Creativity And Cognition Research Paper

1. Information Processing And Perception

In the most general terms cognition involves the storage and processing of information. Often information processing is described with three stores (or memory banks) and three transfer processes. The first store is the sensory buffer, which hold raw information which has not yet been recognized or interpreted. Next is the short-term memory (STM), and last the long-term memory (LTM). Attention is the processes by which information is transferred from the sensory buffer to short-term memory. Rehearsal (in various forms) transfers information from STM to LTM. Retrieval transfers information back to STM from the LTM.

Different theories of creative cognition focus on different components or stages of thought. Creative cognition may occur very early in the process. Creative persons are, for example, often somewhat sensitive; sensitivity is one of the ‘core characteristics’ that personality researchers have found in many creative samples. This sensitivity may lead individuals to certain experiences, or more accurately, make them notice subtle stimuli and associations which others will overlook. In this sense sensitivity can dramatically influence the perceptual process in such a way as to make creative thinking more likely.

In strict cognitive terms, perception occurs when sensory information (based on experience and the environment) is interpreted. Perception always involves an interpretation of information; and as the example above suggests, interpretations are often significantly influenced by the individual’s back-ground, expectations, and personality. Creative per-sons may very well have certain perceptual and interpretive tendencies which lead them to original interpretations of experience. Other components of the cognitive process are also tied to creative thinking.

Attention, for example, plays an important role. This is because information is not processed unless the individual attends to it. By attending to information, we focus our limited cognitive resources, selecting some information and ignoring other information. Creative cognition may benefit from such selections. It is not, however, a matter of being especially focused. In fact, there are reports of creative persons having ‘wide attention deployment strategies.’ This means that they attend to a wider range of information and are not as selective as less creative persons. They probably have more information available to them at any one time, and more diverse information as well. Another way of describing this tendency is as ‘de-focused attention.’ Again the idea is that there is less selectivity and a broader range of available information. A broad range of associations may also result; the information may be environmental and experiential, or it may be internal and drawn from memory.

2. Memory, Information, And Expertise

The various memory stores hold information. In-formation in turn is frequently required of creative cognition. Some creative achievements, for example, require expertise, which can be loosely defined in terms of information or knowledge. Referring back to the model of cognition used earlier in this research paper, knowledge is information stored in long-term memory. Expertise is usually domain-specific; the individual has expertise within one field or another. It takes time to develop, though some fields take less time than others. Physics represents a highly technical field and expertise in that field requires years of effort; musical creativity often appears much earlier precisely because there is less technical information required.

An efficient memory, containing a great deal of information, does not always facilitate creative cognition. Information, knowledge, and expertise can benefit the individual but sometimes actually inhibit creative thinking. Sometimes expertise leads the individual to make assumptions, and assumptions minimize the mindful thought that is typically required for original problem solving. Expertise also often provides the individual with routines; but here again these can preclude the flexible perspective and questioning attitude that more often support creative thinking. The trick is to be well-informed but at the same time to avoid assumption and fixed routine.

3. Metacognition

Routine and assumption are easy to avoid. They follow naturally from expertise, and they often allow the individual to behave in an efficient manner. They will not inhibit creative cognition if they are used mindfully. This means that individuals must monitor their thinking and know when they are indeed relying on assumptions and routines. When original thinking is desired, assumptions should be questioned and routines broken.

Such mindful use of assumption and routine is relatively easy. This is because individuals develop metacognitive skills early in adolescence. Metacognition is thinking about thinking, or cognition about cognition. It is used whenever individuals reflect on their own cognition. It is especially useful for the kind of monitoring mentioned just above, and even more so for the direction and guidance of one’s own thinking. Metacognition allows the individual to be strategic and tactical, as well as mindful.

A number of tactics are particularly useful for creative thinking. Some of these are metaphorical, such as the tactic for ‘lateral thinking,’ which asks individuals to ‘dig elsewhere, not deeper.’ Other tactics are more direct and quite simple, including two given above: ‘question assumptions’ and ‘avoid routine’ (when original thinking is desired). If the individual is having difficulty with a particular problem, for in-stance, he or she might ask, ‘am I making inappropriate assumptions?’ Other tactics include working backwards on a problem (begin with the objective and then consider what state must immediate precede it, and what must precede that, and so on) or changing one’s perspective. Original ideas very frequently result from a change of perspective, whether it results from discussion with other people, travel, a change in the way the problem is represented, or from time away (incubation).

Consider the Wright brothers. They were extremely tactical in their work. They broke the large problem of flight down into small problems, for example (power, control, weight). They used analogies and looked to nature (studying birds during flight). They collected data by writing to many other persons working on the problems of flight and by experimenting. They even build a wind-tunnel in their bike shop! These same tactics—breaking a large problem into smaller ones, using analogies, collecting more information—can be used with many of our own day-to-day problems to facilitate the finding of original solutions.

4. Associative Theory And Divergent Thinking

Something more should be said about less mindful (cognitive rather than metacognitive) contributions to creative cognition. There are, for example, theories describing creative thinking as associative. Clearly, individuals often follow chains of thought, associating one experience or idea to a related one. That second idea or experience may in turn lead to a third idea, which then leads to a fourth, and so on.

In one associative theory creative insights result from long ideational chains. In this view the first associations are the most obvious (black is associated with white; dog is associated with cat). Creative insights, on the other hand, tend to be ‘remote associates.’ They are further along the associative chain. Research suggests that individuals differ in associative tendencies. Creative persons, for example, move quickly to remote associations. In theory, each of us can tactically and strategically postpone quick judgments, incubate (take one’s time), and try to allow long chains of ideas and associations. In simplest terms the tactics would be ‘take your time; don’t rush; don’t accept the first solution that comes to mind.’

Associative theory was used in the development of the Remote Associates Test, known as the RAT (Mednick 1962. In the RAT, three words are given (e.g., blood, river, money) and the examinee is asked to find a common associate. Validation studies have offered only marginal support for the RAT, perhaps because of a potential verbal bias, but this does not imply that the theory which led to the RAT is invalid.

Associative theory was also used when tests of divergent thinking were developed in the 1950s (e.g., Guilford 1950, 1968). These tests also allow individuals to follow associative paths but they are less biased by verbal ability and scored for original ideas rather than correct associations. Correct associations, like those on the RAT, may result from ‘convergent thinking’ rather than ‘divergent thinking.’

Divergent thinking is probably used any time an individual is faced with an open-ended task. On tests of divergent thinking, open-ended tasks include re- quests like, ‘name as many round things as you can think of,’ or ‘how are a potato and carrot alike?’ Clearly these questions do not have one correct or conventional answer. The examinee can generate a large number of ideas, all of which are fitting to the task at hand. Some are likely to be original and even creative. Thus, from this perspective, creative cognition is operationalized as divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is further operationalized in terms of the individual’s ‘ideational fluency,’ ‘ideation- al originality,’ and ‘ideational flexibility.’ Ideational fluency is defined in terms of the individual’s productivity. The fluent individual will produce a large number of ideas. Originality is defined in terms of unusualness or uniqueness. The original individual will produce ideas that are unusual in the sense that other people do not think of the same things. Flexibility is defined in terms of variety. The flexible person produces varied ideas, ideas which tap a range of categories or cross diverse themes.

The inflexible person will respond to the task ‘name things which are round’ with ‘tennis ball, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, golf ball, soccer ball,’ and so on, while a flexible person will respond to the same question with something like ‘eyeball, pea, Venus, golf ball, atoms, peaches,’ and so on. Fluency is the most commonly recognized feature of divergent thinking, in part because it is predictive of originality and flexibility; but originality and flexibility are very important as well. Originality is, after all, the most widely accepted dimension of creativity. Creative things are always original. Flexibility is important in part because varied ideation may make it easier to find original solutions and insights. Also, flexibility seems to preclude the ‘functional fixity’ which keeps some people in intellectual ruts.

Empirical investigations have provided stronger evidence of validity for tests of divergent thinking than they have for the RAT, though the actual validity coefficients are only moderate. Still, no one claims that all creative thinking requires divergent thinking. Divergent thinking can lead to original ideas, but divergent thinking is not synonymous with creative thinking.

5. Issues Concerning Creative Cognition

One of the issues in this area of study concerns the relationship of creative cognition with problem-solving skill. There are theorists who believe that all creativity is a kind of problem solving. There are others who argue that problem solving and creativity are frequently independent. Problem solving may be creative, but sometimes is not. Support for this second view was mentioned above, with the distinction of divergent and convergent thinking. Sometimes problem solving requires one correct answer; this is convergent rather than divergent thinking, with little or no room for originality. The debate concerning the relationship of creativity and problem solving has been reviewed by Runco (1994).

The arts are unambiguously creative and typically seem to rely more on self-expression than problem solving. Then again, it is easy to see that artists are often solving problems. They may be expressing the problem in the content of the art, or exploring alternatives, or they may be experimenting with technique and solving problems of communication.

Better support for the independence of problem solving and creativity is provided by examples of ‘problem finding.’ Problem finding is the general term for effort that precedes problem solving. Long ago Wallas (1926) suggested that the creative process requires ‘preparation,’ along with ‘incubation,’ ‘illumination,’ and ‘verification.’ The preparation stage of this process may involve identifying a problem to solve, or the definition of a problem that allows original solutions to be found. Apparently there are notable individual differences in problem-finding tendencies, and persons who devote more attention to carefully defining problems are often more creative than other persons. It may even be the case that creative solutions are only possible when there is a original problem. Problem finding does seem to be distinct from problem solving, and it seems to play a role in many creative efforts. It is best not to equate creative thinking with problem solving.

Another issue involves the relationship of cognition proper with extracognitive influences on creative thinking. Creative efforts are, for example, often tied to intrinsic motivation. The creative person is not reacting to incentives, rewards, or other extrinsic motives but is instead driven by a personal need to understand/or solve a problem. The issue reflects the priority of cognition and motivation. It has been suggested that the former depends on the latter because we don’t think about what we don’t care about. It has also been suggested that the latter depends on the former because we don’t care about things we can’t understand.

Creative cognition probably involves both motivation and cognition per se. In the model of the creative process presented by Runco and Chand (1995), a primary tier of cognitive components includes problem finding, ideation, and evaluation skills, with a secondary tier of important influences including motivation (both intrinsic and extrinsic) and information (both factual and procedural, or tactical). Although some parts of creative cognition are in fact more cognitive than others, realistically, extracognitive influences, and their interaction with the cognitive components, need to be recognized.

6. Conclusions

Creative thinking includes some basic cognitive processes, including perception, attention, and memory. Creative cognition involves perceptual processes when a creative insight is a direct result of the individual’s original interpretation of experiences or associations. Creative cognition may reflect attentional selections when the individual benefits from the recognition of experiences and associations that can be used for original ideation. Creative thinking can depend on memory and the storage of information as well. Some creative achievements actually depend on expertise and require years (to master the knowledge which is required by a field). Recall what was said above, however, about expertise occasionally working against creative insights by leading to routine and assumption. Other basic processes are involved in associative and divergent thinking. In addition to these basic processes, creative cognition may be metacognitive and tactical. In this sense we can exert a degree of control over our own thinking and direct our cognition to the generation of original and useful ideas, insights, and solutions. We can think creatively.

Bibliography:

1. Guilford J P 1950 Creativity. American Psychologist 5: 444–54
2. Guilford J P 1968 Creativity, Intelligence and their Educational Implications. EDITS Knapp, San Diego, CA
3. Martindale C 1999. In: Sternberg R J (ed.) Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 138–52
4. Mednick S A 1962 The associative basis for the creative process. Psychological Review 69: 200–32
5. Mumford M D in press Creative cognition. In: Runco M A (ed.) Creativity Research Handbook, Vol. 2. Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ
6. Runco M A (ed.) 1994 Problem Finding, Problem Solving, and Creativity. Norwood, NJ
7. Runco M A (ed.) in press Critical Creative Processes. Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ
8. Runco M A, Chand I 1995 Cognition and creativity. Educational Psychology Review 7: 243–67
9. Wallas G 1926 The Art of Thought. Harcourt, New York