Scientists identify key conditions to set up a creative ‘hot streak’

 Whether it's director Marta Mesaros or artist Jackson Pollock, people with creative careers often experience a certain explosion of success.

Researchers are now using artificial intelligence to reveal that there is an experimental phase before such "waves" and that special attention is often paid to the onset of the victory period.

Peter Jackson's career is probably a good example. His hit trilogy The Lord of the Rings appeared after a variety of films, including the sci-fi horror comedy Bad Taste, the Meet the Feebles doll and the drama "The Maiden's Prayer". ..

The new work is based on previous research by researchers who have suggested that many creatives fall into a hot streak at some point in their careers, but the exact moment when that happens seems hit and miss.

"About 90% of people have at least one hot streak," said Professor Dashun Wang of Northwestern University, who led the latest research. But the king said it was important to understand why they happened.

“So can we think of how to promote to help people break through?” He said. “How do you create an environment that helps people reach their full potential? "

Wang and his colleagues at Nature Communications report how they tried to find out if there was a common pattern behind hot spelling. To this end, they analyzed metrics of success such as art auction prices, IMDb movie ratings, and research article citations, with 2,128 artists, including Pollock and Frida. Kahlo, and 4,337 directors, including Pollock and Mesaros. Scientists, including Nobel Laureates John B. Fenn and Frances Arnold.

Then they looked at the diversity of people's work at different points in their careers. This was evaluated by an artificial intelligence system trained to "recognize" different styles by characteristics such as brushstrokes, shapes, objects in the work in the case of art, but to classify in the case of art. case of films. director's work. In the case of science, the system has identified various research topics from articles cited in the researcher's publications.

Next, we compared the variety before and during the heat wave with the variety at random points in the race. The team found that for all three career types, work tended to be more diverse just before the actual streak than expected for randomly selected points.

But when the success started, people changed and focused on a narrower goal than expected. “People are mirroring the operating strategy during Hot Spelling, suggesting they're pretty focused on what they're doing,” the team said.

However, researchers have found that neither exploring nor using a new approach is associated with spelling on its own. Instead, what matters is the combination.

“There is an experience, then there is an implementation based on what we have learned through experience,” Wang said.

Among other twists and turns, the team found that scientists are more likely to try new things with a small team before Hot Streak, but are more likely to work with a larger team once Hot Streak begins. ..

Mr. Wang said that an important direction for future work is to see how long the experimentation period tends to be.

Pamela Burnard, an art professor at Cambridge University who was not involved in the study, praised the study.

“Try something new”, “try it” and “hot series” optimization are not new to understanding your creative career. What's new is using AI to study careers, ”he said, adding that old models of education, economics and creative careers were failing.