
Rethinking Thought
Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists
Laura Otis(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 25. February 2016
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-0-19-021346-6 (ISBN)
Description
Rethinking Thought takes readers into the minds of 30 creative thinkers to show how greatly the experience of thought can vary. It is dedicated to anyone who has ever been told, "You're not thinking!", because his or her way of thinking differs so much from a spouse's, employer's, or teacher's. The book focuses on individual experiences with visual mental images and verbal language that are used in planning, problem-solving, reflecting, remembering, and forging new ideas. It approaches the question of what thinking is by analyzing variations in the way thinking feels.
Written by neuroscientist-turned-literary scholar Laura Otis, Rethinking Thought juxtaposes creative thinkers' insights with recent neuroscientific discoveries about visual mental imagery, verbal language, and thought. Presenting the results of new, interview-based research, it offers verbal portraits of novelist Salman Rushdie, engineer Temple Grandin, American Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, and Nobel prize-winning biologist Elizabeth Blackburn. It also depicts the unique mental worlds of two award-winning painters, a flamenco dancer, a game designer, a cartoonist, a lawyer-novelist, a theoretical physicist, and a creator of multi-agent software. Treating scientists and artists with equal respect, it creates a dialogue in which neuroscientific findings and the introspections of creative thinkers engage each other as equal partners.
The interviews presented in this book indicate that many creative people enter fields requiring skills that don't come naturally. Instead, they choose professions that demand the hardest work and the greatest mental growth. Instead of classifying people as "visual" or "verbal," educators and managers need to consider how thinkers combine visual and verbal skills and how those abilities can be further developed. By showing how greatly individual experiences of thought can vary, this book aims to help readers in all professions better understand and respect the diverse people with whom they work.
Written by neuroscientist-turned-literary scholar Laura Otis, Rethinking Thought juxtaposes creative thinkers' insights with recent neuroscientific discoveries about visual mental imagery, verbal language, and thought. Presenting the results of new, interview-based research, it offers verbal portraits of novelist Salman Rushdie, engineer Temple Grandin, American Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, and Nobel prize-winning biologist Elizabeth Blackburn. It also depicts the unique mental worlds of two award-winning painters, a flamenco dancer, a game designer, a cartoonist, a lawyer-novelist, a theoretical physicist, and a creator of multi-agent software. Treating scientists and artists with equal respect, it creates a dialogue in which neuroscientific findings and the introspections of creative thinkers engage each other as equal partners.
The interviews presented in this book indicate that many creative people enter fields requiring skills that don't come naturally. Instead, they choose professions that demand the hardest work and the greatest mental growth. Instead of classifying people as "visual" or "verbal," educators and managers need to consider how thinkers combine visual and verbal skills and how those abilities can be further developed. By showing how greatly individual experiences of thought can vary, this book aims to help readers in all professions better understand and respect the diverse people with whom they work.
Reviews / Votes
It is clear that the author makes a substantial contribution to the cognitive psychology of thought. The narratives indicate the incredible richness of human mental imagery in real-world contexts. * Dr. Dean Simonton, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, USA; PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 61, No. 13 *More details
Product info
Print PDF
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
567 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-021346-6 (9780190213466)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
11/2015
Oxford University Press Inc
€92.30
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
10/2015
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€49.99
Available for download

E-Book
10/2015
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€49.99
Available for download
Person
Laura Otis is a Professor of English at Emory University and a former MacArthur Fellow. With an MA in Neuroscience and a PhD in Comparative Literature, she compares the creative thinking of scientists and literary writers. Otis is the author of Organic Memory, Membranes, Networking, and Mueller's Lab; the translator of Santiago Ramon y Cajal's Vacation Stories; and the editor of Literature and Science in the Nineteenth Century.
Content
Acknowledgements ; Chapter One: Who's the "You"? ; Chapter Two: Words Enable and Disable Thought: Michael Holquist, David Krakauer, Lynn Margulis, and Jeff Martin ; Chapter Three: The Vast Range of Visual Worlds: Barry Shur, Temple Grandin, Mary Welty, Hugh Wilson, and Natasha Trethewey ; Chapter Four: The Space of Language: Kate Thorpe, Jonathan Culler, and N. Katherine Hayles ; Chapter Five: Beyond Visual and Verbal Thinking: Linda Richardson, Nicholas Gessler, David Finkelstein, and Barbara Zettel ; Chapter Six: Thinking between Minds: Gerd Gigerenzer, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Venkat Narayan ; Chapter Seven: Creative Conversions: Salman Rushdie, Jason Rohrer, Edward G. Jones, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Rigoberto A Gonzalez, and Harriet Goren ; Chapter Eight: Learning to Think: Mark Bauerlein, Diana Richmond, Jay Hosler, and Scott Gilbert ; Chapter Nine: Fluid Individuals, Evolving Minds ; Appendix ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index