) visual arts and fifteen Master of Engineering (MEng) design engineering students were recruited and asked to complete alternative uses tasks wearing an EEG headset. The results revealed that (1) the engineering-mindset students responded to creative ideas faster than artistic-mindset students. (2) Although in creative processes both artistic- and engineering-mindset students showed Theta, Alpha, and Beta wave activity, the active brain areas are slightly different. The active brain areas of artistic-mindset students in creative processes are mainly in the frontal and occipital lobes; while the whole brain (frontal, oriental, temporal, and occipital lobes) was active in creative processes of engineering-mindset students. (3) During the whole creative process, the brain active level of artistic-mindset students was higher than that of engineering-mindset students. The results of this study fills gaps in existing research where only active brain areas and band waves were compared between artistic- and engineering-mindset students in creative processes. For quick thinking in terms of fluency of generating creative ideas, engineering students have an advantage in comparison to those from the visual arts. Also, the study provided more evidence that mindset can affect the active levels of the brain areas. Finally, this study provides educators with more insights on how to stimulate students' creative ability.

The Evolution of Musicality: What Can Be Learned from Language Evolution Research?

Language and music share many commonalities, both as natural phenomena and as subjects of intellectual inquiry. Rather than exhaustively reviewing these connections, we focus on potential cross-pollination of methodological inquiries and attitudes. We highlight areas in which scholarship on the evolution of language may inform the evolution of music. We focus on the value of coupled empirical and formal methodologies, and on the futility of mysterianism, the declining view that the nature, origins and evolution of language cannot be addressed empirically. We identify key areas in which the evolution of language as a discipline has flourished historically, and suggest ways in which these advances can be integrated into the study of the evolution of music.

Heroism Science: Frameworks for an Emerging Field

This article outlines the conceptual framework for a new science focused on heroism using multiple perspectives to generate a science that is explicitly in service to humanity. The role of heroism as a case study for deviant interdisciplinarity, heroism science as storytelling and story revising, and its impacts for research and communities are considered. The primary concern of the deviant agenda of heroism science is the unity of knowledge and the testability of narrative-driven scientific inquiry. In this agenda, science as “episteme” and heroism are unified in their core epistemic function. Heroism science is posited as a prime candidate for promoting science as enabler for improving the world, based on Hefner’s concept of embodied science, and a nonlinear, open, and participatory model of science. Contemporary heroism research trends across the disciplines are mapped in a preliminary taxonomy of peak, emerging, and low subfields of research activity. Heroism science is defined as a nascent multiple disciplinary field which seeks to reconceptualize heroism and its correlates through a close examination of the origins, types, and processes of these interrelated phenomena.

Across the great divide: Boundaries and boundary objects in art and science

This paper explores collaboration between artists and scientists through participant observation. Four artist/scientist pairs worked together to create ten-minute performances for a festival held in January, 2009 in Ithaca, New York. Each pair created their piece over the course of three two-hour meetings, the first of which employed a cultural probe to open a discourse between the artist and scientist and to facilitate collaboration. My role as a participant observer allowed me to closely observe collaborative processes in which pairs engaged in boundary work and made use of boundary objects. The boundary work helped the pairs establish authority and autonomy within their respective sub-fields, while at the same time provoking discussions that led to the creation of their projects. The pairs used three types of boundary objects: existing, created, and appropriated. These established a common language by which they could create and present their performances to an audience.