Naming unrelated words predicts creativity

As a gregarious species, we gain substantial benefits when we are liked by others and able to convince others of the value of our ideas. Understanding and managing others relies upon many complex cognitive processes working in unison, starting with our ability to understand facial expressions, language, and emotions, and ending with the responses we choose to deliver and strategies we elect to pursue. Some people consistently deliver responses that serve their social goals, whilst others flounder in the same waters. In this thesis I explore individual differences in the ability to respond flexibly and appropriately.The two social processes I chose to study in this thesis are humour and persuasion. Humour is a universally attractive quality, and thus a reliable way to win the favor of others. Similarly, persuading others of the value of ourselves and our ideas is the goal of many of our most important and high-stakes interactions, ranging from business deals to romantic love.I predicted that differences in the ability to be funny and persuasive would be explained by the capacity to engage in divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is the ability to generate multiple diverse solutions to problems. Logically, good divergent thinkers should be able to generate a broader range of social strategies when they decide that their current approach is unlikely to be effective, and hence should be more persuasive and humourous.I conducted a total of four studies to test this prediction. In the first study, first year psychology students provided a measure of divergent thinking and written measures of humour and persuasiveness. In the second and fourth study, university friendship groups and college residents provided a measure of divergent thinking and rated each other on humour and persuasiveness. In the third study, Ni-Vanuatu males provided similar measures of divergent thinking and peer rated social effectiveness, as well as friendship nominations I used to calculate social network popularity.Due to inconsistent results between studies, I collapsed studies one, two and four into a combined sample (N = 630) and found that divergent thinking is associated with the ability to produce persuasive written texts and, to a lesser degree, with the ability to produce humourous texts. I also found divergent thinking to be tentatively associated with peer-evaluations of humour and persuasiveness. These relationships emerged independently of measures of intelligence and personality.

The creativity research community is in search of a viable cognitive measure providing support for behavioral observations that higher ideational output is often associated with higher creativity (known as the equal-odds rule). One such measure has included divergent thinking: the production of many examples or uses for a common or single object or image. We sought to test the equal-odds rule using a measure of divergent thinking, and applied the consensual assessment technique to determine creative responses as opposed to merely original responses. We also sought to determine structural brain correlates of both ideational fluency and ideational creativity. Two-hundred forty-six subjects were subjected to a broad battery of behavioral measures, including a core measure of divergent thinking (Foresight), and measures of intelligence, creative achievement, and personality (i.e., Openness to Experience). Cortical thickness and subcortical volumes (e.g., thalamus) were measured using automated techniques (FreeSurfer). We found that higher number of responses on the divergent thinking task was significantly associated with higher creativity (r = 0.73) as independently assessed by three judges. Moreover, we found that creativity was predicted by cortical thickness in regions including the left frontal pole and left parahippocampal gyrus. These results support the equal-odds rule, and provide neuronal evidence implicating brain regions involved with “thinking about the future” and “extracting future prospects.”

The present research aims to delve into the association between openness to experience and divergent thinking (DT), addressing the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, emotion suppression and mindfulness. The study was carried out with 111 young adults who filled in the Big Five Questionnaire, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Participants also performed at the Alternative Uses Task. Results showed that cognitive reappraisal mediated the association between openness to experience and all measures of DT (fluency, flexibility and originality). In addition, mindfulness mediated the interplay between openness to experience and DT only when fluency and flexibility were the dependent variables. No significant results were found using emotion suppression as the mediator. These findings yield theoretical and practical implications about the role of emotional strategies in pursuing the ability to generate divergent ideas. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

An important aspect of working with older adults is maintaining their sense of wellbeing. One of the key elements influencing healthy ageing is high cognitive functioning. According to the recent studies, divergent thinking (DT) is associated with cognitive reserve. Thus, DT may be a way to promote mental health and active ageing, delaying age-related cognitive decline. Assuming the positive impact of training on DT efficacy, an original cognitive training program aimed at enhancing DT was proposed for participants of the University of the Third Age. A pretest and post-test were conducted to measure the level of trained functions. The indicators of the variables studied were the number of Unique Designs from the Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT) as a measure of figural DT, the score of the Test for Creative Thinking – Drawing Production (TCT-DP) and the number of alternative uses for objects as a measure of verbal DT. Preliminary results showed that the training was effective in enhancing verbal DT performance.

Recent neuropsychological data have suggested that visual imagery and visual stimulus processing may share some common cortical processing areas. Because imagery involves the recreation of sensory images, it could be the case that the quality of the sensory inputs may determine the usefulness of imagery in problem solving. This study investigated whether a relation exists between sensory status and divergent thinking ability. A sample of 1,461 participants was tested for visual acuity, color discrimination ability, stereopsis, and pure tone hearing ability. Two measures of divergent thinking involving alternate uses of familiar objects also were taken. Individuals with moderate deficits in visual acuity and stereopsis (which are the abilities that will most profoundly affect relevant aspects of the images for these divergent thinking tasks) performed significantly worse. Performance of those with moderate color discrimination or auditory deficits (both irrelevant to manipulating the images) was indistinguishable from those without such deficits. Thus poor visual acuity and stereopsis may reduce success in divergent thinking tasks because the effectiveness of imagery in achieving novel solutions is reduced when stored images are lacking in details.

Improv experience promotes divergent thinking, uncertainty tolerance, and affective well-being

The current research is aimed to know the effectiveness of education is typical Som SWOM Model of Educational and educational cluster Roberts Roberts Cluster Model of Education in the development of divergent thinking skills beyond knowledge.The study population was selected from first-grade students in secondary Euphrates of the General Directorate for Educational Baghdad Karkh / 1, the first experimental group taught according to (model educational Som) and The second experimental group taught according to (Roberts cluster model of education).Verified equal groups by group of variables and the two samples appeared equal in these variables.The search tool has the researcher adopted a measure of divergent thinking (Ola Rafi Hamid 2011) and also has adopted a measure (Abu Riash, 2007) to measure skills beyond knowledge, the results showed the Superiority of the first experimental group taught in accordance with the (educational model Som) in both posttest in the development of divergent thinking and in the posttest in variable skills beyond the knowledge upon the second experimental group (Roberts cluster model of education) and according to the results it has beevn reached to conclusions.

Using the divergent association task to measure divergent thinking in Chinese elementary school students

Recent studies of creative cognition have revealed interactions between functional brain networks involved in the generation of novel ideas; however, the neural basis of creativity is highly complex and presents a great challenge in the field of cognitive neuroscience, partly because of ambiguity around how to assess creativity. We applied a novel computational method of verbal creativity assessment-semantic distance-and performed weighted degree functional connectivity analyses to explore how individual differences in assembly of resting-state networks are associated with this objective creativity assessment. To measure creative performance, a sample of healthy adults (n = 175) completed a battery of divergent thinking (DT) tasks, in which they were asked to think of unusual uses for everyday objects. Computational semantic models were applied to calculate the semantic distance between objects and responses to obtain an objective measure of DT performance. All participants underwent resting-state imaging, from which we computed voxel-wise connectivity matrices between all gray matter voxels. A linear regression analysis was applied between DT and weighted degree of the connectivity matrices. Our analysis revealed a significant connectivity decrease in the visual-temporal and parietal regions, in relation to increased levels of DT. Link-level analyses showed higher local connectivity within visual regions was associated with lower DT, whereas projections from the precuneus to the right inferior occipital and temporal cortex were positively associated with DT. Our results demonstrate differential patterns of resting-state connectivity associated with individual creative thinking ability, extending past work using a new application to automatically assess creativity via semantic distance.

Computers will soon be an integral part of the classroom and home environment of children, yet there are unanswered questions concerning their effects on young children's cognition; Particularly salient are largely unsubstantiated claims concerning the cognitive benefits of computer programming. This study assessed the effects of computer programming on children's cognitive style (reflectivity, divergent thinking), metacognitive ability, cognitive development (operational competence, general cognitive measures), and ability to describe directions. Eighteen 6-year-old children were pretested to assess receptive vocabulary, impulsivity/reflectivity, and divergent-thinking abilities. The children were then randomly assigned to one of two treatments, computer programming or computer-assisted instruction (CAI), that lasted 12 weeks. Posttesting revealed that the programming group scored significantly higher on measures of reflectivity and on two measures of divergent thinking, whereas the CAI group showed no significant pre- to posttest differences. The programming group outperformed the CAI group on measures of metacognitive ability and ability to describe directions. No differences were found on measures of cognitive development. The increasing acceptance of the critical necessity for children to become computer literate is leading to an increased prominence of computers in the home and school environment. Yet there are unanswered questions regarding the effects of computer use on children's thinking. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of computer programming on 6-year:old children's cognitive style, metacognitive abilities, cognitive development, and ability to describe directions. Seymour Papert, one of the creators of the computer language Logo and a leading exponent of the use of computer programming to expand children's intellectual power, based his ideas on the theories of Piaget, with whom he studied. Papert (1980) has argued that the most beneficial is what he calls Piagetian learning, or learning without being taught. He has proposed that computer programming environments can create conditions under which intellectual models take root, conditions in which young children can master

Cognitive Abilities and Creative Behaviors: CAB‐5 and Consequences

Hand gestures play an integral role in multimodal language and communication. Even though the self-oriented functions of gestures, such as activating a speaker’s lexicon and maintaining visuospatial imagery, have been emphasized, gestures’ functions in creative thinking are not well-established. In the current study, we investigated the role of iconic gestures in verbal divergent thinking—a creative thinking process related to generating many novel ideas. Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that iconic gesture use would facilitate divergent thinking in young adults, especially those with high mental imagery skills. Participants performed Guildford’s Alternative Uses Task in a gesture-spontaneous and in a gesture-encouraged condition. We measured fluency (number of ideas), originality (uniqueness of ideas), flexibility (number of idea categories), and elaboration (number of details) in divergent thinking. The results showed that producing iconic gestures in the gesture-encouraged condition positively predicted fluency, originality, and elaboration. In the gesture-spontaneous condition, producing iconic gestures also positively predicted elaboration but negatively predicted flexibility. Mental imagery skills did not interact with the effects of gestures on divergent thinking. These results suggest that iconic gestures are a promising candidate for enhancing almost all aspects of divergent thinking. Overall, the current study adds a new dimension to the self-oriented function of iconic gestures, that is, their contribution to creative thinking.

This study investigates neural mechanisms of divergent and convergent thinking in the verbal knowledge domain while taking into account activation related to working memory (WM). Divergent thinking was assessed using the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and convergent thinking using the Compound Remote Associates task (RAT). We analyzed upper alpha band (10–12 Hz) oscillatory activity, in which we accounted for the temporal dynamics of both thinking processes by investigating three different time points during each trial for both tasks. We subtracted WM-related oscillatory activity measured by a serial recall task within the same knowledge domain and by using highly similar stimulus material as in both divergent and convergent thinking tasks. Our results show a strong upper alpha synchronization during divergent relative to convergent thinking, most pronounced at fronto-parietal electrodes. Moreover, we observed highest synchronization towards the middle (in contrast to the beginning and end) of each trial during both thinking processes. The results of the present study extend previous findings in the visuo-spatial knowledge domain, using a highly similar analytical approach to investigate divergent and convergent thinking. Together, these findings provide theoretical implications on how divergent and convergent thinking interact beyond WM across different knowledge domains by emphasizing their complex interplay.

Electrophysiological correlates of auditory semantic priming in 24-month-olds

Measures of divergent thinking were administered to 34 7and 8-year-old boys in a permissive testing context and without time limits. Individual differences were reliable across tests and independent of IQ, in contrast to typical findings in studies employing an ability-testing atmosphere. In 87 kindergarten children, similar results were obtained for tests with semantic content but not for one whose content was figural. However, there was intertask consistency in test involvement despite this partial inconsistency in response totals, suggesting that a unitary creativity dimension is present in kindergarten children but is not measured by the figural test at this age. The response style reflection-impulsivity was unrelated to creativity, although hypothesized antecedents of this dimension are identical to those which have been proposed for various creativity subgroups. A measure of artistic preference also failed to relate significantly to creativity scores.