W10- Creativity

Creativity

“the production of an idea or a product that is both novel and useful”

What are the 4 Ps of Creativity?

People, Products, Place/Press, Processes

What are the levels of creativity?

Little-C -> Everyday innovation

Mini-C -> Transformative learning. Reinterpreting information.

Big-C -> Eminent accomplishments. E.g., a revolutionary French chef- five mother sauces

Pro-C -> Professional expertise. Intentional creativity. Choose to be creative

What is Guildford’s Divergent Thinking Model?

Intelligence split into three sections; operations, content, products

Operations; memory and emotion.

Content; visual and auditory

Products; classes and relations

What is the Alternative uses test?

• Participants were given 3 minutes to give as many alternative uses for a paperclip as they could

• Novelty of responses increased with quantity.

  • The earlier responses were significantly less novel than later responses

• It took participants an average of 9 uses before arriving at highly novel responses.

  • Participants that could not provide 9 uses were much less likely to provide any highly novel responses.

What are tests for divergent thinking?

Alternative uses test

Consequences test

What are tests for convergent thinking?

Remote associates test

What is the Remote associates test

Stick, maker, point     match

Fox, man, peep     hole

What is the research for the Remote associate test?

Kounios & Beeman (2009) – EEG + fMRI Study

• Solving this problem requires conceptual reorganization (non-obvious interpretation)

• Creativity involves processing loose (remote) connections

 

Taft & Rossiter (1966)

• Perhaps biased by culture or verbal ability

 

Marko, Michalko, & Riecansky (2019)

• The RAT is a test of semantic association / recall, rather than creativity

What is the consequences test and what is the research for it?

What if all laws were suddenly abolished? What would happen?

Furnham & Nederstrom (2010)

• Females showed greater creativity (came up with more consequences)

• Big 5: only extraversion correlated with creativity

• Verbal reasoning (intelligence) was the strongest predictor (moderate; more than abstract or numerical reasoning) on the CT.

What is the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and what does it measure?

A test that measures creativity using figural (picture-based) and verbal (word-based) tasks.

• Figural (picture-based)

  • Fluency (how easily do ideas come to mind)

  • Elaboration (can they develop the idea to expand beyond the given context)

• Verbal (word-based)

  • Fluency

  • Flexibility (how different the ideas are from each other)

Group Norms

Compare responses to the sample being studied

Consensus scoring

Compare responses to random sample

Creativity quotient

Compare creativity score to expected score (similar to IQ score)

Experts

“Creativity Experts” provide judgement

Creative Achievement Questionnaire

Self-Report measure of creativity

What are the processes underlying creativity according to Wallas?

Preparation → Conscious familiarisation with the problem

Incubation → Problem ‘set aside’

Illumination → Doesn’t always lead to solution of problem

Verification → Conscious work must be done on ideas generated through illumination

What is Preparation in Wallas’ processes underlying creativity

• You cannot solve a problem unless you have defined the problem.

• You must put in conscious effort to comprehend what is required, and what can be explored.

• The aim here is to acquire and study as many facts about every component involved in the problem.

• The more you study the facts, the stronger the neural connections will become. Stronger connections are important for incubation.

• Wallas describes this process as a “hard, conscious, systematic, and fruitless analysis of the problem”

What is Incubation in Wallas’ processes underlying creativity

• Key component of the Gestalt approach to problem solving

• This is the process of consciously taking your focus to a task unrelated to the problem. Simultaneously, your subconscious continues to organise and re-structure the problem.

• Strong connections between facts and variables of the problem are required for your subconscious to better identify significant associations between problem and solution

• The new task should not be demanding or cognitively draining

How does Incubation work?

• Fatigue reduction

Incubation is a rest period, used to restore our cognitive batteries

• The Conscious Work hypothesis

We hold the problem in our working memory

• Forgetting

Overcoming false solutions

• The Unconscious Work hypothesis

You are solving the problem entirely subconsciously

What is Illumination in Wallas’ processes underlying creativity

• You become aware of the one or many possible solutions to the problem

• This is not always the correct solution, but rather the development of new ideas ready to be inputted into our mental frameworks of the problem

Intimation

• The process that instigates and continues through the moment of illumination

• Unlike Insight, the process of discovering a solution is longer than a flash. They begin as subtle, small feelings that must be hooked and fed in order to grow into a fully defined solution

• We must be careful with the development of these ideas, as attempting to implement them too early can result in unsuccessful resolutions as the idea has not fully formed.

• We must walk before we can run.

What is Verification in Wallas’ processes underlying creativity

• Testing the possible solution

• Taking the idea generated through Illumination and applying it to the problem.

• We evaluate whether the solution satisfies all requirements and assess which components are salient.

 

• Wallas emphasizes the importance of subconscious and conscious process in creative problem solving. We fluctuate between them, which makes creativity a difficult concept to manifest.

• Wallas provides some suggestions for boosting creativity, primarily based on the Behavioural approach of psychology (associative preparation)

What are the issues with Wallas’ model?

• Unconscious processing is difficult to measure; we rely on unreliable self-report. The true value of creative work is often recognised long after its creation, casting doubt on creator accounts. Creativity is frequently attributed to a mysterious “force” such as imagination or dreaming.

• Incubation may merely reflect memory processing; connections in a semantic network activate during rest, allowing new ideas upon returning to the problem.

• In laboratory settings, participants given historical information can often solve complex problems quickly through deliberate, strategic methods, challenging the notion of unconscious insight.

• Problem Space Theory explains problem solving as driven by constraints, operators, and heuristics within an information processing framework.