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The resulting brain images showed that the medial prefrontal cortex (middle of the frontal lobe) which corresponds to initiation and self-motivation, along with the emotional and motor regions of the brain were all much more active during freestyle rap as opposed to rehearsed rap. They generally found that the left side of the brain was more active during the beginning of creative flow; however, when the rap artists began nearing the end of a phrase or musical measure, researchers found that the right side of the brain become more active.
Fig. 1 Activity Related to Improvisation Image from Scientific Reports |
Activations Associated with Innovative Performance Image from Scientific Reports |
I chose this article because I found it very interesting that rap artists were the selected test subjects for this experiment. I think that rap artists get a bad reputation due to the content of their songs and the crude messages that some rappers often portray to their listeners. However, it actually does make a lot of sense for neuroscientists to conduct this experiment on freestyle rappers because, despite the content of what their raps are about, these artists really are lyrical geniuses. I know personally, it would be impossible for me to freestyle because there is no way I'd be able to think on my feet that quickly. Think about it - they give no prior thought as to the subject they'll be rapping about, yet they somehow make everything they say make sense, make it all rhyme, and do it without any awkward pauses for thought. That is really hard! These artists clearly have a creative flow unlike many of us, and I thought it was neat that the scientific world recognized how special the talent of a rap artist is enough to want to conduct an experiment on their brains in hopes to further the knowledge of the creative channels within humans.
Article: Freestyle fMRI
Written by: Beth Marie Mole
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33363/title/Freestyle-fMRI/
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