As Torrance observes: '[c]reativity defies precise definition... even if we had a precise conception of creativity, I am certain we would have difficulty putting it into words' [15, p. 43]. Many other authors have expressed similar difficulties [7, 10, 16]. In their review of research into human creativity, Hennessey and Amabile ask a significant follow-on question: 'Even if this mysterious phenomenon can be isolated, quantified, and dissected, why bother? Wouldn't it make more sense to revel in the mystery and wonder of it all?' [11, p. 570] Two answers to this question are offered by Hennessey and Amabile, both of which are identified as desirable: to gain a deeper understanding of creativity and to learn how to boost people's creativity. Creativity can and should be studied and measured scientifically, but the lack of a commonly-agreed understanding causes problems for measurement [10]. Plucker et al. make recommendations about best practice based on their own survey of the creativity literature: 'we argue that creativity researchers must (a) explicitly define what they mean by creativity, (b) avoid using scores of creativity measures as the sole definition of creativity (e.g., creativity is what creativity tests measure and creativity tests measure creativity, therefore we will use a score on a creativity test as our outcome variable), (c) discuss how the definition they are using is similar to or different from other definitions, and (d) address the question of creativity for whom and in what context.' [9, p.92] In short, we need to specify and justify the standards that we use to judge creativity. A more objective and well-articulated account of how creativity is manifested enables researchers to make a worthwhile contribution [8-10]. Particularly, in research we would like to focus on what processes and concepts relevant to creativity are'sufficiently important to warrant study' [17, p. 15], based on an accumulation of the body of work on creativity to date [17].

There's one recurring obsession that keeps haunting almost every marketing and ad agency executive. It's in nearly every Powerpoint deck and on every marketer's mind… Millennials: the oh so documented and ubiquitous M Word!. For many years, most marketers (and their agencies) relied on the same old recipe. Brand awareness and reach were the only metrics that mattered. Problem is, the recipe started to turn sour.

Machines are helping people learn faster, better, and more efficiently. Join us as we explore cognitive technology, and learn what advances in artificial intelligence will impact analytics and demand for human interaction on the next episode of Modern Workplace, Machine Learning: How technology advances human intelligence, airing April 12th at 8:00 AM PST / 4:00 PM GMT. This month, two of the industry's most forward thinkers share their predictions of where business is going with big data and how we can take advantage of the changes in technology to come. In addition, he will show how you can unearth value for your customers in the data you already have. Gain an insider perspective as we dissect the world of cognitive technology, learn what technological capabilities will be available, and what tasks will still require human input.

Lauded by hippies, music heads and fans of all things psychedelic, acid has been used to blur the boundaries of reality and perception for decades. Experts have drawn parallels between the dissociative effects caused by the drug on the brain and psychiatric illnesses, with hope it could potentially be explored as a treatment. Now researchers have shown how the drug affects language and speech, reveal it may even enable users to be more creative. In the trials, participants took between 40 to 80 micrograms of the drug intravenously, which would be in the same range as the average tab of acid (illustrated). Researchers in Germany and the UK carried out trials in which participants were asked to name a number of pictures, either under the influence of acid or taking a placebo.

Sometimes it feels like we're on a quest to amass more and more data, filling graphs and spreadsheets like there's no tomorrow. We know that it's increasingly possible to track people, and we're told that arranging and rearranging information might just help in the elusive hunt for killer insights. But, at Contagious, we're hearing far more people ask: 'What if data wasn't just used as a way to gain understanding of demographics or to more accurately target someone, but as a starting point for creativity?' Some of the major winners at this year's Cannes Lions festival, as well as a few other brands, have already put this approach into practice and are developing pieces of work that take data to the next level. We're seeing tangible projects that use ones and zeros as a creative spark to give people a way of grasping a complex idea in an emotional way, so that they can feel and experience as well as understand. From graphs to art One staggering way that data was brought to life recently was on behalf of Australia's Transport Accident Commission.

How many windows were in the house or apartment in which you lived when you were ten? Can you name all 50 states? What was served at your birthday party when you were 13? When you came back from your first trip abroad, how did you describe the experience to your friends? What was the most difficult interaction you ever had with a teacher and what did you learn from that experience?

In the 1950s AI researchers figured that if a toddler can learn to speak and understand, it should take only about five years to teach a computer the same skills. Fifty years on, there's been little progress, so I won't even try to guess when, if ever, software will emulate or embody the linguistic talent at the core of human intelligence. Of course we don't want rivals that can ace the Turing test. We want agents that can help us manage communication, organize tasks, analyze data, and perform transactions -- the very functions Apple famously imagined in its 1987 concept video, Knowledge Navigator. In the same year Apple produced that video, I interviewed Georgetown University's Michael Zarechnak, one of the early pioneers of machine translation.

The aim of the research was to discover how intellect works in the human brain and thereby inform how Artificial Intelligence (AI) works in the future. The study used MRI scans to observe thousands of brains and was only possible due to recent developments in brain imaging techniques. They conclusively found that the more variable a person's brain is - how frequently you can change neural connections with the other parts of the brain over minutes or seconds - and the more frequently these parts connect with each other, the higher a person's IQ and creativity. The discovery of these dynamic functions inside the brain could be applied to building artificial networks that mimic the brain, with the ability to learn and adapt – a current obstacle in the effectiveness of AI. Not only does this study have implications for technology, it is important in understanding mental health.

A child's performance at school is widely considered to be a complex combination of inherited ability, the way they were brought up, the quality of teaching they received and a bit of luck. But a new study has suggested it may be possible to predict a person's academic achievement by looking at their DNA alone. Researchers have developed a new genetic scoring technique that explains almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's educational attainment by the age of 16-years-old. A DNA test could soon be used to predict how a child will do when they are at school after researchers found they can explain 10 per cent of a person's academic achievement by the age of 16-years-old by creating what is known as a polygenic score based on 74 genetic variants thought to play a role in educational performance The IQ test has long been dismissed as an inaccurate way to discern how intelligent a person really is - but now scientists may have found a better way. Researchers at the University of Warwick say MRI scans can measure human intelligence, and define exactly what it is.

As computers have become more sophisticated, researchers have increasingly asked whether or not machines have the capability for creativity. Can we use machines for certain, or all, aspects of the creative process (and hopefully learn something about human creativity in the process)? This is the field of computational creativity, a fascinating interdisciplinary discipline. For example, IBM has been using the technology of Watson (of Jeopardy! Through analyzing "the chemical compounds and ingredients, food professionals can identify new recipes and pairings that are not only tasty and healthy, but also efficient to produce."