Creativity- Lecture 10 Flashcards
What is creativity?
Difficult to define-
subjective
culturally bound
Sternberg (1999)
Creativity involves element of:
- Novelty
- Surprise
- Success
3 levels of Creativity ( P’s )
Product
Process
Person
Understanding creativity (importance) -Implications
Impact for education and training
Development of computer programs showing creativity
Guilford (1950)
Divergent- operation tasks Many answers are possible Want many answers produced Devised several creativity tests with divergent operations: -production of semantic units -alternative relations -production of systems BUT- tests only weakly relate to other ratings of creativity
Mednick (1962)
Remote Associate Test
- trio of terms is proposed, and the common remote associate is required
- evidence that it correlates with creativity
- high correlation with verbal intelligence and with g
Jamison (1993)
Mad Genius Hypothesis
Very creative individuals tend to be diagnosed as manic-depressive or schizophrenic
Ability to build unusual associations between concepts
Simonton (1999)
major creators with:
- Schizophrenia-(Newton etc.)
- Bipolar disorder-(Van Gogh etc.)
Post (1994)
Severe psychopathology (DSM III): Politicians 17% Scientists 18% Thinkers 26% Composers 31% Artists 38% Writers 46%
Jamison (1989)
Interviews with 47 English writers and artists
>38% received treatment for mental disorders
>30% severe and durable mood swings
>most described presence of highly productive episodes that correspond with manic phases of BPD
Direction of Causality
Not sure if: Psychopathology> Creativity Creativity> Psychopathology Possible that there is a common factor: Common Factor > Creativity & Psychopathology E.g. stress, psychoticism
Wallas (1926)
4 Stages of Creativity
/ >Preparation
1st 3 >Incubation
\ >Illumination
>Verification
1st 3 based on Poincare (1913)
-There is an emphasis on unconscious processing
»support from reports of creative scientists&artists
Newell & Simon (1972)
Problem Space approach
(problem solving seen as a search through a ‘problem space’)
>creativity is a type of problem solving
Problems >displayed as a set of states
Begin at start state and have a goal state
Create new states in solving problem
Tracking problem solving by describing the different stages and states in the process
Simon (1966)
problem space explanation of incubation
Problem solving involves
>Control info
(information about sub-goals)
>Factual info(properties of the problem)
During incubation control info decays>making factual info less context sensitive
>Increases likelihood of finding solution
Experimental studies of Creativity
Qin and Simon (1990|)
Replicated Keplers discovery of 3rd Law of Planetary motion
>Undergraduate students received the same data as Kepler
>The context was changed
»>almost 1/3 students found equation in 1 hour or less
CREATIVITY not always novel or remarkable- moving through space
(heuristics)
Experimental studies of Creativity
Langley ey al (1987)
Pro mathematicians and physicists
>Same data as Max Planck to develop theory of blackbody radiation
»>Almost all ptps found solution within 3 mins
CREATIVITY not always novel or remarkable- moving through space
(heuristics)
Experimental studies of Creativity
Dunbar (1993)
> laboratory simulation of Monod and Jacob’s discovery of genetic control
students and even school children were able to replicate the discoveries
CREATIVITY not always novel or remarkable- moving through space
(heuristics)
A.I. & Creativity
Possible?
If Newell and Simon’s problem space approach is correct, programs using search should show creativity
A.I. vs Computational modelling
> Artificial Intelligence: uses computer to produce intelligent or creative behaviour, not necessarily in the same way as humans
> Computational modelling: uses computers to develop theories of human behaviour
sometimes overlap
A.I. and Visual arts
AARON (Cohen, 1981)
Simple mathematical and artificial-intelligence techniques produce amazing outputs
Draws pictures following rules and constraints
>Highly aesthetic results
>Limited in its style, but creative inside it
>Can be used as tool to explore a conceptual space
Scientific doscovery of AI and Creativity
The Logic Theorist (Newell, Shaw & Simon, 1958
Kulkarni & Simon (1988)
KEKADA
Detailed simulation of a scientific discovery
Makes theoretical inferences
Assesses the acceptability of its theoretical knowledge
Models experimental tests
Problem space solving»>gradual process guided by problem-solving heuristics similar to those used in other intelligent human attempts
Knowledge and Creativity
Creativity= Novel Sternberg (1999) then it must be unrelated to knowledge
Knowledge and Creativity
Frensch and Sternberg (1989)
Weisberg (1999)
Knowledge is necessary for creativity, but too much of it can be harmful
However, knowledge and experience seem to help creativity
e.g. Mozart (15 yrs experience), The Beatles (beein in music ind. 10 yrs)
Creativity and quantity of Output
Creating successful creative products may be trial and error, and be a product of making many variations until final is achieved
Distributions are not normal- J shaped
Campbell,(1960); Simonton, (1999)
Generate many and then let the field select creative piece
‘Blind variation and selective retention’
Price’s (1963) Law
1/2 of all scientific contributions are made by the square root of the total number of scientific contributors
e.g. with 10,000 scientists in a given discipline, just 100 of them will account for 50% of all publications
ALSO APPLIES TO ART
Strategies for creativity
Creators tend to show typical strategies, consciously or unconsciously
-Problem finding
>variations of
solution
>change direction
>Redefine problems
-Set breaking set
>Tendency to think in
negations, contraries and
opposites
-Brainstorming and curiosity
>Readiness to play with
one’s knowledge
-Analogical thinkingValues applied across a variety of domains in relation to solving creative problems
> Tendency to search for originality as such
Strong tendency toward autonomy and independence
Taste for challenging the boundaries
Taste for consistency, parsimony and generality, in sciences
High tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty
Strong intrinsic motivation
Langley (2004)
Herbert Simon’s Heuristics
>Be audacious
>Study important problems
>Ignore discipline boundaries
>Use a secret weapon
>Balance theory and data
>Satisfice
-Anything worth doing is
worth doing badly
>PersevereMcGuire (1997)
49 Creative Heuristics in Psychology
McGuire identified 49 Creative Heuristics used to form psychological hypotheses
e.g.
>Recognising and accounting for the oddity of occurrances
>Introspective self-analysis
