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Why is it that some people rack their brains for new ideas, only to come up empty─while others seem to shake them almost effortlessly out of their sleeves?
为什么有些人为了获得新想法绞尽脑汁，头脑中却仍是空空如也，而有些人看起来几乎不费吹灰之力就能生出奇思妙想？
Whether creativity is an innate gift or a cognitive process that anyone can jump-start is a question so intriguing that researchers keep studying it from different angles and discovering new and surprising techniques.
灵感是这样降临的创造力究竟是与生俱来的天赋还是任何人都能启动的一个认知过程？这个问题激发了研究人员的兴趣，他们从各个角度对此进行了研究，结果发现了全新的、出人意料的新技巧。
Several recent studies suggest that the best route to an 'aha moment' involves stepping away from the grindstone─whether it's taking a daydream break, belting back a drink or two or simply gazing at something green.
新近的几项研究表明，想要获得“灵光一闪的瞬间”，最佳途径包括从枯燥无味的日常生活中抽身出来──不论你是做白日梦歇一歇、下班回来后小酌一两杯还是光盯着绿色的东西看什么都不干。
Of course, personality can make a difference. People who rate high in openness to new experiences in personality tests also may be more distractible and curious, according to a 2010 study in Creativity Research Journal. Among 158 college students, those who were less inhibited and more receptive to lots of stimuli also were able to generate more ideas than others, says the study by British researchers.
当然，人们迥异的性格会使情况变得截然不同。2010年发表在《创造力研究期刊》(Creativity Research Journal)上的一项研究表明，那些在性格测试中对新生事物的开放度上得分高的人可能也会有更大的好奇心，也更易分心。这项由英国工作人员进行的研究还表明，在158名大学生中，那些不那么拘谨、更易接受众多刺激的学生也会比其他人产生更多的想法。
But personality isn't the only path to inspiration, researchers say. Walking away from a problem to do simple, routine tasks, and letting the mind wander in the process, can spark creative new connections or approaches to solving dilemmas, says a 2012 study in Psychological Science. That helps explain why 'a lot of great ideas occur at transition times,' when people are waking up or falling asleep, bathing, showering or jogging, says Jennifer Wiley, a psychology professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of a 2012 research summary in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
但研究人员也表示，性格并非是通向灵感的唯一途径。2012年发表在《心理科学》(Psychological Science)期刊上的一项研究表明，从问题中抽身出来、去做一些简单的日常工作，让思绪在此过程中自由游荡，这样可以使人们在解决困境时产生一些具有创造力的新联想、新思路。《最新心理科学指南》(Current Directions in Psychological Science)2012年一项研究综述的首席作者、伊利诺大学芝加哥分校(University of Illinois at Chicago)心理学教授詹妮弗•威利(Jennifer Wiley)称，这也就解释了为什么“许多伟大的想法都诞生在辗转过渡期”，像人们醒来或睡去、泡澡淋浴或慢跑的时刻。
For years, Amy Baxter, a physician and pain researcher, looked for ways to use cold to relieve children's pain from vaccination shots. But her light bulb moment didn't come until she was driving home from work, tired after an all-night shift in the emergency room.
内科医生、疼痛研究者艾米•巴克斯特(Amy Baxter)多年来都在寻找使用冷冻来缓解儿童疫苗接种疼痛感的方法。但她的灵光一刻迟迟没有出现，直到有一次下了急诊室夜班，疲惫不堪的巴克斯特驾车回家，途中她突然开窍了。
The steering wheel on her car was vibrating because the tires were poorly aligned, and she noticed as she pulled into her driveway that the vibration had made her hands numb. With help from her husband Louis, she made the connection: Combining vibration and cold might be enough to ease the pain of a shot. 'After an overnight shift, your mind is expansive,' Dr. Baxter says. 'Connections are made that wouldn't otherwise happen.'
由于四个车轮排列不齐，巴克斯特的汽车方向盘一直在摆动震颤，她注意到，当她将车驶进自己的车道时，这种震颤感令她双手发麻。在丈夫路易斯(Louis)的帮助下，巴克斯特产生了这样一种联想：将震颤和冷冻结合起来使用可能会消除打针时的疼痛感。巴克斯特医生说，“在上了一整夜的班后，你的思路拓展了。这些联想不会在其他情况下产生。”
She applied a vibrating massager and a bag of frozen peas to the arm of her 7-year-old son Max, then rolled over his skin a small metal wheel used by neurologists to test sensitivity. Max felt nothing. That discovery sparked the development of 'Buzzy,' a toylike vibrating bee fitted with a tiny ice pack. With help from a 2008 federal grant, she produced the device and began marketing it online. Buzzy is now being used in 500 hospitals to ease patients' pain from injections and infusions, says Dr. Baxter, chief executive of MMJ Labs, Atlanta.
巴克斯特先将振动按摩器和一包冷冻青豆在她7岁儿子马克斯(Max)的手臂上进行试用，然后她将神经病学家专用的小金属轮在儿子的皮肤上滚动以检测灵敏度。马克斯对此毫无感觉。这个发现促成了"Buzzy"的研发，这是一种装有一个小冰袋、形似震动蜜蜂玩具的物件。在2008年获得联邦政府的资金支持后，巴克斯特生产了这种设备并开始在网上进行推广销售。亚特兰大MMJ实验室首席执行长巴克斯特医生说，目前，有500家医院都在使用Buzzy以消除患者在注射和输液时的疼痛感。
Dr. Baxter's groggy, wee-hour epiphany wasn't a fluke. Students in a 2011 study solved more problems requiring fresh new insights when they tackled them at off-peak times of day─in the evening for morning people, and in the morning for night owls, says the study, published in Thinking & Reasoning.
巴克斯特医生在凌晨疲惫之时的顿悟并非侥幸。2011年发表在《思考与推理》(Thinking & Reasoning)杂志上的一项研究指出，更多的学生往往在一天的低潮期中解决了更多需要全新视角才能解决的问题。早起人的低潮期在晚上，夜猫子的低潮期则在早上。
Such advice runs counter to the conventional wisdom that solving problems requires focusing a person's attention and blocking out distractions. 'When you are trying hard to focus your attention, you are going to miss new ideas,' Dr. Wiley says.
这样的建议与“解决问题需要聚精会神、驱散干扰、摒除杂念”的传统观点背道而驰。威利博士说，“当你努力试着集中精神的时候，你将错过那些新想法。”
Viewing the color green may help make those ideas more apparent, according to research published last year in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. When students were given creativity tests, those whose test-cover pages had a green background gave more creative answers than those whose pages were white, blue, red or gray. Many see green as a symbol of fertility, growth and renewal, triggering the positive mood and striving for improvement that fosters creativity, says the study, led by researchers at University of Munich in Germany. (A 2009 study linked the color blue to increased creativity, but researchers on the latest study explained the disagreement by saying they controlled their results more carefully for the lightness and vividness of the colors used.)
《个性与社会心理学通报》(Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)去年发表的一项研究显示，看看绿色的东西可能会有助于让那些新想法变得更明晰。当学生们在参加创造力测验时，与那些试卷封面为白色、蓝色、红色或灰色的同学相比，那些分到绿色封面的同学给出的答案更具创造性。该研究称，许多人将绿色视为孕育、生长和重生的象征，这激发了人的积极情绪、使其不断追寻进步，而这些都促进、强化了创造力。该项研究是由德国慕尼黑大学(University of Munich)的研究人员带头完成的。(2009年曾有一项研究表明：蓝色与增强创造力息息相关。但执行最新研究的工作人员在解释这两个不同的结论时说，考虑到所用颜色的深浅和鲜明度，他们在研究结果的控制上更为审慎了。)
Mind-wandering, often seen as daydreaming, allows the brain to incubate new approaches to familiar problems, serving 'as a foundation for creative inspiration,' says the 2012 study in Psychological Science. In a test of creativity, researchers asked 145 students to think of as many unusual uses as possible for such common items as a brick or toothpick, then divided them randomly into four groups. Three groups were given a 12-minute break with different assignments; a fourth group kept working. When all the students tackled the same problems a second time, those who had done a simple, boring task during a break had more creative ideas than those who were assigned a tough cognitive puzzle, those who rested, or those who didn't take a break, says the study, co-authored by Jonathan Schooler, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
2012年发表在《心理科学》期刊上的那项研究还表明，常常被人们视作白日梦的走神行为能让大脑针对老问题酝酿出新办法，它是“创造性灵感的基石”。在一项创造力测试中，研究人员要求145名学生针对像砖头、牙签这样的常见物品想出尽可能多的不同寻常的用法，然后又将学生们随机分成了四组。其中有三组人被分配了不同的任务并都获得了12分钟的休息，而第四组人却一直在不停歇地工作。该研究发现，当所有学生在第二次被要求解决完全相同的问题时，那组在休息时被分配了简单枯燥任务的学生萌生了更多创造性的想法，他们胜过了在休息时被分配了一项艰深难题的一组、单纯休息的一组或是完全没有休息的一组。加州大学圣芭芭拉分校(University of California at Santa Barbara)心理学教授乔纳森•斯库勒(Jonathan Schooler)是这项研究的合着者。
Another tactic: Build time for mind wandering into daily routines, breaking away from tasks requiring concentration to take a walk or run, look out a window or do some relaxing, routine physical task.
另一种方法：安排专门的时间走神，并将其纳入日常生活中。从需要聚精会神的工作任务中抽身出来去散散步或者跑跑步、看看窗外或者做一些放松身体的常规性活动。
Atlanta ad executive John Stapleton had been trying for three weeks to come up with advertising ideas for a client, the Costa Rica Tourism Board, to encourage people to visit the Central American nation. But it wasn't until he got out of his Atlanta office, traveled to the Costa Rican rain forest (at the Tourism Board's invitation) and relaxed on his patio at a resort that he got the idea of making an ad based on something other than words. A storm was approaching, and 'all the howler monkeys started woofing like dogs, and the rain forest came to life,' he says.
亚特兰大广告公司高管约翰•斯特普尔顿(John Stapleton)三周来一直在试着为客户哥斯达黎加旅游局(Costa Rica Tourism Board)构思广告创意，以鼓励人们到这个中美洲国家旅游。但斯特普尔顿一直没什么想法，直到他离开亚特兰大办公室，前往哥斯达黎加雨林旅游(在旅游局的邀请之下)。在一家度假酒店的露台上休息时，他突然想到可以用文字之外的什么东西为基础作一则广告。当时，一场暴风雨即将来临。他描述道，“吼猴开始像狗那般低吠，雨林就这样走进了你的生命。”
He and his colleagues developed an iPad app enabling users to create their own jungle music, syncing the sounds of howling monkeys, frogs, rain, fish and streams into a rhythmic symphony, free for children and potential adult visitors to download as a window into Costa Rica's biodiversity.
斯特普尔顿和同事研发了一款iPad应用程序，用户可以用它来创造自己的丛林音乐，并将吼猴、蛙鸣、雨落、游鱼和溪流的各种声音同步、编成一曲有节奏的交响乐。这款应用程序作为人们了解哥斯达黎加生物多样性的一个窗口。儿童和潜在成人游客都可免费下载。
To hatch the idea of illustrating biodiversity via music, 'a key factor was to get away from juggling accounts and being constantly distracted, jumping from one task to the next,' says Mr. Stapleton, chief creative director at the ad agency 22squared.
22squared广告公司的创意总监斯特普尔顿说，想要策划出这个用音乐展现生物多样性的想法，“一个关键因素是要从应接不暇的客户和持续不断的纷扰中逃离出来，要从一项任务跳转到下一个。”
Moderate drinking can also relax inhibitions in a way that seems to let the mind range across a wider set of possible connections. It can also help a person notice environmental cues or changes that a sober brain would block out, Dr. Wiley says. In a 2012 study at University of Illinois at Chicago, students who drank enough to raise their blood-alcohol level to 0.075 performed better on tests of insight than sober students. Other research suggests watching funny videos can spark the positive moods linked to higher creativity.
适量小酌也能在一定程度上令压抑许久的身心得到放松，而这似乎又能让人的思维跨至一个更广泛的联想范围。威利博士说，它还有助于让人察觉到那些清醒者可能忽略掉的环境提示或改变。伊利诺大学芝加哥分校2012年进行的一项研究表明，那些饮了足够的酒、使血液中酒精含量升至0.075%的学生比头脑清醒的学生在洞察力测试中表现更为出色。其他的研究则表明，观看趣味视频能够激发与强化创造力相关的积极情绪。
Priming the mind with a wide range of experiences and input also helps. Tor Myhren, an ad executive credited with many successful campaigns including the ETrade talking baby, says he uses 'massive creative stimulus followed by total solitary confinement' to start ideas flowing. Anticipating a period of hard work recently, he read 'Wired' magazine cover to cover, then went to see 'Django Unchained,' says Mr. Myhren, president and chief creative officer of Grey New York. 'When I set my brain up properly for it, when I've fed my brain properly, I can do it.'
用各种不同的经历和信息填充大脑也有助于激发人的创造力。曾亲手打造出包括ETrade“说话的宝宝”在内的众多知名活动的广告公司高管托尔•迈伦(Tor Myhren)称，他就使用了“大量创造性的刺激、紧接着是完全封闭式独处”的方式来激活思维。迈伦预计最近将着手一段相当繁重的工作，所以他就先一字不落地读完了《连线》(Wired)杂志，接着又观看了电影《被解放的迪亚戈》(Django Unchained)。现为Grey New York公司总裁兼首席创意官的迈伦说，“当我用正确的信息喂饱了脑子，当我的大脑专为工作开启时，我就能做好了。”
He wrote some of the talking-baby scripts while working alone late at night in his office, sipping a little Oban whiskey and listening to Radiohead on his iPod, he says. For him, 'an idea isn't just a lightning-bolt thing. I have to work at it.'
迈伦还称，他正是独自一人在深夜的办公室里写出了“讲话的宝宝”的部分脚本。当时他的工作状态是一边啜饮欧本(Oban)威士忌、一边用iPod听电台司令(Radiohead)的歌。对迈伦而言，“一个想法的诞生不单单是件灵光一闪的事儿，我必须得真刀实枪地为之努力工作。”
Entrepreneurial people, for example, 'have ideas about everything all the time,' says Jonathan Kaplan, inventor of the Flip pocket camcorder, an idea that sparked a boom in personal videos a few years ago. 'We always think we're right and always think it's possible to do them,' says Mr. Kaplan, who is now chief executive of a company based on his latest idea, The Melt, San Francisco, a high-tech restaurant chain offering healthy comfort food.
而对于创业的人，用Flip口袋摄像机发明者乔纳森•卡普兰(Jonathan Kaplan)的话来说，则“一直都对万事万物充满了各种想法”。卡普兰的这一发明曾在几年前引发了个人视频的热潮。他还说，“我们总认为自己是对的，也总觉得有可能会实现自己的这些想法。”卡普兰现在旧金山一家名为The Melt的高科技连锁餐厅担任首席执行长，该餐厅专为顾客提供健康的安慰食物，它的诞生也是基于卡普兰的最新创意。
Straying from your field of expertise can help, studies show. Market-research executive Sterling Lanier was looking for successful new ideas a few years ago. 'I was in Death Valley from 2007 to 2010, thinking, 'Maybe I lost it,'' he says. 'Then I relaxed a little, went out to lunch, started telling stories while drinking beer' with a friend, a cancer epidemiologist. 'She started complaining about all the problems she had' getting research subjects to fill out arduous, 400-question medical surveys, Mr. Lanier says.
众多研究还显示，从你自己的专业领域游离出来也有助于激发创造力。市场调研部门高管斯特林•拉尼尔(Sterling Lanier)几年前一直在寻找不错的新点子。“2007年至2010年间，我一直身处死亡谷(Death Valley)，当时想着，我可能迷失了。”拉尼尔说，“接着我稍稍放松了些，便出去吃午餐。在和一位癌症流行病学专家的朋友喝啤酒时，我开始讲故事。”她则开始抱怨自己遇到的各种问题，她需要“让自己的研究对象填满那些费时费力、设有400个问题的医学调查问卷。”
Then came his light-bulb moment: 'You have to make it entertaining. Why don't you just make it super fun and friendly on the iPad?' he asked. By applying market-research techniques to a new field, he came up with a colorful, gamelike medical questionnaire that became the basis for the new company he heads, Tonic Health of Palo Alto, Calif.; the product is being used at a growing number of research hospitals and clinics. To have a good idea, Mr. Lanier says, 'you have to be able to float through your environment with your antennae up, like a butterfly, and just let things ping your antennae.'
这时，拉尼尔脑中灵光一闪。他问道，“你必须得让问卷生动有趣。为什么不把它设置在iPad上、使其超级有趣且浅显易做呢？”拉尼尔通过将市场调研的技巧套用到一个新领域，想出了一个多彩有趣、游戏式的医学问卷。这一想法后来成为了一家新公司的雏形，拉尼尔目前就掌舵这家位于加州帕洛阿尔托的健康滋补公司(Tonic Health)。现在，越来越多的研究医院和诊所都在投入使用他的这一产品。想要获得一个好点子？拉尼尔的经验是，“你得像蝴蝶一样，竖起你的触须、从自己所处的环境中飘起来。让万物与触须碰撞，擦出创意的火花。”
