On 'How Working Memory and the Cerebellum Collaborate to Produce Creativity and Innovation' by L. R. Vandervert, P. H. Schimpf, and H. Liu

摘要

In their article, Vandervert, Schimpf, and Liu (this issue) formulated an attractive hypothesis about the mechanism by which our brain generates a creative and innovative thought to solve a novel problem. To do this, the authors integrated current knowledge and theories on the working memory of the prefrontal cortex and on internal model of the cerebellum. They developed the hypothesis step by step along the hierarchy evolutionarily built in the brain. The proposed hypothesis unconventionally explains insight and intuition and the process of creative discovery described by Einstein. I understand that the core process of the proposed mechanism is that an activity of the cerebral cortex is redescribed in an internal model of the cerebellum through learning in repeated rehearsals. This is currently considered as a process that automatizes a learned movement or thought. However, the authors uniquely placed an emphasis on the phase where, facing a novel problem, a new model is being formed or reformed by learning. These are two aspects of the same process, appearing before and after learning proceeds. Once a model that matches a novel problem is formed, it is no longer a new model, and it becomes one of the routine models that automatize learned movements or thoughts. These processes are schematically shown in Figures 1 and 2 below (Figures 4 and 7 from Ito, 2005). Figure 1 illustrates the control system for voluntary movement.