Challenges to Conventional Thinking Can Prompt Novel Ideas

Imagine for a moment — before you continue reading this column — a sun setting over a beach. If you are like most people, you imagined the sun setting peacefully over shimmering blue water, with the beach empty and bereft of activity. Why is that? Such an image is what we have seen most frequently on postcards and in films so it is what most easily comes to mind, according to Emory University professor Gregory Berns in “Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently.”