The optimal age to start a revolution
The optimal age to start a revolution
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DOI：
10.1002/j.2162-6057.2007.tb01281.x
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发表时间：
2007-01-01
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Srinivasan, Narayanan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dietrich, Arne;Srinivasan, Narayanan
以前关于年龄和创造力之间关系的研究表明，职业年龄，而不是实际年龄，与创造力的纵向变化最相关。最近，Dietrich(2004)提出了一个新的理论框架，将认知神经科学与创造力研究成果相结合。通过识别可能支持不同类型创造性思维的不同神经机制，这个框架对年龄和创造力之间的关系做出了经验性的预测。在这篇文章中，我们报告了这样一个测试的结果，并对创造力是职业年龄的函数的概念提出了质疑，这是一个特殊但关键的例子。在革命性科学或重大创新发现的情况下，与范例科学相反，发现几乎完全是由年轻的个人完成的，无论是职业还是年龄。即使考虑到年轻科学家在科学家群体中的比例，这些结果仍然很强劲。神经科学数据表明，由于衰老导致的前额叶皮质功能下降会导致毅力，这是创造力的对立面。因此，我们将我们的发现解读为，打破范式的想法绝大多数发生在20岁的S和30岁出头的S身上，这表明灵活的前额叶皮质是一个关键因素，因此时间上的年龄也是关键因素。
Previous research on the relationship between age and creativity has shown that career age, rather than chronological age, correlates best with longitudinal changes in creative productivity. Recently, Dietrich (2004) proposed a new theoretical framework that integrates cognitive neuroscience with the findings of creativity research. By identifying distinct neural mechanisms that might underlie different types of creative mentation, this framework makes empirically testable predictions about the relationship between age and creativity. In this paper, we report the results of such a test and question the concept that creativity is a function of career age for a special, but crucial instance. In the case of revolutionary science or significant innovative discoveries, as opposed to paradigmatic science, discoveries are almost exclusively made by individuals who are young, both in terms of career and chronological age. These results remain robust even when taking into account the proportion of young scientists in the population of scientists. Neuroscientific data shows that a decline in prefrontal cortex function due to aging causes perseveration, the antithesis of creativity. Consequently, we interpret our findings that paradigm-busting ideas occur overwhelmingly to people in their 20's and early 30's, as indication that a nimble prefrontal cortex, and thus chronological age, is a critical factor.