There Is Room for Conditioning in the Creative Process: Associative Learning and the Control of Behavioral Variability
There Is Room for Conditioning in the Creative Process: Associative Learning and the Control of Behavioral Variability
Variation in behaviour is an essential ingredient and necessary precondition for creativity. This chapter explores the role of associative learning processes in the generation of behavioural variability. Behavioural variability can be explicitly selected through reinforcement. Importantly, operant variability appears to reflect instrumental control of a stochastic process, rather than the dynamics of a memory process. Furthermore, variation in behaviour spontaneously increases as the expectation of reinforcement decreases. Expectation-induced variability is functionally relevant for generating novel solutions, and is linked to the unusually high creative output found in patients suffering from mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder. Basal ganglia pathways in vertebrates appear to be centrally involved in modulating the trade-off between variability versus stereotypy in behaviour.
Keywords: Variation, Variability, Learning, Reinforcement, Animal learning, Expectation, Basal ganglia
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