Artists and their Uniqueness

As the article written by Erik Shute stated, we’ve always questioned whether we’re more right-brained or left-brained when it comes to our skills and such. There are two articles that stated as-a-matter-of-factly that artists among us are structurally unique where there is an increase in their brain neural matter. These artists, who draw better than the ordinary, have this increase in their fine motor and visual imagery areas.
According to Chapter 10 in this course’s textbook, an example of a visual imagery is the ability to see something that isn’t there or in the absence of visual stimulus. The we look back into our memories and remember how certain things look. We think of the sun as something round, yellow/orange, and very bright. We think of the moon as also round, white and gray, and somewhat bright but not as bright as the sun is. When we draw something without tracing it, we try to visualize it in our imagination and we try to draw it from our imagination onto the paper. While we may not actually NEED to use viaual imagery in order to remember how certain things looked, we still tend to do that often like trying to remember how many windows we have on the front of the house or if the elephants’ ears are more round or pointy. So, it would make sense why visual imagery is something very valuable for the artists. They need to be able to visualize something in great detail in order to know what it is they want to draw, paint, or create.
Now, back to the two articles written about these artists, they both emphasized on how they’re structurally unique with the fact that the fine motor and visual imagery areas in their brain neural matter were greater than the people that weren’t considered to be artists. In the article written by Melissa Hogenboom, the researchers did their research with 21 artist students and 23 non-artists using a scanning method called voxel-based morphemetry. A voxel-based morphometry is an automated technique that is used for assessing structural changes in the brain. In this research, they found that that “these scans revealed that the artist group had significantly more grey matter in an area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe” (BBC News). So basically, it isn’t that it’s on the right side of the brain that makes the artist but rather, as Ellen Winner of Boston College in the same article said, “that increased grey and white matter were found in the art group in both left and right structures of the brain” (BBC News).
In the article written by Erik Shute, it stated, “The study can’t confirm whether this extra matter is an innate gift, but it does suggest the artist’s environment or upbringing plays a part in developing these creative spaces.” So while it might be considered a natural gift when one is so gifted in the matter of creating art, it is believed that the artists’ environment and upbringing are what plays a role in why there was an increase in their fine motor and visual imagery areas in the brain neural matter. It would be a matter of exercising and training their skills that would show an increase in these areas. As Dr. Chamberlain stated in the article written by Melissa Hogenboom, “It falls into line with evidence that focus of expertise really does change the brain. The brain is incredibly flexible in response to training and there are huge individual differences that we are only beginning to tap into.” (BBC News) Also stated in the same article, the researchers hope to collect more random participants in their research on the brain neural matter to collect more evidence to back up their hypotheses on this discovery.
Basically, the question isn’t whether we’re right-brained or left-brained but the correct question is whether we have an increase in the fine motor and visual imagery areas in the case of our artistic skills. While certain talents and skills could be innate, we can always design our own destiny. We have more control over ourselves than we may allow ourselves to believe. We can be anything we want to be as long as we set our mind to it, as long as we surround ourselves with the right influences and allow ourselves such an upbringing that would enable us to improve the skills that we want to polish.


Work Sources

Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition. Wadsworth, Inc.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26925271

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/study-artists-brain-shows-theyre-structurally-uniq/nfcdn/

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