The advent, adoption and rapid evolution of generative AI has raised many questions about how we think about creativity (human and machine), and its impact on learning. As part of our ongoing series in TechTrends, my colleagues and I have been exploring these issues through conversations with leading thinkers and innovators. We’ve had the privilege of interviewing visionaries like Chris Dede, Ethan Mollick, Kyle Jensen, Andrew Maynard, and Ron Beghetto, each offering unique insights into this new landscape. Our work has ranged from empirical studies involving educational leaders to theoretical analyses examining educator expertise in the age of AI. (For those interested, a full list of my publications and blog posts on Generative AI is available online.)

In this latest installment, we had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Anna Abraham, a distinguished neuroscientist and psychologist who holds the E. Paul Torrance Professorship in Creativity and Gifted Education at the University of Georgia. Dr. Abraham’s interdisciplinary approach to studying creativity, spanning psychology, neuroscience, education, and the arts, offers a unique and comprehensive perspective on this complex phenomenon. As we write in the article Unlocking Creativity: Dr. Anna Abraham on Interdisciplinarity, AI, and Human Innovation:

Dr. Abraham’s interdisciplinary research bridges psychology, neuroscience, education, and the arts, and she has authored influential books like The Neuroscience of Creativity (2018) and The Creative Brain: Myths & Truths (2024). Her studies often use neuroimaging to explore brain activity during creative tasks, and some ongoing projects examine the role of mental illness in creativity, the impact of aging on creative capacities, and AI’s potential to augment creative processes. By integrating insights across disciplines, Dr. Abraham offers a comprehensive understanding of creativity, encompassing cognitive processes and broader social and educational contexts.

What if our understanding of creativity has been too narrow all along? Dr. Abraham poses this challenging question, urging us to reconsider how we define and measure creative ability. Could the secret to unlocking human innovation lie in embracing both internal and external perspectives on the creative process? And why does Dr. Abraham insist that creativity is not just a cognitive skill, but a fundamental human drive? Perhaps most intriguingly, she suggests that our emotions play a far more crucial role in creativity than previous research in this area. But how exactly do feelings influence our capacity to innovate? What is the role of AI in the creative process? Dr. Abraham’s interdisciplinary approach offers tantalizing clues to these questions, hinting at a more holistic understanding of human creativity. Why does she caution against attributing human-like qualities to AI systems (something I agree with in theory but I have argued maybe nearly impossible for us to follow).

Tentative answers to these and more in the article. Citation and link below.

Henriksen, D., Woo, L., & Mishra, P. (2024). Unlocking Creativity: Dr. Anna Abraham on Interdisciplinarity, AI, and Human Innovation. TechTrends. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-024-01002-8