Creative Cognition Theory, Research, and Applications

by Finke, Ronald A.; Ward, Thomas B.; Smith, Steven M.

• ISBN13: 9780262560962
• ISBN10: 0262560968
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-01-05
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

Creative Cognition combines original experiments with existing work in cognitive psychology to provide the first explicit account of the cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative thinking and discovery. In separate chapters, the authors take up visualization, concept formation, categorization, memory retrieval, and problem solving. They describe novel experimental methods for studying creative cognitive processes under controlled laboratory conditions, along with techniques that can be used to generate many different types of inventions and concepts. Unlike traditional approaches, Creative Cognition considers creativity as a product of numerous cognitive processes, each of which helps to set the stage for insight and discovery. It identifies many of these processes as well as general principles of creative cognition that can be applied across a variety of different domains, with examples in artificial intelligence, engineering design, product development, architecture, education, and the visual arts. Following a summary of previous approaches to creativity, the authors present a theoretical model of the creative process. They review research involving an innovative imagery recombination technique, developed by Finke, that clearly demonstrates that creative inventions can be induced in the laboratory. They then describe experiments in category learning that support the provocative claim that the factors constraining category formation similarly constrain imagination and illustrate the role of various memory processes and other strategies in creative problem solving. Ronald A. Finke, Thomas B. Ward, and Steven M. Smith are all Associate Professors of Psychology at Texas A & M University.

Author Biography

Ronald A. Finke is Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas A & M University.

Thomas B. Ward is Professor of Psychology at the University of Alabama.

Steven M. Smith is an Associate Professors of Psychology at Texas A & M University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction to Creative Cognition	1	(16)
Overview	1	(3)
The Goals of Creative Cognition	4	(3)
Demystification of Creativity	7	(1)
Previous Approaches to Creativity	8	(6)
Scope of Creative Cognition	14	(3)
Theoretical and Methodological Considerations	17	(28)
A General Model	17	(12)
Structuring Creative Opportunities	29	(1)
Experimental Procedures and Controls	30	(5)
Motivational Factors	35	(2)
Evaluating Creative Products	37	(4)
General Issues in Creativity Assessment	41	(2)
Summary	43	(2)
Creative Visualization	45	(20)
Mental Synthesis and Transformation	45	(5)
Emergent Features in Mental Images	50	(4)
Creative Visual Discoveries	54	(5)
Externalizing the Creative Process	59	(2)
Summary	61	(4)
Creative Invention	65	(26)
A Paradigm for Invention	65	(10)
Preinventive Forms	75	(11)
Creative Refinement	86	(3)
Summary	89	(2)
Conceptual Synthesis	91	(22)
Creative Concepts	91	(5)
Conceptual Combination	96	(8)
Metaphor	104	(4)
Summary	108	(5)
Structured Imagination	113	(30)
Imagination	113	(6)
The Exemplar Generation Paradigm	119	(10)
Structures and Processes in Structured Imagination	129	(5)
Bigger Structures: Schemas and Mental Models	134	(3)
Structured Imagination in Highly Creative Works	137	(2)
Overcoming Influences of Unwanted Attributes	139	(1)
Summary	140	(3)
Insight, Fixation, and Incubation	143	(24)
Memory Mechanisms in Creative Cognition	143	(1)
Retrieval versus Restructuring	144	(5)
Incubation, Fixation, and Recovery	149	(11)
Spreading Activation as a Mechanism for Incubation	160	(1)
Contextual Cues and the Use of Analogy	161	(3)
Summary	164	(3)
Creative Strategies for Problem Solving	167	(22)
Creative Reasoning and Exploration	167	(1)
Types of Problems	167	(4)
General Problem-Solving Strategies	171	(8)
Mental Blocks	179	(1)
Metacognition and Problem Solving	180	(3)
Divergent Thinking	183	(2)
Brainstorming	185	(1)
Creative Expertise	186	(1)
Summary	186	(3)
General Implications and Applications	189	(18)
Summary of Theoretical Implications	189	(6)
Limitations of Creative Cognition	195	(3)
Recommendations for Creativity Training	198	(3)
General Applications	201	(4)
Future Directions	205	(2)
References	207	(14)
Index	221