Can we really make the leap from a word association test to creativity?
We are distilling these cognitive processes so dramatically into little tasks, so I could see why you’re saying: How is that relevant to the real world? At the same time, all of these tasks are building blocks for much more complex cognitive processes. If you have evidence that the building blocks are affected, it’s quite likely that what’s going on downstream is affected. Have you tried it yourself? I actually once wrote a song that way. I knew what I wanted to be in the song lyrics, so I took a nap where I knew I’d have a lot of REM sleep. And I woke up and there was this whole song in my head. You do a lot of public speaking. Is it hard to navigate between the incremental findings of your research and broader claims you have to make for the general public? I stay within the boundaries of what I feel comfortable. I don’t ever say anything that I can’t back up with a lot of data. A lot of the talks I give to the general public are just all data. So I don’t find it to be a problem. Is
