Why our Brains Love Crafts? Professor Minna Huotilainen Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies and University of Helsinki Design: Anna Bananna
Brain research methods are approaching everyday- life questions Brain research methods havedevelopedgreatly during the last decades Research is possible nowadays also outside the laboratory Also quite natural tasks have become possible The methods are still the largest restricting factor of the whole research area Several questions cannot be studied Aivotutkimusmenetelmät ovat kehittyneet viime vuosikymmeninä huimasti Tutkimuksia voidaan nykyään tehdä myös laboratorion ulkopuolella Tutkimuksissa voidaan käyttää luonnollisia tehtäviä Menetelmät kuitenkin edelleen rajoittavat sitä, millaisia tutkimuskysymyksiä voidaan asettaa
ERP and EEG Measured in infants during sleep The babies brains are far more cleverthan we ever expected Vauvan ERP Unen aikana Naistenklinikka, HYKS Vauvan viisaat aivot
MEG=magnetoencephalography Millisecond timing accuracy Better spatial accuracy Magnetoenkefalografia eli MEG- menetelmä BioMag- laboratorio, HYKS ja Aalto Millisekuntin ajallinen tarkkuus Parempi paikkatarkkuus
Somatosensory, motor and visual areas of the brain Design: Karen Nordberg Aivojen tunto-, liike- ja näköalueet
Somatosensory, motor and visual Visual cortex areas of the brain Somatosensory cortex Motor cortex Design: Karen Nordberg Aivojen tunto-, liike- ja näköalueet
Somatosensory, motor and visual areas of the brain These areas occupy a large proportion of the cortical surface These areas need stimulation Stimulation is most crucial in childhood If these areas lack stimulation in childhood (deprivation), they will neverdevelopnormally Tunto-, liike- ja näköalueet ovat laajat ja tarvitsevat toimintaa erityisesti lapsuudessa Ärsykkeiden ja toiminnan puute estää näiden aivoalueiden normaalin kehityksen
What is good stimulation for the somatosensory, motor and visual areas of the brain? Somatosensory Touching and forming different materials and surfaces (in Finland: snow, sand, water, clay and branches) Both fine- grained and coarse tasks are needed Opposites: heavy and light, soft and hard, warm and cold Motor Sitting is actually quite dangerous Fine motor movements, gross motor movements, hand- eye- coordination Balancing activities are very good for the brain: walk in a forest, build a tower Visual Experimenting with colour, drawing, painting, Visual illusions, perspective, wide visual fields See the results of your actions
Design: Jun Takahashi Embodied cognition Human intelligence in the hands
Most of our brain activity is unconscious Most of what our brain is doing never reaches our conscious knowledge Lots of pre- processing and sub- conscious processing takes place before I know about it A large part of our cognition is tight into our motor system Studies with immobilized hands Part of our cognition is in our hands Suurin osa aivotoiminnasta on tiedostamatonta, esiprosessointia Kognitiomme on sidoksissa motoriseen järjestelmäämme
Thinking with hands Results from embodied cognition studies are being used in planning and design Planning with concretical material may yield betterresults Crafts and modeling may help us understand difficult concepts Self- image can be constructed piece by piece Kehollisen kognition tuloksia voidaan käyttää suunnitelutyössä: suunnittelu konkreettisin materiaalein, vaikeiden käsitteiden ymmärtäminen, minäkuvan rakentuminen pala palalta
The old brain and the new brain Design: Karen Nordberg
Fight or flight Brain and body have activity states UFlow Drowsy Sleep
Fight or flight Threat Judgement Restrictions Brain and body have activity states UFlow Sense of control Sense of ability Possibilities Drowsy Peace Apathy Sleep
How to shift from fight- or- flight to flow? Doing something just for the sake of it Crafts can create a peaceful atmosphere if the associations are right: embodied cognition Use craft to create an optimal state of learning by listening Miten pääsen pakene- tai- taistele- tilasta virtaustilaan: tekeminen tekemisen vuoksi, musiikki siirtää meitä virtaustilaan päin, käsityö voi luoda kehollisen tunteen rauhasta, jos assosiaatiot ovat oikeita, käsityö kuuntelemisen aikana
How the brain reacts to what we do? Music as an example
Music as a hobby will change the brain n Children s brain change after 15 months of piano training n More gray matter in auditory and motor areas as well as thicker corpus callosum n Practicing makes these brain areas more active, connections between cells increase n These are not music areas but general brain areas n Lapsilla jo 15 kk:n pianon soiton harjoittelu muokkaa motorisen aivokuoren, aivokurkiaisen ja kuuloaivokuoren rakennetta (Hyde ym., 2009). n Harjoittelu tehostaa näiden aivorakenteiden toimintaa ja solujen väliset yhteydet lisääntyvät. n Nämä alueet ovat tehokkaita kaikessa kuulemisessa ja hienomotoriikassa. liikeaivokuori aivokurkiainen kuuloaivokuori 18 18
Effects of long- term musical activities Larger gray matter areas in adult musicians (Schlaug et al.) Frontoparietal areas Frontoparietaaliset alueet Motor and somatosensory cortex Motorinen ja tuntoaivokuori Frontal corpus callosum Aivokurkiaisen etuosa Cerebellum Pikkuaivot Temporal lobe Ohimolohko Frontal lobe Otsalohko
Effects of long- term musical activities In musicians, white matter tracts capsula interna (between motor areas and muscles), corpus callosum, arcuate fasciculus (between corticalareas) have become stronger (Bengtsson et al., 2005). Information flow is faster and more wide. 20 20
Our research from Helsinki
Attention and musical activities Demanding attention test (Saarikivi et al., 2013) Speed of answering Amount of mistakes 60 55 50 45 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 Children with music as a hobby Children with other hobbies 40 10 y 12 y 0.5 10 y 12 y
Differences in brain responses emerge around ages 9 years and 11 years In the first measurements at ages 6-7 years, the groups don t differ Musically trained children Non- trained children The differences in brain responses emerge duringtraining Faster and stronger responses in musically trained children(putkinen et al., 2010, 2012)
Craft as a hobby Similar effects as in music Design: Lani Rae
Why and how a brain researcher would recommend crafts? Design: Sarah Illenberger
Why and how a brain researcher would recommend crafts? In infancy and early childhood Lots of materials to use, no purpose Let a child see crafts being done (mirror neurons) During first years at school All difficult concepts should be visualized by making a model of them Crafts teacher should come to math, biologyetc Vauvalle ja pienelle lapselle tulisi tarjota paljon monipuolisia materiaaleja käytettäväksi ilman tavoitetta, lapsen tulisi nähdä muiden tekevän käsitöitä jotta peilisolut aktivoituvat. Koulussa kaikki vaikeat käsitteet tulisi rakentaa malleiksi (sanaluokat, kertotaulut, yhteyttäminen), käsityön opettaja mukaan muiden aineiden tunneille.
Why and how a brain researcher would recommend crafts? Children and adolescents making and repairing their clothes Strong sense of self- construction, empowering the young Enhancing learning with crafts A simple craft during listening to difficult material may help: close connection of language and hand areas in the brain Afterintensivelearningperiod, craft associated with peaceful situations can help to gain good sleep Lasten ja nuorten omat vaatekokeilut ja korjaukset auttavat rakentamaan minäkuvaa ja kuvaa itsestä pystyvänä yksilönä. Oppimisen edistäminen: kutominen ja neulominen esimerkiksi luennon aikana, unen laadun parantaminen.
Why and how a brain researcher would recommend crafts? Crafts and the elderly Social crafts can keep the elderly active Learning new crafts and skills in all ages Crafts in care homes Crafts should be considered a human right also in care homes, they help also disabled people Käsityö voi olla ikääntyvälle sosiaalinen harrastus, uutta voi oppia aina. Käsityöt kuuluvat laitoksiin ja vammaisille.
Crafts give a good platform to fail. We all need to learn to fail. Check your mindset! If you never fail, your goals were too low.
Learn craft skills Enhance learning How to fail Control stress Human right Design: Karen Nordberg