Creative thinking and the brain

Editor's Note: Shelley Carson, a Harvard psychologist, has written Your Creative Brain, a book about the psychology and neuroscience of creativity, and steps you can take to become more creative. The book is co-published by Harvard Health Publications. Here are some excerpts from an interview with Carson.

What exactly is creativity?

The accepted definition in the field is that for something to be creative it has to be novel or original and be useful or adaptive to some portion of the population.