Are artistic brains different? - 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.

And I’m Sam.

Would you say you’re artistic, Sam?

Can you draw or paint?

Do you dance or play music?

I play the piano a bit. Yes, I’d say I’m

quite artistic. How about you, Neil?

Well, if you count playing football as artistic

then yes, but basically no – I can’t paint.

We’ve been wondering why artistic ability

comes more naturally to some people than others,

so in this programme we’ll be asking:

are artists’ brains different?

We’ll hear two expert opinions, and as usual,

we’ll learn some useful new vocabulary as well.

So, what do you think, Neil? Are artists’ brains

different from other people’s?

I’m not sure, Sam, but it’s true that many

artists behave differently, often in very

strange ways. For example, did you know

that Michelangelo worked so hard he never

took a bath! Or that guitar legend, Jimi Hendrix,

once set fire to his guitar on stage!

We’ll hear more about the artist’s brain soon,

but first I have a question for you. As you said,

artistic ability comes naturally to some people,

including the famous composer,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was

considered a child prodigy - a young child with

very great musical talent. So, how old was

Mozart when he composed his first

piece of music? Was he: a) five years old?

b) ten years old? or, c) fifteen years old?

I’ll guess he was a) five years old.

OK, Sam. I’ll reveal the answer later in the

programme. If artists’ brains are different,

it could mean they see the world in unusual ways.

Dr Rebecca Chamberlain is a researcher in

the neuroscience of art. She investigates how

artists see the objects they  are drawing by measuring 

saccades – the rapid movements our eyes make

as they jump from one thing to another. Here she

shares her findings with BBC

World Service programme, CrowdScience.

Artists seem to be processing the visual world

in a different way to non-artists, particularly

when they’re drawing. The artist actually takes

a more global approach to looking – so they

make bigger saccades, bigger eye movements,

and shorter fixations on  the image. So, it’s almost

like they’re getting much more of a kind of

gist level view of the thing they’re looking at.

Rebecca’s experiments seem to confirm that

artists’ brains work differently because of their

processing of the visual world – the way

their brains make sense of information.

Interestingly, processing also means the act

of developing pictures from photographic film.

When they draw, artists make bigger, quicker

eye movements so they are able to see the

whole picture, something also known as

the gist – the overall, general impression of

something without focussing on the details.

If you ‘get the gist’ of what someone is saying,

you understand the overall meaning of what

they say, but not the details.

The second expert to answer our question

about the artistic brain is Mike, a BBC World

Service listener from Malawi. Mike is

a self-taught painter who creates large,

colourful pictures in his studio.

According to him, artistic ability isn’t something

you’re born with - it can  be learned, as he explained

to BBC World Service’s, CrowdScience.

I had this other student… he was really

at the zero, like, he could not draw – at all.

So, I gave him some tips, and in a month,

he was really good – he was like really surprised,

blown away, he never expected it.

So, there are some things that are trainable,

it’s like a bike. In my case, I learned how to do

those things without anyone telling me,

you know like, if you are drawing the face,

the human face, the distance between your eyes

is the same as one of your eyes.

Mike gives tips to his students – helpful

pieces of advice about how to do something,

in this case, to paint. After getting Mike’s

tips, one of his students really improved and

started painting much better. Mike was

blown away – an informal way to say very

impressed or surprised.

Like learning to ride a bike, Mike thinks that

painting is trainable – a word from American

English meaning that it can be taught

or trained. For him, this is proof that

artists’ brains are not so different after all.

So, there we have it – two different options,

but no final answer to our question.

Still, some scientists think there may be

third possibility: everyone’s brain works

by focussing on some areas and ignoring others,

making a kind of jigsaw puzzle with

missing pieces. Maybe all of us – you, me,

Mozart and Jimi Hendrix - are just filling in

the missing pieces our own way.

Speaking of Mozart, Neil, it’s time to reveal

the answer to your question.

Right. I asked how old child prodigy Mozart

was when he first composed music.

I said he was five years old… so, was I right?

Your answer was correct! Mozart was five

when first wrote music, and by the age of six

he had performed in front of the

Emperor of Austria – twice!

Now there’s an artistic brain!

OK, Neil, let’s recap the vocabulary from

this programme, starting with child prodigy -

a young child, like Mozart, with

a great talent in something.

Processing describes how your brain

makes sense of the information it receives.

The gist of something is a general

understanding of it, without the details.

Tips are useful pieces of advice about

how to do something better.

If you are blown away, you are very

impressed or surprised by something.

And finally, trainable means able to be

trained or taught, in American English.

Once again, our six minutes are up.

It’s goodbye for now!

Goodbye!