Creativity through Emergent Binding in Neural Networks

Many kinds of creativity result from combination of mental representations. This paper provides a computational account of how creative thinking can arise from combining neural patterns into ones that are potentially novel and useful. We defend the hypothesis that such combinations arise from mechanisms that bind together neural activity by a process of convolution, a mathematical operation that interweaves structures. We describe computer simulations that show the feasibility of using convolution to produce emergent patterns of neural activity of the sort that can support human creativity. CREATIVE COGNITION Creativity is evident in many human activities that generate new and useful ideas, including scientific discovery, technological invention, social innovation and artistic imagination. Understanding is still lacking of the cognitive mechanisms that enable people to be creative, especially about the neural mechanisms that support creativity in the brain. How do people’s brains come up with new ideas, theories, technologies, organizations, and aesthetic accomplishments? What neural processes underlie the wonderful AHA! experiences that creative people sometimes enjoy? We propose that all human creativity requires the combination of previously unconnected mental representations constituted by patterns of neural activity. Then creative thinking is a matter of combining neural patterns into ones that are both novel and useful. We advocate the hypothesis that such combinations arise from mechanisms