What is innovation, and how can we awaken its dormant traits and cultivate them?
'We do not need to try to create innovative characteristics in the individual, we simply need to show them how to cultivate innovative thought.'
March 10, 2017
Science Daily/University of South Florida (USF Innovation)
While education may not be able to create innovative traits in individuals, education may improve the ability of individuals to utilize the traits they already possess. To that end, the authors begin by defining innovation and identifying the characteristics, traits, and thought processes of innovative individuals or groups of individuals and the environments that they exist in. The ultimate goal will be to develop an educational process whereby individuals would learn how to fully utilize the traits they have and awaken traits that are dormant.
"Relatively little is known about how we can cultivate innovative thinking," said paper lead author Victor Poirier of the Institute for Advanced Discovery & Innovation at the University of South Florida (USF), "and even less is known about how we can help individuals use and improve their innovative powers."
According to the authors, innovation can be defined as "the introduction of something new and different" that is created by inspiration and creativity. Innovation, they said, is "critical to improvements in how we live" and provides "social value." The beginning of the innovative process is usually associated with "a fragmented inspiration" that is further developed by "joining with other fragmented thoughts to finally arrive at a creative inspiration."
The authors pointed to six key characteristics of innovation:
* The timing of an innovative idea;
* The environment in which the idea is formulated and developed;
* The time to develop an idea or inspiration;
* The time and organizational environment that allows for idea cross-fertilization;
* Learning from errors; and
* The development of an idea in one field that can be adapted in another.
While education may not be able to create innovative traits in individuals, education may be able to improve the ability of individuals to better utilize the traits of creativity and innovation they already possess. However, how do we cultivate innovative thinking processes and unleash the creative powers of the individual? And, by what processes can educators help individuals to better utilize their innovative traits?
"It takes a village," explained Poirier, pointing out that Thomas Edison's Menlo Park was an environment in which a variety of minds and skills came together to achieve innovative processes. Innovative industries such as Bell Labs, Xerox, Apple, and Google, as well as many of the federal government's laboratory systems, such as NIH and NASA, are examples of creative environments that foster innovation collaboratively.
Innovative processes do not always create something new, said the authors. Sometimes they greatly improve something already in existence or help to solve a problem. Motivation, persistence, and goal setting may also be keys to this process.
"Contrary to the view that inspiration is purely mystic or divine, [it] is best viewed as an interaction between one's current knowledge and the information one receives from the world," suggested the authors. "We do not need to try to create innovative characteristics; rather, we simply need to show individuals how to cultivate innovative thought."
The first step in encouraging and nurturing inspiration and innovation, said Poirier, is to identify the characteristics and traits that can be fostered and developed through education. These include: abstract thinking and problem solving; a desire to 'fill gaps'; motivation; creativity; curiosity; taking risks with no fear of failure; a positive attitude; persistence and passion; dissatisfaction with what exists; open-mindedness; and vision.
These characteristics can be foundational to an educational process aimed at unleashing the creative and innovative potential that students possess. Therefore, as Poirier explains, our goal is "to develop an educational process whereby we could show individuals how to fully utilize the [innovative] traits they have, [and] awaken traits that are dormant."
The authors acknowledged that there may be roadblocks or resistance to this process from both students and faculty, as there are many who think that innovative thinking is something inborn in the individual and cannot be learned. However, the potential rewards -- including an increase in innovative production -- are substantial and warrant meeting and overcoming these challenges.
To that end, Poirier and his co-authors are part of a team at the University of South Florida involved in an experimental training program in innovation. They anticipate future publications in which they will report on the results of those efforts.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170310121710.htm
College students study best later in the day, study shows
Students learn more effectively between 11 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. than at other times of the day
April 12, 2017
Science Daily/University of Nevada, Reno
Researchers used a survey-based, empirical model and a neuroscience-based, theoretical model to analyze the learning patterns of college students to determine optimum times when cognitive performance can be expected to be at its peak. The study showed that much later starting times of after 11 a.m. or noon, result in the best learning.
A new cognitive research study used two new approaches to determine ranges of start times that optimize functioning for undergraduate students. Based on a sample of first and second year university students, the University of Nevada, Reno and The Open University in the United Kingdom used a survey-based, empirical model and a neuroscience-based, theoretical model to analyse the learning patterns of each student to determine optimum times when cognitive performance can be expected to be at its peak.
"The basic thrust is that the best times of day for learning for college-age students are later than standard class hours begin," Mariah Evans, associate professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno and co-author of the study, said. "Especially for freshmen and sophomores, we should be running more afternoon and evening classes as part of the standard curriculum."
Prior research has demonstrated that late starts are optimal for most high school students, and this study extends that analysis to freshmen and sophomores in college. The analysis by Evans, Jonathan Kelley, fellow University sociology professor, and Paul Kelley, honorary associate of sleep, circadian and memory neuroscience at The Open University, assessed the preferred sleeping times of the participants and asked them to rate their fitness for cognitive activities in each hour of the 24-hour day.
"Neuroscientists have documented the time shift using biological data -- on average, teens' biologically 'natural' day begins about two hours later than is optimal for prime age adults," Evans said. "The survey we present here support that for college students, but they also show that when it comes to optimal performance, no one time fits all."
The study showed that much later starting times of after 11 a.m. or noon, result in the best learning. It also revealed that those who saw themselves as "evening" people outnumbered the "morning" people by 2:1, and it concluded that every start time disadvantages one or more of the chronotypes (propensity for the individual to be alert and cognitively active at a particular time during a 24-hour period).
"Thus, the science supports recent moves by the University to encourage evening classes as part of the standard undergraduate curriculum," Evans said. "It also supports increasing the availability of asynchronous online classes to enable students to align their academic work times with their optimal learning times."
The results, Identifying the best times for cognitive functioning using new methods: Matching university times to undergraduate chronotypes, were published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience March 31, 2017.
"This raises the question as to why conventional universities start their lectures at 9 a.m. or even earlier when our research reveals that this limits the performance of their students," Kelley said. "This work is very helpful for asynchronous online learning as it allows for the student to target their study time to align with their personal rhythm and at the time of day when they know they are most effective."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170412105913.htm
Just breathe: Mindfulness may help freshman stress less and smile more
April 20, 2017
Science Daily/Penn State
The first semester of college is a time of great transition for many students -- they often are living away from home for the first time, have a much more fluid schedule than in high school and are potentially surrounded by a new peer group. Mindfulness training may be one way to help students successfully transition to college life, according to researchers.
The first semester of college is a time of great transition for many students -- they often are living away from home for the first time, have a much more fluid schedule than in high school and are potentially surrounded by a new peer group. For all of these reasons and more, this can be an incredibly stressful time in a student's life.
To help ease this transition, researchers offered an eight-session mindfulness training program to first-year students at Penn State, according to Kamila Dvorakova, a doctoral Compassion and Caring fellow in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and lead author of the study. In mindfulness meditation, practitioners learn how to develop an accepting, nonjudgmental and kind attitude toward present moment thoughts and feelings, according to the researchers, who presented their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of American College Health.
At the end of the eight sessions, the intervention was associated with significant increases in the students' life satisfaction, as well as a significant decrease in depression and anxiety, when compared to students who did not participate in the training. There was also an overall drop in alcohol use between the students who took part in the mindfulness program and the control group.
"We offered an experiential, practice-oriented training," said Dvorakova. "Rather than telling the students what to do, we had them explore and talk about how to be mindful in their daily lives and discover the benefits for themselves. We found that underneath the stress that students are experiencing is a deep desire to appreciate life and feel meaningful connections with other people. It is our responsibility as educators to create academic environments that nurture both students' minds and hearts."
Dvorakova and Mark Agrusti, mindfulness and meditation integration specialist, Prevention Research Center, adapted the existing Learning to BREATHE program -- originally developed for adolescents by Patricia C. Broderick, research associate, Prevention Research Center -- for college students and called it Just BREATHE. The teachings in the eight sessions were themed around the BREATHE acronym: body, reflections, emotions (or awareness), attention, tenderness (or self-compassion), healthy habits and empowerment.
"The beginning of the college career presents such a unique opportunity -- all of these students are going through this same transition at the same time," said Agrusti. "These freshmen are beginning to acquire habits and perceptions that will shape their lives as students and adults, so it's a perfect time for them to discover practices, such as mindfulness, stress management, self-care and emotional literacy skills."
Fifty-two undergraduate students participated in the intervention, with another 53 serving as a control. The program included self-awareness practices, emotion-regulation skills and simple mindfulness techniques to help students manage stressful situations, the researchers said. The participants were also given cards and stickers for home practice to serve as reminders to use mindfulness techniques when they encounter stressful situations.
The students indicated that the three most effective in-class exercises were three mindful breaths, breath awareness and mindfulness of emotions. A total of 98 percent of the participants would recommend the program to friends and classmates.
According to the researchers, future studies might include adding more participants, scheduling long-term follow-ups and integrating mindfulness with academic lessons.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170420090204.htm
Alternating skimpy sleep with sleep marathons hurts attention, creativity in young adults
April 24, 2017
Science Daily/Baylor University
Skimping on sleep, followed by 'catch-up' days with long snoozes, is tied to worse cognition -- both in attention and creativity -- in young adults, in particular those tackling major projects, researchers have found.
"The more variability they showed in their night-to-night sleep, the worse their cognition declined across the week," said study co-author Michael Scullin, Ph.D., director of Baylor's Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory and assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.
"When completing term projects, students restrict sleep, then rebound on sleep, then repeat," he said. "Major projects which call for numerous tasks and deadlines -- more so than for tests -- seem to contribute to sleep variability."
The study of interior design students is published online in the Journal of Interior Design. It also has implications for art, architecture, graphic design and other disciplines that use a model of design studio-based instruction, researchers said.
Interior design is "a strange culture, one where sleep deprivation is almost a badge of honor," said lead author Elise King, assistant professor of interior design in Baylor's Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences.
Staying up late to work on a project is not seen as procrastination but considered by some students and faculty members to be a tradition and a normal part of studio-based curricula to prepare them for their careers, she said.
"Since the general public still doesn't understand the profession of interior design, and mistakenly thinks we're the same as decorators, there is a sense that you want to work harder and prove them wrong," King said. "But recently, we've seen the consequences of that type of thinking: anxiety, depression and other mental health issues -- and also the dangers of driving while sleep deprived."
The study challenges a common myth -- that "the best design ideas only come in the middle of the night," King said. But researchers found the opposite -- that "consistent habits are at least as important as total length of sleep," Scullin said.
Irregular sleep is a negative for "executive attention" -- intense focus for planning, making decisions, correcting errors and dealing with novelty. Erratic sleep also has a negative effect on creativity, the study found.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that young adults have seven to nine hours of sleep each day. But for the 28 interior design students in the Baylor study, sleep was short and fragmented. Only one participant slept seven hours or more nightly; 79 percent slept fewer than seven hours at least three nights during the week.
"Most students think they're getting about four more hours of sleep each week than they actually are," Scullin said.
"Projects are often lengthy, with final due dates looming weeks or months in the future," King said. "The stress of juggling several projects, each with multiple deadlines, is likely to contribute to students' tendency to cycle between several days of poor sleep leading up to a project due date, followed by a catch-up day with 10 or more sleep hours."
Researchers measured sleep patterns through actigraphy, with students wearing wristbands to track movement. Students also kept daily diaries on the quantity and quality of their sleep.
"The wristband is somewhat similar to Fitbit devices, but much more reliable in detection, including the many brief awakenings during sleep that affect sleep quality," Scullin said.
All participants completed two cognitive testing sessions for creativity and executive attention -- each about an hour long and in a laboratory. The sessions were done on the first and last day of the study at the same time of day.
"What we call 'creativity' is often people's ability to see the link between things that at first glance seem unrelated, and one of the tests taps into that ability," Scullin said.
An example: participants are given three words that are loosely connected -- such as "sore,"' "shoulder" and "sweat" -- and asked to figure out a fourth word that would connect them all.
"What first comes to mind are words related to exercise, but in this case, no single exercise word really works. Instead, the 'creative' and correct answer is 'cold,'" Scullin said.
Meanwhile, executive attention -- "working" memory -- enables people to hold memories for a short time while doing a separate task. In the study, participants completed a task in which they saw a grid with black and white squares.
"They had to decide very quickly whether that grid was symmetrical or not. Symmetry decisions by themselves are easy," Scullin said. "But after each decision, participants were shown a grid with one square highlighted in red. Then they made another symmetry decision, followed by a different square highlighted in red. They repeat that cycle up to five times before being asked to recall all the square locations in the correct order. It's very challenging to cycle between those two tasks and keep the square locations in mind."
Further investigation with a greater range of students across multiple studio-based majors and multiple universities would be valuable, researchers said.
"Interior design programs are changing," King said. "People are open to the conversation and willing to discuss ways to reduce that pressure on our students and encourage them to be healthier."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424101239.htm
Dad's involvement with baby early on associated with boost in mental development
May 9, 2017
Science Daily/Imperial College London
Fathers who interact more with their children in their first few months of life could have a positive impact on their baby’s cognitive development.
In a study, published in the Infant Mental Health Journal, researchers from Imperial College London, King's College London and Oxford University looked at how fathers interacted with their babies at three months of age and measured the infants' cognitive development more than a year later.
They found that babies whose fathers were more engaged and active when playing with them in their initial months performed better in cognitive tests at two years of age. The researchers say that while a number of factors are critical in a child's development, the relatively unexplored link between quality father-infant interactions at a young age may be an important one.
Professor Paul Ramchandani, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial and who led the research, said: "Even as early as three months, these father-child interactions can positively predict cognitive development almost two years later, so there's something probably quite meaningful for later development, and that really hasn't been shown much before."
In the study, researchers recorded video of parents interacting with their children, with mothers and fathers playing with their babies without toys, at three months, and then during a book-reading session at two years of age. The videos were then observed independently by trained researchers, with different researchers at three months and 24 months grading the fathers on their interactions.
At two years of age, they scored the baby's cognitive development using the standardised Bayley mental development index (MDI) -- which involved tasks such as recognising colours and shapes.
After analysing data for 128 fathers, and accounting for factors such as their income and age, they found a positive correlation between the degree to which dads engaged with their babies and how the children scored on the tests. Dads with more positive outlooks were also more likely to have babies who performed better on the MDI scales.
What's more, the positive link between involved dads and higher infant MDI scores were seen equally whether the child was a boy or a girl, countering the idea that play time with dad is more important for boys than girls, at an early age.
Dr Vaheshta Sethna from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London, said: "We also found that children interacting with sensitive, calm and less anxious fathers during a book session at the age of two showed better cognitive development, including attention, problem-solving, language and social skills. This suggests that reading activities and educational references may support cognitive and learning development in these children."
Dr Sethna added: "Our findings highlight the importance of supporting fathers to interact more positively with their children in early infancy. Specifically, considering interventions which encourage increased father-infant engagement with shared positive emotions, and book sharing sessions supportive of cognitive development."
While the study provides a window into the effects of dad's involvement with baby, there were a number of limitations. Parents recruited to the study were drawn from a relatively well educated population. In addition, the measure of interactions were taken from relatively short videos, so may not represent how they interact in other situations.
The researchers are now working on a trial based on helping parents with their interactions with their children and then giving them positive feedback to help them deal with challenging behaviour.
Professor Ramchandani concluded: "For those fathers who are more engaged it may be that there is a lot more positive stuff going on in their lives generally. That might be the reason for the link, but we can't be sure of that. All we can say is that there is a signal here, and it seems to be an important one.
"The clear message for new fathers here is to get stuck in and play with your baby. Even when they're really young playing and interacting with them can have a positive effect."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509083936.htm
How listening to music in a group influences depression
May 24, 2017
Science Daily/Frontiers
New research takes a closer look at how music influences the mood in people suffering from depression, and examines what factors might affect whether listening to sad music in group settings provides social benefits for listeners, or if it rather reinforces depressive tendencies.
Listening to music together with others has many social benefits, including creating and strengthening interpersonal bonds. It has previously been shown that enjoying music in a group setting has an impact on social relationships, and that synchronizing with other group members to a beat influences how people behave to individuals both within and outside of the group. Similarly, the sharing of emotions has many social benefits as well: it helps us create and sustain relationships with others and to cement social bonds within a group, and it intensifies the potential for emotional responses. A question that still remains is whether sharing emotional and musical experiences with others might be a particularly powerful form of social bonding, and what the outcome of such an interaction might be.
In this study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, the researchers wanted to investigate the self-reported effects on mood that comes with listening to sad music in group settings, and how mood is influenced by rumination (a maladaptive focus on negative thoughts), depression, and coping style. To do so, they recruited 697 participants who completed an online survey about "their ways of using music, types of musical engagement and the effect of music listening." The participants also completed a number of additional questionnaires, which helped the researchers determine factors such as: the presence of symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress; general tendencies towards depression; coping styles, i.e. tendencies towards rumination or reflection (i.e. healthier tendencies to self-reflection); musical engagement as a measurement of wellbeing; as well as questionnaires addressing a variety of aspects of music listening, both alone and in a group. The results reveal two distinct behavioral patterns related to group music listening:
1. Listening to sad music and talking about sad things tended to make people feel more depressed after listening to music. This kind of group rumination was more common in younger people, and likely reflects relative importance of both music and social relationships to younger people.
2. Listening to inspiring music in a group and engaging in discussions about music and life is a more positive interaction that makes people feel good.
These results provide some clues as to how people with depression use music, and why. "Behaviors relating to music use fall into distinct patterns, reflecting either healthy or unhealthy thought processes," says Dr Sandra Garrido (corresponding author). "These results reveal important information about how people with depression use music." The results shine a light on how music can facilitate the sharing of negative emotions, and show that the outcome is related to the coping styles and thinking patterns used in each setting, meaning that people with generally maladaptive coping styles are more likely to experience negative outcomes from group rumination of music.
The results also show that young people may be especially vulnerable to the impacts of group rumination with music. "While young people with tendencies to depression who are a part of social groups may be perceived as receiving valuable social support, our results here suggest that the positive impacts of such group interactions depend on the types of processes that are taking place in the group," explains Dr Garrido. "Susceptible individuals with a predilection for rumination may be most likely to suffer negative outcomes from group rumination, with social feedback deepening and exacerbating negative thoughts and feelings. However, group interactions that provide social support or opportunities for processing of emotions in a constructive way have a much higher likelihood of being positive."
These findings partially help clarifying under what conditions social interaction around music provide social benefits, and when it might instead amplify negative emotions. This opens up for further research to create a more detailed picture of how group interaction dynamics influence the outcome.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170524101507.htm
Sleep regularity is important for the happiness and well-being of college students
Study shows the importance of regular sleep patterns
June 5, 2017
Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Keeping a regular sleep pattern contributes to the happiness and well-being of college students.
Preliminary results from the "SNAPSHOT study," an NIH-funded collaborative research project between the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and MIT Media Lab Affective Computing Group, suggest that keeping a regular sleep pattern contributes to the happiness and well-being of college students.
Results show that higher sleep regularity was significantly related to higher morning and evening happiness, healthiness and calmness during the week. Transitioning from an irregular weekly sleep pattern to a regular pattern also was associated with improved well-being, both during the week of regular sleep and on the day following it.
"We found that week-long irregular sleep schedules are significantly associated with lower self-reported morning and evening happiness, healthiness, and calmness during the week even after controlling for weekly average sleep duration," said lead author Akane Sano, PhD, research scientist in the Media Lab Affective Computing Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
The analysis involved 204 college students between the ages of 18 and 25 years who participated in a 30-day field study. Sleep timing and duration were monitored using actigraphy, along with daily morning and evening Internet-based diaries. Self-reports of well-being (happiness, healthiness, and calmness) were collected using daily diaries.
"Irregular sleep-wake schedules are common in our modern society," said Sano. "Our results indicate the importance of sleep regularity, in addition to sleep duration, and that regular sleep is associated with improved well-being."
According to the authors, this study underlines the necessity of considering sleep regularity as an important factor for understanding self-reported well-being.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170605085336.htm