Inhibitory Control as a Core Process of Creative Problem Solving and Idea Generation from Childhood to Adulthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cassotti, Mathieu; Agogué, Marine; Camarda, Anaëlle; Houdé, Olivier; Borst, Grégoire

2016-01-01

Developmental cognitive neuroscience studies tend to show that the prefrontal brain regions (known to be involved in inhibitory control) are activated during the generation of creative ideas. In the present article, we discuss how a dual-process model of creativity--much like the ones proposed to account for decision making and reasoning--could…

Effects of Problem Scope and Creativity Instructions on Idea Generation and Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rietzschel, Eric F.; Nijstad, Bernard A.; Stroebe, Wolfgang

2014-01-01

The basic assumption of brainstorming is that increased quantity of ideas results in increased generation as well as selection of creative ideas. Although previous research suggests that idea quantity correlates strongly with the number of good ideas generated, quantity has been found to be unrelated to the quality of selected ideas. This article…

Neural basis of functional fixedness during creative idea generation: an EEG study.

PubMed

Camarda, Anaëlle; Salvia, Émilie; Vidal, Julie; Weil, Benoit; Poirel, Nicolas; Houdé, Olivier; Borst, Grégoire; Cassotti, Mathieu

2018-03-09

Decades of problem solving and creativity research have converged to show that the ability to generate new and useful ideas can be blocked or impeded by intuitive biases leading to mental fixations. The present study aimed at investigating the neural bases of the processes involved in overcoming fixation effects during creative idea generation. Using the AU task adapted for EEG recording, we examined whether participant's ability to provide original ideas was related to alpha power changes in both the frontal and temporo-parietal regions. Critically, for half of the presented objects, the classical use of the object was primed orally, and a picture of the classical use was presented visually to increase functional fixedness (Fixation Priming condition). For the other half, only the name of the object and a picture of the object was provided to the participants (control condition). As expected, priming the classical use of an object before the generation of creative alternative uses of the object impeded participants' performances in terms of remoteness. In the control condition, while the frontal alpha synchronization was maintained across all successive time windows in participants with high remoteness scores, the frontal alpha synchronization decreased in participants with low remoteness scores. In the Fixation Priming condition, in which functional fixedness was maximal, both participants with high and low remoteness scores maintained frontal alpha synchronization throughout the period preceding their answer. Whereas participants with high remoteness scores maintained alpha synchronization in the temporo-parietal regions throughout the creative idea generation period, participants with low remoteness scores displayed alpha desynchronization in the same regions during this period. We speculate that individuals with high remoteness scores might generate more creative ideas than individuals with low remoteness scores because they rely more on internal semantic

Unlocking the effects of gender faultlines on team creativity: is activation the key?

PubMed

Pearsall, Matthew J; Ellis, Aleksander P J; Evans, Joel M

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study was to use faultline theory to examine the effects of gender diversity on team creativity. Results from 80 teams working on an idea generation task indicated that the activation of gender faultlines negatively affected the number and overall creativity of ideas. However, gender faultlines that were not activated had no effect. Results also indicated that the relationship between activated gender faultlines and team creativity was partially mediated by the level of conflict within the team. Specifically, emotional conflict partially mediated the effects of activated gender faultlines on the number of ideas generated. Implications are discussed, as well as possible limitations and directions for future research. 2008 APA

Default and Executive Network Coupling Supports Creative Idea Production

PubMed Central

Beaty, Roger E.; Benedek, Mathias; Barry Kaufman, Scott; Silvia, Paul J.

2015-01-01

The role of attention in creative cognition remains controversial. Neuroimaging studies have reported activation of brain regions linked to both cognitive control and spontaneous imaginative processes, raising questions about how these regions interact to support creative thought. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we explored this question by examining dynamic interactions between brain regions during a divergent thinking task. Multivariate pattern analysis revealed a distributed network associated with divergent thinking, including several core hubs of the default (posterior cingulate) and executive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) networks. The resting-state network affiliation of these regions was confirmed using data from an independent sample of participants. Graph theory analysis assessed global efficiency of the divergent thinking network, and network efficiency was found to increase as a function of individual differences in divergent thinking ability. Moreover, temporal connectivity analysis revealed increased coupling between default and salience network regions (bilateral insula) at the beginning of the task, followed by increased coupling between default and executive network regions at later stages. Such dynamic coupling suggests that divergent thinking involves cooperation between brain networks linked to cognitive control and spontaneous thought, which may reflect focused internal attention and the top-down control of spontaneous cognition during creative idea production. PMID:26084037

Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking.

PubMed

Oppezzo, Marily; Schwartz, Daniel L

2014-07-01

Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford's alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of participants' creativity on the GAU, but only increased 23% of participants' scores for the CRA. In Experiment 2, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated, or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost. Experiment 3 generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking. Experiment 4 tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

The Intermediate Impossible: A Prewriting Activity for Creative Problem Solving.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karloff, Kenneth

1985-01-01

Adapts Edward de Bono's "Intermediate Impossible" strategy--for considering ideas that normally would be discarded as stepping-stones to new ideas--for use as a prewriting activity to enhance creative problem solving. (HTH)

Creative motivation: creative achievement predicts cardiac autonomic markers of effort during divergent thinking.

PubMed

Silvia, Paul J; Beaty, Roger E; Nusbaum, Emily C; Eddington, Kari M; Kwapil, Thomas R

2014-10-01

Executive approaches to creativity emphasize that generating creative ideas can be hard and requires mental effort. Few studies, however, have examined effort-related physiological activity during creativity tasks. Using motivational intensity theory as a framework, we examined predictors of effort-related cardiac activity during a creative challenge. A sample of 111 adults completed a divergent thinking task. Sympathetic (PEP and RZ) and parasympathetic (RSA and RMSSD) outcomes were assessed using impedance cardiography. As predicted, people with high creative achievement (measured with the Creative Achievement Questionnaire) showed significantly greater increases in sympathetic activity from baseline to task, reflecting higher effort. People with more creative achievements generated ideas that were significantly more creative, and creative performance correlated marginally with PEP and RZ. The results support the view that creative thought can be a mental challenge. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Everyday Creativity: Spaces and Places for Ideas to Flourish

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bloom, Paula Jorde; Hentschel, Ann

2012-01-01

In an era of early learning standards, packaged curriculums, and state quality rating systems, many directors lament that the accountability movement has sapped the creativity out of their programs. They say their teachers feel constricted, as though their own good ideas just don't matter anymore. Not true. In fact, it's more vital than ever to…

Interrelations in the Development of Primary School Learners' Creative Imagination and Creative Activity When Depicting a Portrait in Visual Art Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Šlahova, Aleksandra; Volonte, Ilze; Cacka, Maris

2017-01-01

Creative imagination is a psychic process of creating a new original image, idea or art work based on the acquired knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as on the experience of creative activity. The best of all primary school learners' creative imagination develops at the lessons of visual art, aimed at teaching them to understand what is…

Design by Analogy: Achieving More Patentable Ideas from One Creative Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, Li-Zhen; Wu, Chun-Long; Zhu, Xue-Hong; Tan, Run-Hua

2018-12-01

A patent is a kind of technical document to protect intellectual property for individuals or enterprises. Patentable idea generation is a crucial step for patent application and analogy is confirmed to be an effective technique to inspire creative ideas. Analogy-based design usually starts from representation of an analogy source and is followed by the retrieval of appropriate analogs, mapping of design knowledge and adaptation of target solution. To diffuse one core idea into other new contexts and achieve more patentable ideas, this paper mainly centered on the first two stages of analogy-based design and proposed a patentable ideation framework. The analogical information of the source system, including source design problems and solution, was mined comprehensively through International Patent Classification analysis and represented in the form of function, behavior and structure. Three heuristics were suggested for searching the set of candidate target systems with a similar design problem, where the source design could be transferred. To systematize the process of source representation, analogs retrieval, idea transfer, and solution generation, an ideation model was put forward. Finally, the bladeless fan was selected as a source design to illustrate the application of this work. The design output shows that the representation and heuristics are beneficial, and this systematic ideation method can help the engineer or designer enhance creativity and discover more patentable opportunities.

Sharing Teaching Ideas: Active Participation in the Classroom through Creative Problem Generation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gonzales, Nancy A.; And Others

1996-01-01

Presents an activity to involve students in mathematical communication and creative thinking. The activity is similar to the "pass it along" gossip game in which each person in a chain adds a piece of information. The class analyzes the resulting mathematics problem using George Polya's problem-solving techniques. (MKR)

Physical Activity Benefits Creativity: Squeezing a Ball for Enhancing Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, JongHan

2015-01-01

Studies in embodied cognition show that physical sensations, such as touch and movement, influence cognitive processes. Two studies were conducted to test whether squeezing a soft versus a hard ball facilitates different types of creativity. Squeezing a malleable ball would increase divergent creativity by catalyzing multiple or alternative ideas,…

Why Reject Creative Ideas? Fear as a Driver of Implicit Bias against Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Young Soo; Chang, Jae Yoon; Choi, Jin Nam

2017-01-01

Biases against creativity seem to be activated when people are motivated to reduce uncertainty. Drawing on the appraisal model of emotion, this study tested whether and how emotions with varying levels of uncertainty appraisals affect biases against creativity. This experimental study showed that fear, characterized by a high-uncertainty…

Developing design-based STEM education learning activities to enhance students' creative thinking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pinasa, Siwa; Siripun, Kulpatsorn; Yuenyong, Chokchai

2018-01-01

Creative thinking on applying science and mathematics knowledge is required by the future STEM career. The STEM education should be provided for the required skills of future STEM career. This paper aimed to clarify the developing STEM education learning activities to enhance students' creative thinking. The learning activities were developed for Grade 10 students who will study in the subject of independent study (IS) of Khon Kaen Wittayayon School, Khon Kaen, Thailand. The developing STEM education learning activities for enhancing students' creative thinking was developed regarding on 6 steps including (1) providing of understanding of fundamental STEM education concept, (2) generating creative thinking from prototype, (4) revised ideas, (5) engineering ability, and (6) presentation and discussion. The paper will clarify the 18 weeks activities that will be provided based these 6 steps of developing learning activities. Then, these STEM learning activities will be discussed to provide the chance of enhancing students' creative thinking. The paper may have implication for STEM education in school setting.

CREATIVE ACTIVITIES FOR EVERY SCHOOL.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

WALSH, ROSALIA

SUGGESTIONS FOR CREATIVE ACTIVITIES IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES ARE PRESENTED. THE SUBJECTS OUTLINED ARE CREATIVE ART, CREATIVE DRAMA, CREATIVE THINKING, CREATIVE WRITING AND CREATIVE MATH. UNDER EACH HEADING ACTIVITIES AND THE MATERIALS NEEDED WERE LISTED. AN EXAMPLE OF AN ACTIVITY IN CREATIVE ART IS BOX SCULPTURE, THE MATERIALS NEEDED WERE AN…

The Effects of Domain Knowledge and Instructional Manipulation on Creative Idea Generation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hao, Ning

2010-01-01

The experiment was designed to explore the effects of domain knowledge, instructional manipulation, and the interaction between them on creative idea generation. Three groups of participants who respectively possessed the domain knowledge of biology, sports, or neither were asked to finish two tasks: imagining an extraterrestrial animal and…

Widespread neural oscillations in the delta band dissociate rule convergence from rule divergence during creative idea generation.

PubMed

Boot, Nathalie; Baas, Matthijs; Mühlfeld, Elisabeth; de Dreu, Carsten K W; van Gaal, Simon

2017-09-01

Critical to creative cognition and performance is both the generation of multiple alternative solutions in response to open-ended problems (divergent thinking) and a series of cognitive operations that converges on the correct or best possible answer (convergent thinking). Although the neural underpinnings of divergent and convergent thinking are still poorly understood, several electroencephalography (EEG) studies point to differences in alpha-band oscillations between these thinking modes. We reason that, because most previous studies employed typical block designs, these pioneering findings may mainly reflect the more sustained aspects of creative processes that extend over longer time periods, and that still much is unknown about the faster-acting neural mechanisms that dissociate divergent from convergent thinking during idea generation. To this end, we developed a new event-related paradigm, in which we measured participants' tendency to implicitly follow a rule set by examples, versus breaking that rule, during the generation of novel names for specific categories (e.g., pasta, planets). This approach allowed us to compare the oscillatory dynamics of rule convergent and rule divergent idea generation and at the same time enabled us to measure spontaneous switching between these thinking modes on a trial-to-trial basis. We found that, relative to more systematic, rule convergent thinking, rule divergent thinking was associated with widespread decreases in delta band activity. Therefore, this study contributes to advancing our understanding of the neural underpinnings of creativity by addressing some methodological challenges that neuroscientific creativity research faces. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Beyond Idea Generation: The Power of Groups in Developing Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McMahon, Kibby; Ruggeri, Azzurra; Kämmer, Juliane E.; Katsikopoulos, Konstantinos V.

2016-01-01

Brainstorming research has claimed that individuals are more creative than groups. However, these conclusions are largely based on measuring creativity by the number of ideas generated, and researchers have tended to neglect other important components of creativity, such as the quality of developed ideas. These studies aim to address this gap in…

Exploring creative activity: a software environment for multimedia systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farrett, Peter W.; Jardine, David A.

1992-03-01

This paper examines various issues related to the theory, design, and implementation of a system that supports creative activity for a multimedia environment. The system incorporates artificial intelligence notions to acquire concepts of the problem domain. This paper investigates this environment by considering a model that is a basis for a system, which supports a history of user interaction. A multimedia system that supports creative activity is problematic. It must function as a tool allowing users to experiment dynamically with their own creative reasoning process--a very nebulous task environment. It should also support the acquisition of domain knowledge so that empirical observation can be further evaluated. This paper aims to illustrate that via the reuse of domain-specific knowledge, closely related ideas can be quickly developed. This approach is useful in the following sense: Multimedia navigational systems hardcode referential links with respect to a web or network. Although users can access or control navigation in a nonlinear (static) manner, these referential links are 'frozen' and can not capture their creative actions, which are essential in tutoring or learning applications. This paper describes a multimedia assistant based on the notion of knowledge- links, which allows users to navigate through creative information in a nonlinear (dynamic) fashion. A selection of prototype code based on object-oriented techniques and logic programming partially demonstrates this.

Supporting Creativity in School Libraries: Finding, Sharing, and Connecting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Techman, Melissa

2014-01-01

Creativity is about openness and connection, it signals the chance to get ideas, share ideas, and try new things or put together old things in new ways. Libraries have always had the potential to source and support creative activities. Public library events and opportunities bring together people, ideas, and stuff (whether fabric, paint, wood,…

Teaching Creatively and Teaching for Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brinkman, David J.

2010-01-01

This article provides a brief review of generally accepted ideas about creativity, followed by examples of music teachers teaching creatively and teaching their students to be more creative. Implications for teacher education and policy recommendations for music education are discussed.

To create or to recall? Neural mechanisms underlying the generation of creative new ideas☆

PubMed Central

Benedek, Mathias; Jauk, Emanuel; Fink, Andreas; Koschutnig, Karl; Reishofer, Gernot; Ebner, Franz; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2014-01-01

This fMRI study investigated brain activation during creative idea generation using a novel approach allowing spontaneous self-paced generation and expression of ideas. Specifically, we addressed the fundamental question of what brain processes are relevant for the generation of genuinely new creative ideas, in contrast to the mere recollection of old ideas from memory. In general, creative idea generation (i.e., divergent thinking) was associated with extended activations in the left prefrontal cortex and the right medial temporal lobe, and with deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction. The generation of new ideas, as opposed to the retrieval of old ideas, was associated with stronger activation in the left inferior parietal cortex which is known to be involved in mental simulation, imagining, and future thought. Moreover, brain activation in the orbital part of the inferior frontal gyrus was found to increase as a function of the creativity (i.e., originality and appropriateness) of ideas pointing to the role of executive processes for overcoming dominant but uncreative responses. We conclude that the process of idea generation can be generally understood as a state of focused internally-directed attention involving controlled semantic retrieval. Moreover, left inferior parietal cortex and left prefrontal regions may subserve the flexible integration of previous knowledge for the construction of new and creative ideas. PMID:24269573

The role of (dis)inhibition in creativity: decreased inhibition improves idea generation.

PubMed

Radel, Rémi; Davranche, Karen; Fournier, Marion; Dietrich, Arne

2015-01-01

There is now a large body of evidence showing that many different conditions related to impaired fronto-executive functioning are associated with the enhancement of some types of creativity. In this paper, we pursue the possibility that the central mechanism associated with this effect might be a reduced capacity to exert inhibition. We tested this hypothesis by exhausting the inhibition efficiency through prolonged and intensive practice of either the Simon or the Eriksen Flanker task. Performance on another inhibition task indicated that only the cognitive resources for inhibition of participants facing high inhibition demands were impaired. Subsequent creativity tests revealed that exposure to high inhibition demands led to enhanced fluency in a divergent thinking task (Alternate Uses Task), but no such changes occurred in a convergent task (Remote Associate Task; studies 1a and 1b). The same manipulation also led to a hyper-priming effect for weakly related primes in a Lexical Decision Task (Study 2). Together, these findings suggest that inhibition selectively affects some types of creative processes and that, when resources for inhibition are lacking, the frequency and the originality of ideas was facilitated. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Creativity meets neuroscience: experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking.

PubMed

Fink, Andreas; Benedek, Mathias; Grabner, Roland H; Staudt, Beate; Neubauer, Aljoscha C

2007-05-01

The psychometric assessment of different facets of creative abilities as well as the availability of experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking has replaced the view of creativity as an unsearchable trait. In this article we provide a brief overview of contemporary methodologies used for the operationalization of creative thinking in a neuroscientific context. Empirical studies are reported which measured brain activity (by means of EEG, fMRI, NIRS or PET) during the performance of different experimental tasks. These tasks, along with creative idea generation tasks used in our laboratory, constitute useful tools in uncovering possible brain correlates of creative thinking. Nevertheless, much more work is needed in order to establish reliable and valid measures of creative thinking, in particular measures of novelty or originality of creative insights.

Creative Dance for All Ages: A Conceptual Approach.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gilbert, Anne Green

This publication presents ideas and educational activities that will assist teachers of creative dance with lesson planning. The volume is organized into three parts. Part 1--Theory consists of six chapters: (1) What Is Creative Dance: The Elements of Dance; (2) Why Learn Creative Dance: Learning Outcomes; (3) Where Is Creative Dance Taught:…

Association of hair iron levels with creativity and psychological variables related to creativity

PubMed Central

Takeuchi, Hikaru; Taki, Yasuyuki; Sekiguchi, Atsushi; Nouchi, Rui; Kotozaki, Yuka; Nakagawa, Seishu; Miyauchi, Carlos M.; Iizuka, Kunio; Yokoyama, Ryoichi; Shinada, Takamitsu; Yamamoto, Yuki; Hanawa, Sugiko; Araki, Tsuyoshi; Hashizume, Hiroshi; Kunitoki, Keiko; Sassa, Yuko; Kawashima, Ryuta

2013-01-01

Creativity generally involves the conception of original and valuable ideas. Previous studies have suggested an association between creativity and the dopaminergic system, and that physical activity facilitates creativity. Iron plays a key role in the dopaminergic system and physical activity. Here, we newly investigated the associations between hair iron levels and creativity, dopamine-related traits and states [novelty seeking, extraversion, and vigor (motivational state)], as well as the physical activity level. In the present study, we addressed this issue by performing a hair mineral analysis to determine iron levels and a behavioral creativity test of divergent thinking and related psychological measures among young adults (254 men, 88 women; mean age 20.79 ± 2.03 years). Iron levels did not show any significant association with creativity but displayed significant positive associations with novelty seeking, extraversion, and physical activity level. These results may be partly congruent with the notion that iron plays a key role in the dopaminergic system and imply that iron is important for traits and physical activity, which facilitate creativity. Future interventional or longitudinal studies are warranted to identify any causal effects. PMID:24385960

[About creativity].

PubMed

Rubia Vila, Francisco José

2006-01-01

The term 'creativity', meaning to produce something out of nothing, is not accurate. A definition that included the establishment, the founding or the introduction of something anew for the first time would be rather appropiate. The most accurate interpretation of the creativity process is the one proposed by Alfred Rothenberg which establishes the hypothesis that creativity is due to what he calls a 'janusian thinking' characterized by conceiving simultaneously two or more opposed ideas, images or concepts. Two examples illustrate such way of thinking: one is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and the other is Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. The overcome of a dualistic thinking while keeping full consciousnees, that is, the utilization of both the primary and the secondary processes postulated by Freud, would be the key to creative thinking. From a neurophysiological point of view, it is very likely that the right hemisphere is rather connected to creativity, given that it is a mental state that requires non-focalized attention, greater right hemisphere activation, and low levels of prefrontal cortical activation allowing cognitive inhibition.

Measuring the Creative Process: A Psychometric Examination of Creative Ideation and Grit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rojas, Joanne P.; Tyler, Kenneth M.

2018-01-01

Within the investment theory of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1996), creativity is defined as a 2-part process of "buying low" by investing in unusual ideas and then "selling high" by convincing others of the value or usefulness of these new ideas. This process requires both creative ideation and perseverance. The purpose…

Good morning creativity: task reactivation during sleep enhances beneficial effect of sleep on creative performance.

PubMed

Ritter, Simone M; Strick, Madelijn; Bos, Maarten W; van Baaren, Rick B; Dijksterhuis, Ap

2012-12-01

Both scientists and artists have suggested that sleep facilitates creativity, and this idea has received substantial empirical support. In the current study, we investigate whether one can actively enhance the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity by covertly reactivating the creativity task during sleep. Individuals' creative performance was compared after three different conditions: sleep-with-conditioned-odor; sleep-with-control-odor; or sleep-with-no-odor. In the evening prior to sleep, all participants were presented with a problem that required a creative solution. In the two odor conditions, a hidden scent-diffuser spread an odor while the problem was presented. In the sleep-with-conditioned-odor condition, task reactivation during sleep was induced by means of the odor that was also presented while participants were informed about the problem. In the sleep-with-control-odor condition, participants were exposed to a different odor during sleep than the one diffused during problem presentation. In the no odor condition, no odor was presented. After a night of sleep with the conditioned odor, participants were found to be: (i) more creative; and (ii) better able to select their most creative idea than participants who had been exposed to a control odor or no odor while sleeping. These findings suggest that we do not have to passively wait until we are hit by our creative muse while sleeping. Task reactivation during sleep can actively trigger creativity-related processes during sleep and thereby boost the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity. © 2012 European Sleep Research Society.

Creative Process and Experiences Leading to Creative Achievement in the Case of Accomplished Architects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Seon-Young; Lee, Ghang

2017-01-01

This study has identified factors stimulating creative ideas, transforming creative ideas to products, and continuing creative performance in the field of architecture based on interviews with 10 creative and successful architects. Having a penchant for liberal arts and reading books on a broad range of topics on arts, humanities, social sciences,…

Identifying Creative Activities in Preschool Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keily, Margaret Mary

This study compared the creative self-direction, creative behavior, and creative activities of preschool children to determine if students and teachers trained in the creative process and in observation techniques can, with reliability, observe the creative potential of young children. Creative abilities of 155 children from four preschool centers…

Creative Sciencing. Ideas and Activities for Teachers and Children. Grades K-6. Third Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Vito, Alfred; Krockover, Gerald H.

This resource book includes 163 science activities for both preservice and in-service teachers. Activities have been field-tested and are cross-referenced according to the processes of science and the content area covered. Each activity has been written to evoke ideas from the reader, thus enabling each activity to serve a base for additional…

Creative Writing: Activity Ideas for Grades 7, 8, and 9.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chase, Cheryl M.; Marler, Joyce

This booklet is one of a series developed by the Northern Colorado Educational Board of Cooperative Services to make available to teachers ideas designed and tested by other teachers. Many of the ideas are from educational journals as well as from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). The booklet is divided into eight sections:…

Neuropsychiatry of creativity.

PubMed

Mula, Marco; Hermann, Bruce; Trimble, Michael R

2016-04-01

In this paper, we review in brief the development of ideas that over time have tried to explain why some individuals are more creative than others and what may be the neurobiological links underlying artistic creativity. We note associations with another unique human idea, that of genius. In particular, we discuss frontotemporal dementia and bipolar, cyclothymic mood disorder as clinical conditions that are helping to unravel the underlying neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of human creativity. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Epilepsy, Art, and Creativity". Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Idea Evaluation: Error in Evaluating Highly Original Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Licuanan, Brian F.; Dailey, Lesley R.; Mumford, Michael D.

2007-01-01

Idea evaluation is a critical aspect of creative thought. However, a number of errors might occur in the evaluation of new ideas. One error commonly observed is the tendency to underestimate the originality of truly novel ideas. In the present study, an attempt was made to assess whether analysis of the process leading to the idea generation and…

Enhancing verbal creativity: modulating creativity by altering the balance between right and left inferior frontal gyrus with tDCS.

PubMed

Mayseless, N; Shamay-Tsoory, S G

2015-04-16

Creativity is the production of novel ideas that have value. Previous research indicated that while regions in the right hemisphere are implicated in the production of new ideas, damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is associated with increased creativity, indicating that the left IFG damage may have a "releasing" effect on creativity. To examine this, in the present study we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate activity of the right and the left IFG. In the first experiment we show that whereas anodal tDCS over the right IFG coupled with cathodal tDCS over the left IFG increases creativity as measured by a verbal divergent thinking task, the reverse stimulation does not affect creative production. To further confirm that only altering the balance between the two hemispheres is crucial in modulating creativity, in the second experiment we show that stimulation targeting separately the left IFG (cathodal stimulation) or the right IFG (anodal stimulation) did not result in changes in creativity as measured by verbal divergent thinking. These findings support the balance hypothesis, according to which verbal creativity requires a balance of activation between the right and the left frontal lobes, and more specifically, between the right and the left IFG. Copyright © 2015 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Classroom Ideas for Encouraging Thinking and Feeling: A Total Creativity Program for Individualizing and Humanizing the Learning Process. Volume Five.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Frank E.

This volume, the final one in the series, presents about 400 ideas which teachers can use to teach creative thinking. The ideas are classified according to teacher behavior (strategies or modes of teaching) and by types of pupil behavior, as described in the rationale for the cognitive-affective instructional (CAI) model presented in volume 2. The…

Emotional Creativity and Real-Life Involvement in Different Types of Creative Leisure Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trnka, Radek; Zahradnik, Martin; Kuška, Martin

2016-01-01

The role of emotional creativity in practicing creative leisure activities and in the preference of college majors remains unknown. This study aims to explore how emotional creativity measured by the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI; Averill, 1999) is interrelated with the real-life involvement in different types of specific creative leisure…

A systematic review of creative thinking/creativity in nursing education.

PubMed

Chan, Zenobia C Y

2013-11-01

This systematic review aimed to identify the types of nursing course structure that promotes students' creative thinking and creativity. Systematic review. Five electronic databases: The British Nursing Index, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus and Ovid Medline. The databases were systematically searched to identify studies that discussed the concept of creative thinking in nursing education or reported a strategy that improved students' creative thinking. Qualitative studies or studies that included qualitative data were included. After reading the full content of the included studies, key themes and concepts were extracted and synthesized. Eight studies were identified. Four main themes relating to the course structure in teaching creativity were developed: diversity learning, freedom to learn, learning with confidence and learning through group work. To promote creative thinking in nursing students, educators themselves need to be creative in designing courses that allow students to learn actively and convert thoughts into actions. Educators should balance course freedom and guidance to allow students to develop constructive and useful ideas. Confidence and group work may play significant roles in helping students to express themselves and think creatively. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pandora's Box: Creative Play Ideas.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hilton, Vicky E., Comp.

Developed as part of a federally funded project for young handicapped and non handicapped children, the handbook contains suggestions for parents and teachers about creative use of materials found in the home. Provided are illustrations, lists of materials needed, explanations of purpose, and procedures for construction and use of 18 materials…

Where do bright ideas occur in our brain? Meta-analytic evidence from neuroimaging studies of domain-specific creativity

PubMed Central

Boccia, Maddalena; Piccardi, Laura; Palermo, Liana; Nori, Raffaella; Palmiero, Massimiliano

2015-01-01

Many studies have assessed the neural underpinnings of creativity, failing to find a clear anatomical localization. We aimed to provide evidence for a multi-componential neural system for creativity. We applied a general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to 45 fMRI studies. Three individual ALE analyses were performed to assess creativity in different cognitive domains (Musical, Verbal, and Visuo-spatial). The general ALE revealed that creativity relies on clusters of activations in the bilateral occipital, parietal, frontal, and temporal lobes. The individual ALE revealed different maximal activation in different domains. Musical creativity yields activations in the bilateral medial frontal gyrus, in the left cingulate gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule and in the right postcentral and fusiform gyri. Verbal creativity yields activations mainly located in the left hemisphere, in the prefrontal cortex, middle and superior temporal gyri, inferior parietal lobule, postcentral and supramarginal gyri, middle occipital gyrus, and insula. The right inferior frontal gyrus and the lingual gyrus were also activated. Visuo-spatial creativity activates the right middle and inferior frontal gyri, the bilateral thalamus and the left precentral gyrus. This evidence suggests that creativity relies on multi-componential neural networks and that different creativity domains depend on different brain regions. PMID:26322002

Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving.

PubMed

Mumford, Michael D; Waples, Ethan P; Antes, Alison L; Brown, Ryan P; Connelly, Shane; Murphy, Stephen T; Devenport, Lynn D

2010-02-01

Students of creativity have long been interested in the relationship between creativity and deviant behaviors such as criminality, mental disease, and unethical behavior. In the present study we wished to examine the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. Accordingly, 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains, data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed.

Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving

PubMed Central

Mumford, Michael D.; Waples, Ethan P.; Antes, Alison L.; Brown, Ryan P.; Connelly, Shane; Murphy, Stephen T.; Devenport, Lynn D.

2010-01-01

Students of creativity have long been interested in the relationship between creativity and deviant behaviors such as criminality, mental disease, and unethical behavior. In the present study we wished to examine the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. Accordingly, 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains, data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed. PMID:21057603

[Creativeness and creative personalities--a study of successful entrepreneurs].

PubMed

Goebel, P

1991-01-01

The term creativity is defined, and the underlying creative process is described. The creative process is developed with the help of the new metaphors. The two most successful and creative from over 130 entrepreneurs involved in a research project are taken as examples. The essentials of the creative process the inexhaustible process of the phantasy concerning certain ideas and problems is enlarged in connection with the results of the Giessen Test S and the two above-mentioned entrepreneurs.

Spicing up Classrooms Using Creative Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubenstein, Lisa DaVia; Wilson, Hope E.

2011-01-01

Gifted programs have long relied upon creative challenges (activities in which students are asked to create a product or an idea in response to specific teacher directions) to spark ideas, collaboration, and exploration. These challenges, however, have often been devoid of context. Gifted students are pulled out of the classroom to build a bridge…

Ideas Exchange: How Are Teachers Using Pedometers Creatively in Classes to Impact the Level of Physical Activity?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barney, David; Konkler, Jan; Nelson, Sherry L.; Brewer, Joan; Mielke, Danny R.; Morrison, Joni; Eklund, Nancy Raso; Flores, Adrian

2010-01-01

Pedometers are great equalizers. They are wonderful for students who don't have the speed of other students, but can still keep up by taking as many steps as other students while improving their fitness level. In this article, teachers describe how they are using pedometers creatively in classes to impact the level of physical activity.

Does proficiency creativity solve legal dilemmas? Experimental study of medical students' ideas about death-causes.

PubMed

Lynöe, Niels; Juth, Niklas

2013-11-01

The aim of the present study was to compare and examine how medical students on term one and nine understand and adopt ideas and reasoning when estimating death-causes. Our hypothesis was that compared to students in the beginning of their medical curriculum, term nine students would be more inclined to adopt ideas about causality that allows physicians to alleviate an imminently dying patient, without being suspected for manslaughter--a practice referred to as proficiency creativity. We used a questionnaire containing two similar cases describing an imminently dying patient who receive a drug in order to treat seizures. The treatment has the foreseen effect of shortening the patient's life. In one version of the vignette the patient dies immediately and in the other one the patient dies 5 h after having received the drug. We asked medical students in their first term (n = 149) and ninth term (n = 106) to fill in the two randomly distributed questionnaires. We used a χ2 test to examine our hypothesis and choose as significance level 0.05. A majority of term-one students (53%) stated that the patient died because of the provided drugs when dying immediately after and 32% stated it when the patient died 5 h after providing the drug. The difference was significant (p = 0.007). A minority of term-nine students (20 vs. 16%) stated the patient died because of the provided drug. The difference was not significant. The study indicates that term-nine students have espoused the idea that death-causes in such cases should always be classified as the underlying disease--even though another straightforward explanation could be the drug provided. To clinicians this might be a proficiency-creative strategy for managing a difficult legal dilemma. As hypothetical explanation we suggest that experienced clinicians might have transformed a normative issue of shortening life into an empirical issue about death-causes and tacitly transferred this strategy to term-nine students. If our

A Neurocognitive Framework for Human Creative Thought

PubMed Central

Dietrich, Arne; Haider, Hilde

2017-01-01

We are an intensely creative species. Creativity is the fountainhead of our civilizations and a defining characteristic of what makes us human. But for all its prominence at the apex of human mental faculties, we know next to nothing about how brains generate creative ideas. With all previous attempts to tighten the screws on this vexed problem unsuccessful – right brains, divergent thinking, defocused attention, default mode network, alpha enhancement, prefrontal activation, etc. (Dietrich and Kanso, 2010) – the neuroscientific study of creativity finds itself in a theoretical arid zone that has perhaps no equal in psychology. We propose here a general framework for a fresh attack on the problem and set it out under 10 foundational concepts. Most of the ideas we favor are part and parcel of the standard conceptual toolbox of cognitive neuroscience but their combination and significance to creativity are original. By outlining, even in such broad strokes, the theoretical landscape of cognitive neuroscience as it relates to creative insights, we hope to bring into clear focus the key enabling factors that are likely to have a hand in computing ideational combinations in the brain. PMID:28119660

EEG alpha power and creative ideation☆

PubMed Central

Fink, Andreas; Benedek, Mathias

2014-01-01

Neuroscientific studies revealed first insights into neural mechanisms underlying creativity, but existing findings are highly variegated and often inconsistent. Despite the disappointing picture on the neuroscience of creativity drawn in recent reviews, there appears to be robust evidence that EEG alpha power is particularly sensitive to various creativity-related demands involved in creative ideation. Alpha power varies as a function of creativity-related task demands and the originality of ideas, is positively related to an individuals’ creativity level, and has been observed to increase as a result of creativity interventions. Alpha increases during creative ideation could reflect more internally oriented attention that is characterized by the absence of external bottom-up stimulation and, thus, a form of top-down activity. Moreover, they could indicate the involvement of specific memory processes such as the efficient (re-)combination of unrelated semantic information. We conclude that increased alpha power during creative ideation is among the most consistent findings in neuroscientific research on creativity and discuss possible future directions to better understand the manifold brain mechanisms involved in creativity. PMID:23246442

The effects of duration of exposure to the REAPS model in developing students' general creativity and creative problem solving in science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alhusaini, Abdulnasser Alashaal F.

The Real Engagement in Active Problem Solving (REAPS) model was developed in 2004 by C. June Maker and colleagues as an intervention for gifted students to develop creative problem solving ability through the use of real-world problems. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the REAPS model on developing students' general creativity and creative problem solving in science with two durations as independent variables. The long duration of the REAPS model implementation lasted five academic quarters or approximately 10 months; the short duration lasted two quarters or approximately four months. The dependent variables were students' general creativity and creative problem solving in science. The second purpose of the study was to explore which aspects of creative problem solving (i.e., generating ideas, generating different types of ideas, generating original ideas, adding details to ideas, generating ideas with social impact, finding problems, generating and elaborating on solutions, and classifying elements) were most affected by the long duration of the intervention. The REAPS model in conjunction with Amabile's (1983; 1996) model of creative performance provided the theoretical framework for this study. The study was conducted using data from the Project of Differentiation for Diverse Learners in Regular Classrooms (i.e., the Australian Project) in which one public elementary school in the eastern region of Australia cooperated with the DISCOVER research team at the University of Arizona. All students in the school from first to sixth grade participated in the study. The total sample was 360 students, of which 115 were exposed to a long duration and 245 to a short duration of the REAPS model. The principal investigators used a quasi-experimental research design in which all students in the school received the treatment for different durations. Students in both groups completed pre- and posttests using the Test of Creative Thinking

Fourth Graders Make Inventions Using SCAMPER and Animal Adaptation Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hussain, Mahjabeen; Carignan, Anastasia

2016-01-01

This study explores to what extent the SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Rearrange) technique combined with animal adaptation ideas learned through form and function analogy activities can help fourth graders generate creative ideas while augmenting their inventiveness. The sample consisted of 24…

Teaching for Creativity by Science Teachers in Grades 5-10

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Abdali, Nasser S.; Al-Balushi, Sulaiman M.

2016-01-01

This classroom observation study explored how science teachers (N = 22) teach for creativity in grades 5-10 in Oman. We designed an observation form with 4 main categories that targeted the instructional practices related to teaching for creativity: questioning strategy, teacher's responses to students' ideas, classroom activities to support…

Creative Visualization Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fugitt, Eva D.

1986-01-01

Presents a series of classroom exercises and activities that stimulate children's creativity through the use of visualization. Discusses procedures for guided imagery and offers some examples of "trips" to imaginary places. Proposes visualization as a warm-up exercise before art lessons. (DR)

Teaching a Course on Creativity in Counseling: Ideas for Counselor Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Allison L.

2011-01-01

The benefits of creativity in counseling have been proclaimed by authors; however, training on creativity is sparse. Some literature exists on ways to implement a course on creativity in counseling, and certain counseling programs have incorporated classes and workshops on creativity in master's-level counseling programs. Still, there has been a…

Individual Learning Styles and Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sitar, Aleša Saša; Cerne, Matej; Aleksic, Darija; Mihelic, Katarina Katja

2016-01-01

Business schools are in need of developing creative graduates. This article explores how creativity among business students can be stimulated. Because a considerable amount of knowledge is required for creative ideas to emerge, the learning process has a significant impact on creativity. This, in turn, indicates that learning style is important…

Creativity under Attack: How People's Role in Competitive Conflict Shapes Their Creative Idea Generation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Leeuwen, Wouter; Baas, Matthijs

2017-01-01

Although creativity is helpful if not needed to deal with conflicts, research on the effects of conflict on creativity shows inconsistent findings. In this study, the possibility that effects may depend on people's role in conflict was considered. Whether, when, and why assuming the role of attacker or defender in conflict affects creative idea…

Grade Level and Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alacapinar, Füsun G.

2013-01-01

Problem Statement: Creativity has been addressed by many scientists and thinkers. Among them, Guilfort regards creativity as the ability to generate new ideas, and relates it to intelligence. According to Thurstone, creativity must develop and be implemented within a theoretical framework, and a solution must result. Torrance thinks of creativity…

Playfulness, Ideas, and Creativity: A Survey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bateson, Patrick; Nettle, Daniel

2014-01-01

This article investigates whether self-reports about playfulness are related to self-reports about creativity and the alternate uses of objects. An on-line survey was conducted of how people think about themselves. One thousand, five hundred and thirty-six people completed the survey. They were asked whether a variety of statements were very…

Student Engagement in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (SERSCA) Program: Sharing a Program Model from Design and Development through Evaluation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Shawna; Uy, Ana; Bell, Joyce

2017-01-01

The Student Engagement in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (SERSCA) Program at California State University, Stanislaus provides support for student engagement in these areas from idea conception through dissemination. Through assistantships, mini-grants, the Student Research Competition, and travel grants, the Program is designed to…

Age-Related Changes in Creative Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roskos-Ewoldsen, Beverly; Black, Sheila R.; Mccown, Steven M.

2008-01-01

Age-related differences in cognitive processes were used to understand age-related declines in creativity. According to the Geneplore model (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992), there are two phases of creativity--generating an idea and exploring the implications of the idea--each with different underlying cognitive processes. These two phases are…

How to pitch a brilliant idea.

PubMed

Elsbach, Kimberly D

2003-09-01

Coming up with creative ideas is easy; selling them to strangers is hard. Entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers often go to great lengths to demonstrate how their new concepts are practical and profitable--only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don't seem to understand the value of the ideas. Why does this happen? Having studied Hollywood executives who assess screenplay pitches, the author says the person on the receiving end--the "catcher"--tends to gauge the pitcher's creativity as well as the proposal itself. An impression of the pitcher's ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow the catcher's feelings about an idea's worth. To determine whether these observations apply to business settings beyond Hollywood, the author attended product design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging new ideas. The results in those environments were similar to her observations in Hollywood, she says. Catchers subconsciously categorize successful pitchers as showrunners (smooth and professional), artists (quirky and unpolished), or neophytes (inexperienced and naive). The research also reveals that catchers tend to respond well when they believe they are participating in an idea's development. As Oscar-winning writer, director, and producer Oliver Stone puts it, screen-writers pitching an idea should "pull back and project what he needs onto your idea in order to make the story whole for him." To become a successful pitcher, portray yourself as one of the three creative types and engage your catchers in the creative process. By finding ways to give your catchers a chance to shine, you sell yourself as a likable collaborator.

Creativity and the role of the leader.

PubMed

Amabile, Teresa M; Khaire, Mukti

2008-10-01

In today's innovation-driven economy, understanding how to generate great ideas has become an urgent managerial priority. Suddenly, the spotlight has turned on the academics who've studied creativity for decades. How relevant is their research to the practical challenges leaders face? To connect theory and practice, Harvard Business School professors Amabile and Khaire convened a two-day colloquium of leading creativity scholars and executives from companies such as Google, IDEO, Novartis, Intuit, and E Ink. In this article, the authors present highlights of the research presented and the discussion of its implications. At the event, a new leadership agenda began to take shape, one rooted in the awareness that you can't manage creativity--you can only manage for creativity. A number of themes emerged: The leader's job is not to be the source of ideas but to encourage and champion ideas. Leaders must tap the imagination of employees at all ranks and ask inspiring questions. They also need to help their organizations incorporate diverse perspectives, which spur creative insights, and facilitate creative collaboration by, for instance, harnessing new technologies. The participants shared tactics for enabling discoveries, as well as thoughts on how to bring process to bear on creativity without straitjacketing it. They pointed out that process management isn't appropriate in all stages of creative work; leaders should apply it thoughtfully and manage the handoff from idea generators to commercializers deftly. The discussion also examined the need to clear paths through bureaucracy, weed out weak ideas, and maximize the organization's learning from failure. Though points of view varied, the theories and frameworks explored advance the understanding of creativity in business and offer executives a playbook for increasing innovation.

What, Why, How - Creative Activities in Occupational Therapy Practice in Sweden.

PubMed

Müllersdorf, Maria; Ivarsson, Ann-Britt

2016-12-01

Creative activities have historically been used in occupational therapy, and although their usage has declined in recent decades, they are still used in Swedish practice. The aim of this study was to better understand how occupational therapists use creative activities in practice. A web-based survey was sent to 520 occupational therapists, of which 304 (58.5%) responded. The main reason identified for using creative activities was to strengthen the client's occupational performance, well-being and self-esteem. The expected outcomes of applying creative activities were to support the client in self-expression and experiencing joy and desire. More than half of the occupational therapist respondents did not use creative activities to the extent they desired. Creative activities in occupational therapy are still used as a vital treatment to strengthen the clients' occupational performance abilities. The survey has looked at only a professional perspective on effectiveness of applying creative activities in occupational therapy. More research is needed to evaluate how occupational therapists internationally apply creative activities. There is also a need to gain information from the client's perspective on the therapeutic value of creative activities. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How to Develop Creative Imagination? Assumptions, Aims and Effectiveness of Role Play Training in Creativity (RPTC)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karwowski, Maciej; Soszynski, Marcin

2008-01-01

There are hundreds of ways to develop creativity among children, youths and adults. Developing new ideas and ways of teaching creativity should also incorporate youth's interests and hobbies. The article presents the main information about the new way of developing creative abilities, especially creative imagination, the Role Play Training in…

The Creative Pathways of Everyday Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanggaard, Lene

2015-01-01

This paper presents two studies of how the conduct of life in itself can be a creative act. Very often, creativity research is concerned with the study of what enables people to express themselves creatively or aesthetically or to produce creative ideas and products. Creativity as it arises in the mundane processes of everyday life is, however,…

Schizophrenia and creativity.

PubMed

Degmečić, Dunja

2018-06-01

Creativity is defined as an idea or product that is both novel or original and useful or adaptive. Despite the value of creativity at the personal and societal level, the tendency for creative individuals to suffer from what we would now call mental illness has been noted for thousands of years. In the mid-twentieth century, empirical evidence for the connection between creativity and psychopathology began to emerge. In this paper author brings literature review of the studies done about connection between creativity and psychopathology, as well as connection on schizofrenia and creativity. Author also point out that creating can be therapeutic for those who are already suffering from mental illness, and that creative art therapies applied in clinical and psychiatric settings report positive health-related outcomes.

Developing knowledge intensive ideas in engineering education: the application of camp methodology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heidemann Lassen, Astrid; Løwe Nielsen, Suna

2011-11-01

Background: Globalization, technological advancement, environmental problems, etc. challenge organizations not just to consider cost-effectiveness, but also to develop new ideas in order to build competitive advantages. Hence, methods to deliberately enhance creativity and facilitate its processes of development must also play a central role in engineering education. However, so far the engineering education literature provides little attention to the important discussion of how to develop knowledge intensive ideas based on creativity methods and concepts. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate how to design creative camps from which knowledge intensive ideas can unfold. Design/method/sample: A framework on integration of creativity and knowledge intensity is first developed, and then tested through the planning, execution and evaluation of a specialized creativity camp with focus on supply chain management. Detailed documentation of the learning processes of the participating 49 engineering and business students is developed through repeated interviews during the process as well as a survey. Results: The research illustrates the process of development of ideas, and how the participants through interdisciplinary collaboration, cognitive flexibility and joint ownership develop highly innovative and knowledge-intensive ideas, with direct relevance for the four companies whose problems they address. Conclusions: The article demonstrates how the creativity camp methodology holds the potential of combining advanced academic knowledge and creativity, to produce knowledge intensive ideas, when the design is based on ideas of experiential learning as well as creativity principles. This makes the method a highly relevant learning approach for engineering students in the search for skills to both develop and implement innovative ideas.

Gesture Facilitates Children's Creative Thinking.

PubMed

Kirk, Elizabeth; Lewis, Carine

2017-02-01

Gestures help people think and can help problem solvers generate new ideas. We conducted two experiments exploring the self-oriented function of gesture in a novel domain: creative thinking. In Experiment 1, we explored the relationship between children's spontaneous gesture production and their ability to generate novel uses for everyday items (alternative-uses task). There was a significant correlation between children's creative fluency and their gesture production, and the majority of children's gestures depicted an action on the target object. Restricting children from gesturing did not significantly reduce their fluency, however. In Experiment 2, we encouraged children to gesture, and this significantly boosted their generation of creative ideas. These findings demonstrate that gestures serve an important self-oriented function and can assist creative thinking.

Creative Writing in the Language Arts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ediger, Marlow

Pupils need to express themselves in creative processes and products in the language arts curriculum. Too frequently, teachers require behavior which involves conformity on the part of learners. Specific objectives many times delimit pupils' opportunities to express original ideas that come from within the involved learners. Many activities can…

Managing for creativity.

PubMed

Florida, Richard; Goodnight, Jim

2005-01-01

A company's most important asset isn't raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence. It's creative capital--simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services. Creative employees pioneer new technologies, birth new industries, and power economic growth. If you want your company to succeed, these are the people you entrust it to. But how do you accommodate the complex and chaotic nature of the creative process while increasing efficiency, improving quality, and raising productivity? Most businesses haven't figured this out. A notable exception is SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company. SAS makes Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list every year. The company has enjoyed low employee turnover, high customer satisfaction, and 28 straight years of revenue growth. What's the secret to all this success? The authors, an academic and a CEO, approach this question differently, but they've come to the same conclusion: SAS has learned how to harness the creative energies of all its stakeholders, including its customers, software developers, managers, and support staff. Its framework for managing creativity rests on three guiding principles. First, help employees do their best work by keeping them intellectually engaged and by removing distractions. Second, make managers responsible for sparking creativity and eliminate arbitrary distinctions between "suits" and "creatives". And third, engage customers as creative partners so you can deliver superior products. Underlying all three principles is a mandate to foster interaction--not just to collect individuals' ideas. By nurturing relationships among developers, salespeople, and customers, SAS is investing in its future creative capital. Within a management framework like SAS's, creativity and productivity flourish, flexibility and profitability go hand in hand, and work/life balance and hard work aren't mutually exclusive.

Neural correlates of creative thinking and schizotypy.

PubMed

Park, Haeme R P; Kirk, Ian J; Waldie, Karen E

2015-07-01

Empirical studies indicate a link between creativity and schizotypal personality traits, where individuals who score highly on schizotypy measures also display greater levels of creative behaviour. However, the exact nature of this relationship is not yet clear, with only a few studies examining this association using neuroimaging methods. In the present study, the neural substrates of creative thinking were assessed with a drawing task paradigm in healthy individuals using fMRI. These regions were then statistically correlated with the participants' level of schizotypy as measured by the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE), which is a questionnaire consisting of four dimensions. Neural activations associated with the creativity task were observed in bilateral inferior temporal gyri, left insula, left parietal lobule, right angular gyrus, as well as regions in the prefrontal cortex. This widespread pattern of activation suggests that creative thinking utilises multiple neurocognitive networks, with creative production being the result of collaboration between these regions. Furthermore, the correlational analyses found the Unusual Experiences factor of the O-LIFE to be the most common dimension associated with these areas, followed by the Impulsive Nonconformity dimension. These correlations were negative, indicating that individuals who scored the highest in these factors displayed the least amount of activation when performing the creative task. This is in line with the idea that 'less is more' for creativity, where the deactivation of specific cortical areas may facilitate creativity. Thus, these findings contribute to the evidence of a common neural basis between creativity and schizotypy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Student Technological Creativity Using Online Problem-Solving Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Yu-Shan

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of online (web-based) creative problem-solving (CPS) activities on student technological creativity and to examine the characteristics of student creativity in the context of online CPS. A pretest-posttest quasi-experiment was conducted with 107 fourth-grade students in Taiwan. The…

The Point of Creative Frustration and the Creative Process: A New Look at an Old Model.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sapp, D. David

1992-01-01

This paper offers an extension of Graham Wallas' model of the creative process. It identifies periods of problem solving, incubation, and growth with specific points of initial idea inception, creative frustration, and illumination. Responses to creative frustration are described including denial, rationalization, acceptance of stagnation, and new…

Facilitative Effects of Practice upon Nonverbal Creativity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roweton, William E.; Spencer, Herbert L., Jr.

Numerous studies of verbal creativity indicate that idea originality increases progressively as more ideas are produced. The present study tested the effects of practice upon nonverbal creativity. Thirty-two fifth grade children were administered Form A and/or Form B of Torrance's picture completion task for 5 consecutive days. Figural originality…

Creativity, Problem Solving and Innovative Science: Insights from History, Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aldous, Carol R.

2007-01-01

This paper examines the intersection between creativity, problem solving, cognitive psychology and neuroscience in a discussion surrounding the genesis of new ideas and innovative science. Three creative activities are considered. These are (a) the interaction between visual-spatial and analytical or verbal reasoning, (b) attending to feeling in…

Enhancement of figural creativity by motor activation: effects of unilateral hand contractions on creativity are moderated by positive schizotypy.

PubMed

Rominger, Christian; Papousek, Ilona; Fink, Andreas; Weiss, Elisabeth M

2014-01-01

Creativity is an important trait necessary to achieve innovations in science, economy, arts and daily life. Therefore, the enhancement of creative performance is a significant field of investigation. A recent experiment showed enhanced verbal creativity after unilateral left-hand contractions, which was attributed to elevated activation of the right hemisphere. The present study aimed to extend these findings to the domain of figural creativity. Furthermore, as creativity and positive schizotypy may share some neurobiological underpinnings associated with the right hemisphere, we studied the potential moderating effect of positive schizotypy on the effects of the experimental modification of relative hemispheric activation on creativity. In a gender-balanced sample (20 men and 20 women), squeezing a hand gripper with the left hand enhanced figural creativity on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking compared to squeezing the gripper with the right hand. However, this was only true when positive schizotypy was low. The moderating effect of schizotypy may be produced by relatively greater activity of certain parts of the right hemisphere being a shared neuronal correlate of creativity and positive schizotypy.

Children's Creativity in Day Care

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reunamo, Jyrki; Lee, Hui-Chun; Wang, Li-Chen; Ruokonen, Inkeri; Nikkola, Teemu; Malmstrom, Sanna

2014-01-01

In this research, children's creativity in pretend play and the conditions for creativity during high involvement are studied from four points of view: as a zone for proximal development, as a skill, as a personal orientation and as a culturally shared environment creation. The theoretical model is influenced by Vygotsky's ideas of creativity as…

Training creative cognition: adolescence as a flexible period for improving creativity

PubMed Central

Stevenson, Claire E.; Kleibeuker, Sietske W.; de Dreu, Carsten K. W.; Crone, Eveline A.

2014-01-01

Creativity commonly refers to the ability to generate ideas, solutions, or insights that are novel yet feasible. The ability to generate creative ideas appears to develop and change from childhood to adulthood. Prior research, although inconsistent, generally indicates that adults perform better than adolescents on the alternative uses task (AUT), a commonly used index of creative ideation. The focus of this study was whether performance could be improved by practicing alternative uses generation. We examined the effectiveness of creative ideation training in adolescents (13–16 years, N = 71) and adults (23–30 years, N = 61). Participants followed one of three types of training, each comprising eight 20-min practice sessions within 2 week time: (1) alternative uses generation (experimental condition: creative ideation); (2) object characteristic generation (control condition: general ideation); (3) rule-switching (control condition: rule-switching). Progression in fluency, flexibility, originality of creative ideation was compared between age-groups and training conditions. Participants improved in creative ideation and cognitive flexibility, but not in general ideation. Participants in all three training conditions became better in fluency and originality on the AUT. With regard to originality, adolescents benefitted more from training than adults, although this was not specific for the creative ideation training condition. These results are interpreted in relation to (a) the different underlying processes targeted in the three conditions and (b) developmental differences in brain plasticity with increased sensitivity to training in adolescents. In sum, the results show that improvement can be made in creative ideation and supports the hypothesis that adolescence is a developmental stage of increased flexibility optimized for learning and explorative behavior. PMID:25400565

Creative Experiences for Young Children. Third Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chenfeld, Mimi Brodsky

Noting that a creative approach to early childhood education allows teachers to reinforce the foundation of achievement by encouraging and expanding upon children's play activities, this book provides teacher-developed ideas and strategies for creating learning communities in the early childhood classroom. The beginning chapter introduces creative…

The Improvement of Children's Creativity through Korean Picture Books.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cho, Boo-Kyung; Kim, Jeongjun

1999-01-01

Examines how one Korean kindergarten used picture books to facilitate children's creativity. Describes students' responses to literature-based science activities related to a picture book. Concludes that good picture books can unleash children's minds from conventional science activities and that the development of the children's ideas depended on…

Psychological and Pedagogic Conditions of Activating Creative Activity in Students for Successful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abykanova, Bakytgul; Bilyalova, Zhupar; Makhatova, Valentina; Idrissov, Salamat; Nugumanov, Samal

2016-01-01

Creative activity of a pedagogic process subject depends on the pedagogue's position, on his faith in the abilities to learn successfully, on encouragement of achievements, stimulating the initiative and activity. Successful learning by activating creative activity is possible with the presence of respectful attitude towards the pedagogic process…

The "Creative Right Brain" Revisited: Individual Creativity and Associative Priming in the Right Hemisphere Relate to Hemispheric Asymmetries in Reward Brain Function.

PubMed

Aberg, Kristoffer Carl; Doell, Kimberly C; Schwartz, Sophie

2017-10-01

The idea that creativity resides in the right cerebral hemisphere is persistent in popular science, but has been widely frowned upon by the scientific community due to little empirical support. Yet, creativity is believed to rely on the ability to combine remote concepts into novel and useful ideas, an ability which would depend on associative processing in the right hemisphere. Moreover, associative processing is modulated by dopamine, and asymmetries in dopamine functionality between hemispheres may imbalance the expression of their implemented cognitive functions. Here, by uniting these largely disconnected concepts, we hypothesize that relatively less dopamine function in the right hemisphere boosts creativity by releasing constraining effects of dopamine on remote associations. Indeed, participants with reduced neural responses in the dopaminergic system of the right hemisphere (estimated by functional MRI in a reward task with positive and negative feedback), displayed higher creativity (estimated by convergent and divergent tasks), and increased associative processing in the right hemisphere (estimated by a lateralized lexical decision task). Our findings offer unprecedented empirical support for a crucial and specific contribution of the right hemisphere to creativity. More importantly our study provides a comprehensive view on potential determinants of human creativity, namely dopamine-related activity and associative processing. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simonton, Dean Keith

This study of creative genius argues that creativity can best be understood as a Darwinian process of variation and selection. The artist or scientist generates a wealth of ideas, and then subjects these ideas to aesthetic or scientific judgment, selecting only those that have the best chance to survive and reproduce. The book draws on the latest…

Creativity and Insight in Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Golnabi, Laura

2016-01-01

This paper analyzes the thought process involved in problem solving and its categorization as creative thinking as defined by psychologist R. Weisberg (2006). Additionally, the notion of insight, sometimes present in unconscious creative thinking and often leading to creative ideas, is discussed in the context of geometry problem solving. In…

Epilepsy treatment and creativity.

PubMed

Zubkov, Sarah; Friedman, Daniel

2016-04-01

Creativity can be defined as the ability to understand, develop, and express, in a systematic fashion, novel orderly relationships. It is sometimes difficult to separate cognitive skills requisite for the creative process from the drive that generates unique new ideas and associations. Epilepsy itself may affect the creative process. The treatment of epilepsy and its comorbidities, by altering or disrupting the same neural networks through antiseizure drugs (ASDs), treatment of epilepsy comorbidities, ablative surgery, or neurostimulation may also affect creativity. In this review, we discuss the potential mechanisms by which treatment can influence the creative process and review the literature on the consequences of therapy on different aspects of creativity in people with epilepsy. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Epilepsy, Art, and Creativity". Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Creativity and Creative Teams

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wood, Richard M.; Bauer, Steven X. S.; Hunter, Craig A.

2001-01-01

A review of the linkage between knowledge, creativity, and design is presented and related to the best practices of multidisciplinary design teams. The discussion related to design and design teams is presented in the context of both the complete aerodynamic design community and specifically the work environment at the NASA Langley Research Center. To explore ways to introduce knowledge and creativity into the research and design environment at NASA Langley Research Center a creative design activity was executed within the context of a national product development activity. The success of the creative design team activity gave rise to a need to communicate the experience in a straightforward and managed approach. As a result the concept of creative potential its formulated and assessed with a survey of a small portion of the aeronautics research staff at NASA Langley Research Center. The final section of the paper provides recommendations for future creative organizations and work environments.

The Assessment of Creativity: An Investment-Based Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sternberg, Robert J.

2012-01-01

In this article, I review ideas about creativity and its assessment. I open with some general remarks on the nature of creativity. Then I present the investment theory of creativity. Then I describe prompts my colleagues and I have used to measure creativity. Next I describe some of the assessments we have used to measure creativity. The ultimate…

Frontopolar activity and connectivity support dynamic conscious augmentation of creative state.

PubMed

Green, Adam E; Cohen, Michael S; Raab, Hillary A; Yedibalian, Christopher G; Gray, Jeremy R

2015-03-01

No ability is more valued in the modern innovation-fueled economy than thinking creatively on demand, and the "thinking cap" capacity to augment state creativity (i.e., to try and succeed at thinking more creatively) is of broad importance for education and a rich mental life. Although brain-based creativity research has focused on static individual differences in trait creativity, less is known about changes in creative state within an individual. How does the brain augment state creativity when creative thinking is required? Can augmented creative state be consciously engaged and disengaged dynamically across time? Using a novel "thin slice" creativity paradigm in 55 fMRI participants performing verb-generation, we successfully cued large, conscious, short-duration increases in state creativity, indexed quantitatively by a measure of semantic distance derived via latent semantic analysis. A region of left frontopolar cortex, previously associated with creative integration of semantic information, exhibited increased activity and functional connectivity to anterior cingulate gyrus and right frontopolar cortex during cued augmentation of state creativity. Individual differences in the extent of increased activity in this region predicted individual differences in the extent to which participants were able to successfully augment state creative performance after accounting for trait creativity and intelligence. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Creative Writing and Schiller's Aesthetic Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howarth, Peter

2007-01-01

For academics committed to the idea of an all-round aesthetic education, one of the great successes of the last thirty years has been the tremendous expansion of creative writing classes. Despite the dramatic expansion of creative writing as an academic discipline, the methods, ideals, and values of creative writing workshops have very often been…

Creativity and the default network: A functional connectivity analysis of the creative brain at rest☆

PubMed Central

Beaty, Roger E.; Benedek, Mathias; Wilkins, Robin W.; Jauk, Emanuel; Fink, Andreas; Silvia, Paul J.; Hodges, Donald A.; Koschutnig, Karl; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2014-01-01

The present research used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether the ability to generate creative ideas corresponds to differences in the intrinsic organization of functional networks in the brain. We examined the functional connectivity between regions commonly implicated in neuroimaging studies of divergent thinking, including the inferior prefrontal cortex and the core hubs of the default network. Participants were prescreened on a battery of divergent thinking tests and assigned to high- and low-creative groups based on task performance. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis revealed greater connectivity between the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the entire default mode network in the high-creative group. The right IFG also showed greater functional connectivity with bilateral inferior parietal cortex and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the high-creative group. The results suggest that the ability to generate creative ideas is characterized by increased functional connectivity between the inferior prefrontal cortex and the default network, pointing to a greater cooperation between brain regions associated with cognitive control and low-level imaginative processes. PMID:25245940

Nurturing Creative, Thinking Engineers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goel, Sanjay

2011-01-01

This paper describes some ideas and experiences with training student engineers in creativity and critical thinking. In our survey, a large majority (82%) of respondents felt that as compared to all other kind of academic engagements, their projects had contributed most to develop their creativity. About 50% had also felt that their projects were…

School Mathematics as a Creative Enterprise

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sternberg, Robert J.

2017-01-01

In this article, I discuss how teaching of mathematics can develop and encourage creative thinking, not only in mathematics, but also in general. I begin by discussing creativity as a habit that teachers can help students develop. Then I briefly present the investment theory of creativity. The basic idea of the investment theory is that creative…

Activities and Accomplishments in Various Domains: Relationships with Creative Personality and Creative Motivation in Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Eunsook; Peng, Yun; O'Neil, Harold F., Jr.

2014-01-01

This study examined relationships between five personal traits and adolescents' creative activities and accomplishments in five domains--music, visual arts, creative writing, science, and technology. Participants were 439 tenth graders (220 males and 219 females) in China. The relationships were examined using confirmatory factor analysis.…

Creativity and Collaborative Learning and Teaching Strategies in the Design Disciplines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turnbull, Morag; Littlejohn, Allison; Allan, Malcolm

2010-01-01

Creativity can be described as the ability to generate new ideas and combine existing ideas in new ways to find novel solutions to problems. Creativity is enhanced by a free flow of knowledge and through social contact. On this basis, the authors argue that knowledge sharing is central to creativity in design and present preliminary evidence to…

Creative conceptual expansion: A combined fMRI replication and extension study to examine individual differences in creativity.

PubMed

Abraham, Anna; Rutter, Barbara; Bantin, Trisha; Hermann, Christiane

2018-05-05

The aims of this fMRI study were two-fold. The first objective of the study was to verify whether the findings associated with a previous fMRI study could be replicated in which a novel event-related experimental design was developed which rendered it possible to investigate the brain basis of creative conceptual expansion. The ability to widen the boundaries of conceptual structures is integral to creative idea generation, which makes conceptual expansion a core component of creative cognition. Creative conceptual expansion led to the engagement of brain regions that are known to be involved in the access, storage and relational integration of conceptual knowledge in the original study. These included the anterior inferior frontal gyrus, the temporal poles and the lateral frontal pole. These findings in relation to the brain basis of creative conceptual expansion were replicated in the current study. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the brain basis of individual differences in creative conceptual expansion. The high creative group relative to the low creative group was shown to exhibit greater activity in regions of the semantic cognition network as well as the salience network during creative conceptual expansion. The findings are discussed from the point of view of classical hypotheses about information processing biases that explain individual differences in creativity including flat associative hierarchies, defocused attention and cognitive disinhibition. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mind Sparklers. Fireworks for Igniting Creativity in Young Minds. Book 2 for Grades 4-8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Myers, Robert E.

The activities in this book were designed to encourage students to perceive what is going on around them, to be both receptive to and critical of the ideas of others, to analyze problems, to elaborate upon ideas, to explore possibilities, and to see relationships. The activities call for all 18 of E. Paul Torrance's creative thinking abilities.…

Level of Student's Creative Thinking in Classroom Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siswono, Tatag Yuli Eko

2011-01-01

It is reasonable to assume that people are creative, but the degree of creativity is different. The Idea of the level of student's creative thinking has been expressed by experts, such as Gotoh (2004), and Krulik and Rudnick (1999). The perspective of the mathematics creative thinking refers to a combination of logical and divergent thinking which…

Interdisciplinary Invigoration of Creativity Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ambrose, Don

2017-01-01

The forces of globalization are magnifying the importance of interdisciplinary creative work. While the field of creativity studies always has been more open to interdisciplinary idea borrowing than many other fields, it can and should do more interdisciplinary synthesizing. This article begins with a discussion of the rationale for encouraging…

Role of Frontal Alpha Oscillations in Creativity

PubMed Central

Lustenberger, Caroline; Boyle, Michael R.; Foulser, A. Alban; Mellin, Juliann M.; Fröhlich, Flavio

2015-01-01

Creativity, the ability to produce innovative ideas, is a key higher-order cognitive function that is poorly understood. At the level of macroscopic cortical network dynamics, recent EEG data suggests that cortical oscillations in the alpha frequency band (8 – 12 Hz) are correlated with creative thinking. However, whether alpha oscillations play a fundamental role in creativity has remained unknown. Here we show that creativity is increased by enhancing alpha power using 10 Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (10Hz-tACS) of the frontal cortex. In a study of 20 healthy participants with a randomized, balanced cross-over design, we found a significant improvement of 7.4% in the Creativity Index measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, a comprehensive and most frequently used assay of creative potential and strengths. In a second similar study with 20 subjects, 40Hz-tACS was used in instead of 10Hz-tACS to rule out a general “electrical stimulation” effect. No significant change in the Creativity Index was found for such frontal gamma stimulation. Our results suggest that alpha activity in frontal brain areas is selectively involved in creativity; this enhancement represents the first demonstration of specific neuronal dynamics that drive creativity and can be modulated by non-invasive brain stimulation. Our findings agree with the model that alpha recruitment increases with internal processing demands and is involved in inhibitory top-down control, which is an important requirement for creative ideation. PMID:25913062

The Role of Intuition in the Generation and Evaluation Stages of Creativity

PubMed Central

Pétervári, Judit; Osman, Magda; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2016-01-01

Both intuition and creativity are associated with knowledge creation, yet a clear link between them has not been adequately established. First, the available empirical evidence for an underlying relationship between intuition and creativity is sparse in nature. Further, this evidence is arguable as the concepts are diversely operationalized and the measures adopted are often not validated sufficiently. Combined, these issues make the findings from various studies examining the link between intuition and creativity difficult to replicate. Nevertheless, the role of intuition in creativity should not be neglected as it is often reported to be a core component of the idea generation process, which in conjunction with idea evaluation are crucial phases of creative cognition. We review the prior research findings in respect of idea generation and idea evaluation from the view that intuition can be construed as the gradual accumulation of cues to coherence. Thus, we summarize the literature on what role intuitive processes play in the main stages of the creative problem-solving process and outline a conceptual framework of the interaction between intuition and creativity. Finally, we discuss the main challenges of measuring intuition as well as possible directions for future research. PMID:27703439

Student’s Entrepreneur Model Development in Creative Industry through Utilization of Web Development Software and Educational Game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hasan, B.; Hasbullah, H.; Elvyanti, S.; Purnama, W.

2018-02-01

The creative industry is the utilization of creativity, skill and talent of individuals to create wealth and jobs by generating and exploiting creativity power of individual. In the field of design, utilization of information technology can spur creative industry, development of creative industry design will accommodate a lot of creative energy that can pour their ideas and creativity without limitations. Open Source software is a trend in the field of information technology has developed since the 1990s. Examples of applications developed by the Open Source approach is the Apache web services, Linux and Android Operating System, the MySQL database. This community service activities based entrepreneurship aims to: 1). give an idea about the profile of the UPI student’s knowledge of entrepreneurship about the business based creative industries in software by using web software development and educational game 2) create a model for fostering entrepreneurship based on the creative industries in software by leveraging web development and educational games, 3) conduct training and guidance on UPI students who want to develop business in the field of creative industries engaged in the software industry . PKM-based entrepreneurship activity was attended by about 35 students DPTE FPTK UPI had entrepreneurial high interest and competence in information technology. Outcome generated from PKM entrepreneurship is the emergence of entrepreneurs from the students who are interested in the creative industry in the field of software which is able to open up business opportunities for themselves and others. Another outcome of this entrepreneurship PKM activity is the publication of articles or scientific publications in journals of national/international indexed.

Creative Activities in Music--A Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis.

PubMed

Oikkonen, Jaana; Kuusi, Tuire; Peltonen, Petri; Raijas, Pirre; Ukkola-Vuoti, Liisa; Karma, Kai; Onkamo, Päivi; Järvelä, Irma

2016-01-01

Creative activities in music represent a complex cognitive function of the human brain, whose biological basis is largely unknown. In order to elucidate the biological background of creative activities in music we performed genome-wide linkage and linkage disequilibrium (LD) scans in musically experienced individuals characterised for self-reported composing, arranging and non-music related creativity. The participants consisted of 474 individuals from 79 families, and 103 sporadic individuals. We found promising evidence for linkage at 16p12.1-q12.1 for arranging (LOD 2.75, 120 cases), 4q22.1 for composing (LOD 2.15, 103 cases) and Xp11.23 for non-music related creativity (LOD 2.50, 259 cases). Surprisingly, statistically significant evidence for linkage was found for the opposite phenotype of creative activity in music (neither composing nor arranging; NCNA) at 18q21 (LOD 3.09, 149 cases), which contains cadherin genes like CDH7 and CDH19. The locus at 4q22.1 overlaps the previously identified region of musical aptitude, music perception and performance giving further support for this region as a candidate region for broad range of music-related traits. The other regions at 18q21 and 16p12.1-q12.1 are also adjacent to the previously identified loci with musical aptitude. Pathway analysis of the genes suggestively associated with composing suggested an overrepresentation of the cerebellar long-term depression pathway (LTD), which is a cellular model for synaptic plasticity. The LTD also includes cadherins and AMPA receptors, whose component GSG1L was linked to arranging. These results suggest that molecular pathways linked to memory and learning via LTD affect music-related creative behaviour. Musical creativity is a complex phenotype where a common background with musicality and intelligence has been proposed. Here, we implicate genetic regions affecting music-related creative behaviour, which also include genes with neuropsychiatric associations. We also propose

Creativity and the default network: A functional connectivity analysis of the creative brain at rest.

PubMed

Beaty, Roger E; Benedek, Mathias; Wilkins, Robin W; Jauk, Emanuel; Fink, Andreas; Silvia, Paul J; Hodges, Donald A; Koschutnig, Karl; Neubauer, Aljoscha C

2014-11-01

The present research used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether the ability to generate creative ideas corresponds to differences in the intrinsic organization of functional networks in the brain. We examined the functional connectivity between regions commonly implicated in neuroimaging studies of divergent thinking, including the inferior prefrontal cortex and the core hubs of the default network. Participants were prescreened on a battery of divergent thinking tests and assigned to high- and low-creative groups based on task performance. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis revealed greater connectivity between the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the entire default mode network in the high-creative group. The right IFG also showed greater functional connectivity with bilateral inferior parietal cortex and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the high-creative group. The results suggest that the ability to generate creative ideas is characterized by increased functional connectivity between the inferior prefrontal cortex and the default network, pointing to a greater cooperation between brain regions associated with cognitive control and low-level imaginative processes. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Associative Algorithms for Computational Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Varshney, Lav R.; Wang, Jun; Varshney, Kush R.

2016-01-01

Computational creativity, the generation of new, unimagined ideas or artifacts by a machine that are deemed creative by people, can be applied in the culinary domain to create novel and flavorful dishes. In fact, we have done so successfully using a combinatorial algorithm for recipe generation combined with statistical models for recipe ranking…

No Idea? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Creativity Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birdi, Kamal S.

2005-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate the long-term impact of three types of creativity training workshops conducted within an organization and contrast the influence of training compared with work environment factors in influencing employee innovation. Design/methodology/approach: A follow-up questionnaire was returned by 71 employees who had taken part in the…

Mathematical Thinking and Creativity through Mathematical Problem Posing and Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ayllón, María F.; Gómez, Isabel A.; Ballesta-Claver, Julio

2016-01-01

This work shows the relationship between the development of mathematical thinking and creativity with mathematical problem posing and solving. Creativity and mathematics are disciplines that do not usually appear together. Both concepts constitute complex processes sharing elements, such as fluency (number of ideas), flexibility (range of ideas),…

Looking for Creativity: Where Do We Look When We Look for New Ideas?

PubMed Central

Salvi, Carola; Bowden, Edward M.

2016-01-01

Recent work using the eye movement monitoring technique has demonstrated that when people are engaged in thought they tend to disengage from the external world by blinking or fixating on an empty portion of the visual field, such as a blank wall, or out the window at the sky. This ‘looking at nothing’ behavior has been observed during thinking that does not explicitly involve visual imagery (mind wandering, insight in problem solving, memory encoding and search) and it is associated with reduced analysis of the external visual environment. Thus, it appears to indicate (and likely facilitate) a shift of attention from external to internal stimuli that benefits creativity and problem solving by reducing the cognitive load and enhancing attention to internally evolving activation. We briefly mention some possible reasons to collect eye movement data in future studies of creativity. PMID:26913018

A Gender Bias in the Attribution of Creativity: Archival and Experimental Evidence for the Perceived Association Between Masculinity and Creative Thinking.

PubMed

Proudfoot, Devon; Kay, Aaron C; Koval, Christy Z

2015-11-01

We propose that the propensity to think creatively tends to be associated with independence and self-direction-qualities generally ascribed to men-so that men are often perceived to be more creative than women. In two experiments, we found that "outside the box" creativity is more strongly associated with stereotypically masculine characteristics (e.g., daring and self-reliance) than with stereotypically feminine characteristics (e.g., cooperativeness and supportiveness; Study 1) and that a man is ascribed more creativity than a woman when they produce identical output (Study 2). Analyzing archival data, we found that men's ideas are evaluated as more ingenious than women's ideas (Study 3) and that female executives are stereotyped as less innovative than their male counterparts when evaluated by their supervisors (Study 4). Finally, we observed that stereotypically masculine behavior enhances a man's perceived creativity, whereas identical behavior does not enhance a woman's perceived creativity (Study 5). This boost in men's perceived creativity is mediated by attributions of agency, not competence, and predicts perceptions of reward deservingness. © The Author(s) 2015.

Ideas for Directors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Child Care Information Exchange, 1987

1987-01-01

Presents child care center directors with a variety of relevant management ideas from business and the child care field. They include translating employee body language; leadership myths; on-the-job teacher training; undesirable bosses; wasting employee talent; voicing disagreement; employee anger; encouraging creativity; and coping with late…

Pushing photonic ideas into innovation through crowdfunding

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sumriddetchkajorn, Sarun

2015-07-01

It is known today that crowdfunding is a very popular approach that simultaneously assists in rapidly disseminating creative ideas, performing worldwide market survey, getting the fund, and eventually starting the business. Hence, this article highlights some of the photonics-related ideas that are explored through the promising crowdfunding approach. These include microlenses for mobile devices, specially designed lenses for helmets and solar cells, three-dimensional optical scanners, optical spectrometers, and surface plasmon resonance-based optical sensors. Most of them looks simple and yet are very creative backing up with interesting stories behind them to persuade the target customers to participate.

Rostral and caudal prefrontal contribution to creativity: a meta-analysis of functional imaging data

PubMed Central

Gonen-Yaacovi, Gil; de Souza, Leonardo Cruz; Levy, Richard; Urbanski, Marika; Josse, Goulven; Volle, Emmanuelle

2013-01-01

Creativity is of central importance for human civilization, yet its neurocognitive bases are poorly understood. The aim of the present study was to integrate existing functional imaging data by using the meta-analysis approach. We reviewed 34 functional imaging studies that reported activation foci during tasks assumed to engage creative thinking in healthy adults. A coordinate-based meta-analysis using Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) first showed a set of predominantly left-hemispheric regions shared by the various creativity tasks examined. These regions included the caudal lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), the medial and lateral rostral PFC, and the inferior parietal and posterior temporal cortices. Further analyses showed that tasks involving the combination of remote information (combination tasks) activated more anterior areas of the lateral PFC than tasks involving the free generation of unusual responses (unusual generation tasks), although both types of tasks shared caudal prefrontal areas. In addition, verbal and non-verbal tasks involved the same regions in the left caudal prefrontal, temporal, and parietal areas, but also distinct domain-oriented areas. Taken together, these findings suggest that several frontal and parieto-temporal regions may support cognitive processes shared by diverse creativity tasks, and that some regions may be specialized for distinct types of processes. In particular, the lateral PFC appeared to be organized along a rostro-caudal axis, with rostral regions involved in combining ideas creatively and more posterior regions involved in freely generating novel ideas. PMID:23966927

Intrinsic Motivation, Organizational Justice, and Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hannam, Kalli; Narayan, Anupama

2015-01-01

For employees to generate creative ideas that are not only original, but also useful to their company, they must interact with their workplace environment to determine organizational needs. Therefore, it is important to consider aspects of the individual as well as their environment when studying creativity. Intrinsic motivation, a predictor of…

Piano Playing Reduces Stress More than Other Creative Art Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toyoshima, Kumiko; Fukui, Hajime; Kuda, Kiyoto

2011-01-01

Few studies have been conducted on the physiological effects of creative art activities. In this study, the effects of creative art activities on human stress were investigated, and their effects were compared in 57 healthy college students (27 males and 30 females). Subjects were divided into four groups, each of which participated in 30-minute…

Ideas in Practice. Nuturing Creativity in a Measurements Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neal, James P.

1972-01-01

Describes the conduct of a one-semester laboratory course for electrical engineering sophomores through the use of rack-mounted instruments and printed circuits. Concluded there was greater student and instructor interest and creativity in both lectures and laboratory. (CC)

Creativity and innovation by empowering the customer: The case of Mulino Bianco. Part I: Organisational innovation context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bujor, A.; Avasilcăi, S.

2015-11-01

The terms of creativity, co-creation, creative industries, innovation, and coinnovation are more and more used nowadays. While co-creation offers the possibility and encourages a more active involvement from the customers to create value rich experiences, innovation is responsible for the little improvements made for a better life, to grow a business, to improve products, services or company's productivity. Either customers, current and potential, or stakeholders’ involvement into innovation activities, through their creativity, represent an important way of value creation, of actions’ performance that increases the worth of goods, services, or business as a whole. More and more, different size businesses gather ideas for innovation from customers / stakeholders through their involvement into the early stages of the innovation process. Actually, it has been shown that their ideas sketch their needs and wishes, and have been described as “need information”. Customers and stakeholders, in general, also offer ideas that have been called “solution information”, which represents, not only need information, but also customer-based proposals that describe how ideas can be transformed into marketable products. The term of creative industries refers to those goods that can technically be reproduced, industrially produced, and commercially sold, this being one of the many definitions found in the literature. The classification of creative industries differs at the European Union level according to each country's development level and opening towards these industries’ perception as an engine for economic growth. To better explore and identify the importance of innovation and creativity for new products’ development or improvement a case study about Mulino Bianco was done. This methodology approach represents a part of a qualitative research approach within a broader research undertaken within the framework of the National Research Program PN II. Mulino Bianco

Teaching for Creativity: Towards Sustainable and Replicable Pedagogical Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McWilliam, Erica; Dawson, Shane

2008-01-01

This article explores the pedagogical significance of recent shifts in scholarly attention away from first generation and towards second generation understandings of creativity. First generation or big "C" creativity locates the creative enterprise as a complex set of behaviours and ideas exhibited by an individual, while second generation or…

Creative Activities in Music – A Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis

PubMed Central

Oikkonen, Jaana; Kuusi, Tuire; Peltonen, Petri; Raijas, Pirre; Ukkola-Vuoti, Liisa; Karma, Kai; Onkamo, Päivi; Järvelä, Irma

2016-01-01

Creative activities in music represent a complex cognitive function of the human brain, whose biological basis is largely unknown. In order to elucidate the biological background of creative activities in music we performed genome-wide linkage and linkage disequilibrium (LD) scans in musically experienced individuals characterised for self-reported composing, arranging and non-music related creativity. The participants consisted of 474 individuals from 79 families, and 103 sporadic individuals. We found promising evidence for linkage at 16p12.1-q12.1 for arranging (LOD 2.75, 120 cases), 4q22.1 for composing (LOD 2.15, 103 cases) and Xp11.23 for non-music related creativity (LOD 2.50, 259 cases). Surprisingly, statistically significant evidence for linkage was found for the opposite phenotype of creative activity in music (neither composing nor arranging; NCNA) at 18q21 (LOD 3.09, 149 cases), which contains cadherin genes like CDH7 and CDH19. The locus at 4q22.1 overlaps the previously identified region of musical aptitude, music perception and performance giving further support for this region as a candidate region for broad range of music-related traits. The other regions at 18q21 and 16p12.1-q12.1 are also adjacent to the previously identified loci with musical aptitude. Pathway analysis of the genes suggestively associated with composing suggested an overrepresentation of the cerebellar long-term depression pathway (LTD), which is a cellular model for synaptic plasticity. The LTD also includes cadherins and AMPA receptors, whose component GSG1L was linked to arranging. These results suggest that molecular pathways linked to memory and learning via LTD affect music-related creative behaviour. Musical creativity is a complex phenotype where a common background with musicality and intelligence has been proposed. Here, we implicate genetic regions affecting music-related creative behaviour, which also include genes with neuropsychiatric associations. We also propose

Preservice Teachers' Personality Traits and Engagement in Creative Activities as Predictors of Their Support for Children's Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Il Rang; Kemple, Kristen

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among preservice teachers' personality traits, their own engagement in creative activities, and their beliefs about the teaching practices that have been shown to support children's creativity. A total of 302 early childhood and elementary preservice teachers participated in this study. The…

Fostering Students' Creativity through Van Hiele's 5 Phase-Based Tangram Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siew, Nyet Moi; Chong, Chin Lu

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine whether Van Hiele's 5 phase-based tangrams activities could help to foster creativity among Grade Three primary school students. Students' creativity was investigated in terms of Torrance's Figural Test of creative thinking: Fluency, Originality, Elaboration, Abstractness of title, and Resistance to a…

Exploring Collective Mathematical Creativity in Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levenson, Esther

2011-01-01

This study combines theories related to collective learning and theories related to mathematical creativity to investigate the notion of collective mathematical creativity in elementary school classrooms. Collective learning takes place when mathematical ideas and actions, initially stemming from an individual, are built upon and reworked,…

Cultivating creativity in conservation science.

PubMed

Aslan, Clare E; Pinsky, Malin L; Ryan, Maureen E; Souther, Sara; Terrell, Kimberly A

2014-04-01

Conservation practitioners and scientists are often faced with seemingly intractable problems in which traditional approaches fail. While other sectors (e.g., business) frequently emphasize creative thinking to overcome complex challenges, creativity is rarely identified as an essential skill for conservationists. Yet more creative approaches are urgently needed in the effort to sustain Earth's biodiversity. We identified 4 strategies to develop skills in creative thinking and discuss underlying research and examples supporting each strategy. First, by breaking down barriers between disciplines and surrounding oneself with unfamiliar people, concepts, and perspectives, one can expand base knowledge and experiences and increase the potential for new combinations of ideas. Second, by meeting people where they are (both literally and figuratively), one exposes oneself to new environments and perspectives, which again broadens experiences and increases ability to communicate effectively with stakeholders. Third, by embracing risk responsibly, one is more likely to develop new, nontraditional solutions and be open to high-impact outcomes. Finally, by following a cycle of learning, struggle, and reflection, one can trigger neurophysiological changes that allow the brain to become more creative. Creativity is a learned trait, rather than an innate skill. It can be actively developed at both the individual and institutional levels, and learning to navigate the relevant social and practical barriers is key to the process. To maximize the success of conservation in the face of escalating challenges, one must take advantage of what has been learned from other disciplines and foster creativity as both a professional skill and an essential component of career training and individual development. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

From Rhetoric to Reality: Designing Activities to Foster Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cropley, David H.

2014-01-01

As teachers strive to make sense of and implement knowledge of creativity that is available from the research community, school librarians are called upon to help turn rhetoric into reality. Developing the creativity habit is far more meaningful and effective if the classroom activity is representative of the real-world problem-solving process.…

Functional role of frontal alpha oscillations in creativity.

PubMed

Lustenberger, Caroline; Boyle, Michael R; Foulser, A Alban; Mellin, Juliann M; Fröhlich, Flavio

2015-06-01

Creativity, the ability to produce innovative ideas, is a key higher-order cognitive function that is poorly understood. At the level of macroscopic cortical network dynamics, recent electroencephalography (EEG) data suggests that cortical oscillations in the alpha frequency band (8-12 Hz) are correlated with creative thinking. However, whether alpha oscillations play a functional role in creativity has remained unknown. Here we show that creativity is increased by enhancing alpha power using 10 Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (10 Hz-tACS) of the frontal cortex. In a study of 20 healthy participants with a randomized, balanced cross-over design, we found a significant improvement of 7.4% in the Creativity Index measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a comprehensive and most frequently used assay of creative potential and strengths. In a second similar study with 20 subjects, 40 Hz-tACS was used instead of 10 Hz-tACS to rule out a general "electrical stimulation" effect. No significant change in the Creativity Index was found for such frontal 40 Hz stimulation. Our results suggest that alpha activity in frontal brain areas is selectively involved in creativity; this enhancement represents the first demonstration of specific neuronal dynamics that drive creativity and can be modulated by non-invasive brain stimulation. Our findings agree with the model that alpha recruitment increases with internal processing demands and is involved in inhibitory top-down control, which is an important requirement for creative ideation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Beyond the cliff of creativity: a novel key to Bipolar Disorder and creativity.

PubMed

Ricciardiello, Luciana; Fornaro, Pantaleo

2013-05-01

How brain processes translate into creativity is still an unsolved puzzle in science. Although a number of conceptual models of creativity has been proposed to date, the exact nature of the process is still unknown. Recent findings support the idea that creativity may reside upon a continuum with psychopathology. If creativity is meant as "the capability of generating novel and appropriate ideas to solve problems", the missing pieces of the puzzle might be nested in the link between creativity and Bipolar Disorder. The existence of such a link is widely accepted by the Scientific Community. What still remains unknown is the nature of this link. An unconventional perspective is adopted during the investigation. Starting from the observation that depression in Bipolar Disorder might possibly trace back to ancient survival strategies in extreme climatic conditions - i.e. hibernation - the paper analyses old and recent findings in different disciplines: paleo-anthropology, information technology, neurobiology. Hints from the related research fields are linked together. The unified framework that emerges, still as a set of hypotheses, is reported in the conclusions. A novel key of interpretation of both creativity and Bipolar Disorder is thus provided. The core result is that normal people, creative individuals and patients affected by Bipolar Disorder share the same mind mechanism for problem-solving. The mechanism consists of two specific components, which are described in detail in the paper. Dysfunctions in brain myelination, making signal interference possible, hold a big role. The conclusions of the paper are in agreement with reports by patients affected by Bipolar Disorder concerning their subjective experience during mania, which is traditionally described as prone to creativity. To make readers aware of such an experience, a synthesis was elaborated by the first author, in the unusual shape of a short story. The short story is the narrative version of a real

Work environments for employee creativity.

PubMed

Dul, Jan; Ceylan, Canan

2011-01-01

Innovative organisations need creative employees who generate new ideas for product or process innovation. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the effect of personal, social-organisational and physical factors on employee creativity. Based on this framework, an instrument to analyse the extent to which the work environment enhances creativity is developed. This instrument was applied to a sample of 409 employees and support was found for the hypothesis that a creative work environment enhances creative performance. This paper illustrates how the instrument can be used in companies to select and implement improvements. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: The ergonomics discipline addresses the work environment mainly for improving health and safety and sometimes productivity and quality. This paper opens a new area for ergonomics: designing work environments for enhancing employee creativity in order to strengthen an organisation's capability for product and process innovation and, consequently, its competitiveness.

Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Enhance Creative Cognition: Interactions between Task, Polarity, and Stimulation Site

PubMed Central

Weinberger, Adam B.; Green, Adam E.; Chrysikou, Evangelia G.

2017-01-01

Creative cognition is frequently described as involving two primary processes, idea generation and idea selection. A growing body of research has used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to examine the neural mechanisms implicated in each of these processes. This literature has yielded a diverse set of findings that vary depending on the location and type (anodal, cathodal, or both) of electrical stimulation employed, as well as the task’s reliance on idea generation or idea selection. As a result, understanding the interactions between stimulation site, polarity and task demands is required to evaluate the potential of tDCS to enhance creative performance. Here, we review tDCS designs that have elicited reliable and dissociable enhancements for creative cognition. Cathodal stimulation over the left inferior frontotemporal cortex has been associated with improvements on tasks that rely primarily on idea generation, whereas anodal tDCS over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and frontopolar cortex has been shown to augment performance on tasks that impose high demands on creative idea selection. These results highlight the functional selectivity of tDCS for different components of creative thinking and confirm the dissociable contributions of left dorsal and inferior lateral frontotemporal cortex for different creativity tasks. We discuss promising avenues for future research that can advance our understanding of the effectiveness of tDCS as a method to enhance creative cognition. PMID:28559804

Creativity, Technology, Art, and Pedagogical Practices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tillander, Michelle

2011-01-01

Creativity serves an important role in culture, education, and the workforce as it "provides the impetus for any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or discipline into a new entity." In the 21st century, information technology is forming a powerful alliance with creative practices in the arts and design to establish new domains…

Kacang Cerdik: A Conceptual Design of an Idea Management System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murah, Mohd Zamri; Abdullah, Zuraidah; Hassan, Rosilah; Bakar, Marini Abu; Mohamed, Ibrahim; Amin, Hazilah Mohd

2013-01-01

An idea management system is where ideas are stored and then can be evaluated and analyzed. It provides the structure and the platform for users to contribute ideas for innovation and creativity. Designing and developing an idea management system is a complex task because it involves many users and lot of ideas. Some of the critical features for…

SCAMPER and Creative Problem Solving in Political Science: Insights from Classroom Observation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Radziszewski, Elizabeth

2017-01-01

This article describes the author's experience using SCAMPER, a creativity-building technique, in a creative problem-solving session that was conducted in an environmental conflict course to generate ideas for managing postconflict stability. SCAMPER relies on cues to help students connect ideas from different domains of knowledge, explore random…

Creative Media Ideas for the Gym

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Banks, Aaron; Reed, Julian

2004-01-01

This article offers readers ideas for using mass media to enhance their physical education program. Generally, media is the term used to define the way in communicating with a large number of people. Technically, media is divided into two categories: print and film (electronic). Print (journals, newspapers, books, etc.) is "put to paper" to create…

Analysis of creative mathematical thinking ability by using model eliciting activities (MEAs)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winda, A.; Sufyani, P.; Elah, N.

2018-05-01

Lack of creative mathematical thinking ability can lead to not accustomed with open ended problem. Students’ creative mathematical thinking ability in the first grade at one of junior high school in Tangerang City is not fully developed. The reason of students’ creative mathematical thinking ability is not optimally developed is so related with learning process which has done by the mathematics teacher, maybe the learning design that teacher use is unsuitable for increasing students’ activity in the learning process. This research objective is to see the differences in students’ ways of answering the problems in terms of students’ creative mathematical thinking ability during the implementation of Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs). This research use post-test experimental class design. The indicators for creative mathematical thinking ability in this research arranged in three parts, as follow: (1) Fluency to answer the problems; (2) Flexibility to solve the problems; (3) Originality of answers. The result of this research found that by using the same learning model and same instrument from Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) there are some differences in the way students answer the problems and Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) can be one of approach used to increase students’ creative mathematical thinking ability.

Impact of Text on Idea Generation: An Electroencephalography Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, Lingyun; Xiang, Wei; Chai, Chunlei; Wang, Changlu; Liu, Zheng

2013-01-01

Sketching is widely used as a creative tool, playing a significant role in industrial design. Designers commonly use sketching to generate and evaluate ideas, leading to subsequent development of the most promising ideas. The current study examined the use of text in the idea generation sketching process among novices and experts. The…

Management of Development of Creative Civil Activity of Student's Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Belentsov, Sergei I.; Gribanova, Veronika A.; Brasnik, Oksana U.; Pozdniakov, Aleksey V.

2018-01-01

Management of development of creative civil activity of student's youth reveal in article, results of research work on formation of creative civil activity of student's youth in educational work of higher education institution are described. Formation of civil activity is presented in the form of the model realized during three interconnected…

Designing Creative User Interactions for Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Yi-Chun; Clinton, Gregory; Rieber, Lloyd P.

2014-01-01

Profitable creative ideas can emerge from within virtually any phase of the instructional design and development process. However, the design of user interactions is perhaps where learners can most directly experience the benefits of such ideas. In this article, the authors discuss principles of learner interaction as found in the instructional…

Creative Writing in America: Theory and Pedagogy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moxley, Joseph M., Ed.

Intended for high school and college teachers who are interested in how creative writing can be taught effectively, this book features the ideas of poets, novelists, editors, and playwrights on the fundamental aspects of their craft. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Notes from a Cell: Creative Writing Programs in Isolation"…

The Parents'& Teachers' Guide To Helping Young Children Learn: Creative Ideas from 35 Respected Experts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farber, Betty, Ed.

Parents and teachers may often have wondered how preschoolers learn, or why certain things, events, or people are more interesting to them than others? This book provides information on how young children learn, and offers activities to encourage emerging literacy, promote creativity and imagination, and enhance knowledge and development in music,…

Creater-cizes: Creativity Exercises.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rule, Michael

1998-01-01

Creativity exercises, or creater-cizes, can help camp staff generate ideas and solve problems. Common techniques are brainstorming, story-boarding, analogies and metaphors, association and free association, spinning, and lists. Defines and gives examples of each technique. (SAS)

Creativity-the unconscious foundations of the incubation period.

PubMed

Ritter, Simone M; Dijksterhuis, Ap

2014-01-01

Creativity is one of the most important assets we have to navigate through the fast changing world of the 21st century. Anecdotal accounts of creative individuals suggest that oftentimes, creative discoveries result from a process whereby initial conscious thought is followed by a period during which one refrains from task-related conscious thought. For example, one may spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about a problem when the solution suddenly pops into consciousness while taking a shower. Not only creative individuals but also traditional theories of creativity have put a lot of emphasis on this incubation stage in creative thinking. The aim of the present article is twofold. First, an overview of the domain of incubation and creativity is provided by reviewing and discussing studies on incubation, mind-wandering, and sleep. Second, the causes of incubation effects are discussed. Previously, little attention has been paid to the causes of incubation effects and most findings do not really speak to whether the effects should be explained by unconscious processes or merely by consequences of a period of distraction. In the latter case, there is no need to assume active unconscious processes. The findings discussed in the current article support the idea that it is not merely the absence of conscious thought that drives incubation effects, but that during an incubation period unconscious processes contribute to creative thinking. Finally, practical implications and directions for future research will be discussed.

Affective creativity meets classic creativity in the scanner.

PubMed

Perchtold, Corinna M; Papousek, Ilona; Koschutnig, Karl; Rominger, Christian; Weber, Hannelore; Weiss, Elisabeth M; Fink, Andreas

2018-01-01

The investigation of neurocognitive processes underlying more real-life creative behavior is among the greatest challenges in creativity research. In this fMRI study, we addressed this issue by investigating functional patterns of brain activity while participants were required to be creative in an affective context. Affective creativity was assessed in terms of individual's inventiveness in generating alternative appraisals for anger-evoking events, which has recently emerged as a new ability concept in cognitive reappraisal research. In addition, a classic divergent thinking task was administered. Both creativity tasks yielded strong activation in left prefrontal regions, indicating their shared cognitive processing demands like the inhibition of prepotent responses, shifting between different perspectives and controlled memory retrieval. Regarding task-specific differences, classic creative ideation activated a characteristic divergent thinking network comprising the left supramarginal, inferior temporal, and inferior frontal gyri. Affective creativity on the other hand specifically recruited the right superior frontal gyrus, presumably involved in the postretrieval monitoring of reappraisal success, and core hubs of the default-mode network, which are also implicated in social cognition. As a whole, by taking creativity research to the realm of emotion, this study advances our understanding of how more real-life creativity is rooted in the brain. Hum Brain Mapp 39:393-406, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Creative Thinking of Practical Engineering Students During a Design Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waks, Shlomo; Merdler, Moti

2003-01-01

Creativity in engineering design had become an economic necessity and not merely the privilege of unique individuals. The search for new, innovative and effective ideas in engineering design stands in center of daily creative performance. This search requires sensitivity to gaps of knowledge and information, and the ability to evoke numerous, different and unique ideas about engineering problems. The source of such information or knowledge can be either extrinsic-such as provided by an instructor or expert or intrinsic, which might involve transformation from one field or context to another. Furthermore, interaction with an exterior source as well as developing an inherent drive, have an impact on the motivation to perform creatively. This article, which is based on a study conducted among Israeli practical engineering students, deals with the variations in creative thinking during various stages of a design project and the relation between creative thinking and motivation factors.

A Creative Teacher's Innovative-Mind-Expanding Vertebrate Project Ideas.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winters, Faye H.

1981-01-01

The article provides a collection of teaching ideas about vertebrate animals. Ideas include making a poem book about a group of animals, rhyming words with animal names, and finding animal names in a puzzle. (DB)

Einstein's creative thinking and the general theory of relativity: a documented report.

PubMed

Rothenberg, A

1979-01-01

A document written by Albert Einstein has recently come to light in which the eminent scientist described the actual sequence of his thoughts leading to the development of the general theory of relativity. The key creative thought was an instance of a type of creative cognition the author has previously designated "Janusian thinking," Janusian thinking consists of actively conceiving two or more opposite or antithetical concepts, ideas, or images simultaneously. This form of high-level secondary process cognition has been found to operate widely in art, science, and other fields.

Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oppezzo, Marily; Schwartz, Daniel L.

2014-01-01

Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford's alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of…

The Creative Inventory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Willings, David

The paper examines variables involved in creativity and suggests ways in which gifted adolescents may be helped to isolate conditions under which they get their best ideas. Among variables considered are the hypnagogic state (physical and mental condition just before sleep), the hynopompic state (physiological and mental condition upon awakening),…

The impact of creative tendency, academic performance, and self-concept on creative science problem-finding.

PubMed

Liu, Mingxin; Hu, Weiping; Adey, Philip; Cheng, Li; Zhang, Xingli

2013-04-01

This study was designed to address the impacts of science performance, science self-concept, and creative tendency on the creative science problem-finding (CSPF) ability of a sample of Chinese middle-school students. Structural equation modeling was used to indicate that CSPF could be directly predicted by creative tendency and academic performance, and indirectly predicted by science self-concept. The findings strongly support the idea that curiosity, imagination, and domain-specific knowledge are important for CSPF, and science self-concept could be mediated by knowledge that affects CSPF. © 2012 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Neural Mechanisms of Episodic Retrieval Support Divergent Creative Thinking.

PubMed

Madore, Kevin P; Thakral, Preston P; Beaty, Roger E; Addis, Donna Rose; Schacter, Daniel L

2017-11-17

Prior research has indicated that brain regions and networks that support semantic memory, top-down and bottom-up attention, and cognitive control are all involved in divergent creative thinking. Kernels of evidence suggest that neural processes supporting episodic memory-the retrieval of particular elements of prior experiences-may also be involved in divergent thinking, but such processes have typically been characterized as not very relevant for, or even a hindrance to, creative output. In the present study, we combine functional magnetic resonance imaging with an experimental manipulation to test formally, for the first time, episodic memory's involvement in divergent thinking. Following a manipulation that facilitates detailed episodic retrieval, we observed greater neural activity in the hippocampus and stronger connectivity between a core brain network linked to episodic processing and a frontoparietal brain network linked to cognitive control during divergent thinking relative to an object association control task that requires little divergent thinking. Stronger coupling following the retrieval manipulation extended to a subsequent resting-state scan. Neural effects of the episodic manipulation were consistent with behavioral effects of enhanced idea production on divergent thinking but not object association. The results indicate that conceptual frameworks should accommodate the idea that episodic retrieval can function as a component process of creative idea generation, and highlight how the brain flexibly utilizes the retrieval of episodic details for tasks beyond simple remembering. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Creativity and innovation by empowering the customer: The case of Mulino Bianco. Part II: The digital customer value added

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bujor, A.; Avasilcăi, S.

2015-11-01

The terms of creativity, co-creation, creative industries, innovation, and coinnovation are more and more used nowadays. While co-creation offers the possibility and encourages a more active involvement from the customers to create value rich experiences, innovation is responsible for the little improvements made for a better life, to grow a business, to improve products, services or company's productivity. Either customers, current and potential, or stakeholders’ involvement into innovation activities, through their creativity, represent an important way of value creation, of actions’ performance that increases the worth of goods, services, or business as a whole. More and more, different size businesses gather ideas for innovation from customers / stakeholders by involving them into the early stages of the innovation process. Actually, it has been shown that their ideas sketch their needs and wishes, and have been described as “need information”. Customers and stakeholders, in general, also offer ideas that have been called “solution information”, which represents, not only need information, but also customer-based proposals that describe how ideas can be transformed into marketable products. The term of creative industries refers to those goods that can technically be reproduced, industrially produced, and commercially sold, this being one of the many definitions found in the literature. Mulino Bianco was first launched in Italy, being one of the value brands of Barilla Group, which we can say, according to the Italian definition and classification, it belongs to creative industries: industry of food and taste. Even though Barilla Group's Research & Development department does its job very efficiently, developing and creating new products under different brands, lately a key strategy for the Group and for Mulino Bianco, by default, is customers’ pro-active involvement in products’ development or creation. One of the tools used for this is the

How to practice creative thinking skills through scaffolding on biotech content?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Natadiwijaya, I. F.; Rahmat, A.; Redjeki, S.; Anggraeni, S.

2018-05-01

Biotechnology content is a more applicative field of science, so learners should be able to have creative thinking skills in applying concepts to problem solving. In this research, Scaffolding learning has been conducted, which is student form of concept development based on constructivism learning paradigm and students build creative thinking skill through the creation of biotechnology product ideas. The research design was R & D method. The subject of this research is a semester V biology education student at Wiralodra University. The instruments used are biotechnology creative thinking tests and program implementation observations. The data of creative thinking test was analyzed using inferential statistic, while the observation sheet used descriptive analysis. The result of this research is the result of students’ creative thinking skill as well as description of the recommended shape and characteristics of the program, with the following results. The scaffolding learning program has a significant influence on students’ creative thinking skill, and the program that trains creative thinking skill is built through two phases, namely phase 1 in concept building where students build their own knowledge, and phase 2 where students build thinking skills creatively through the creation of biotechnology product ideas.

Brain networks for visual creativity: a functional connectivity study of planning a visual artwork.

PubMed

De Pisapia, Nicola; Bacci, Francesca; Parrott, Danielle; Melcher, David

2016-12-19

Throughout recorded history, and across cultures, humans have made visual art. In recent years, the neural bases of creativity, including artistic creativity, have become a topic of interest. In this study we investigated the neural bases of the visual creative process with both professional artists and a group of control participants. We tested the idea that creativity (planning an artwork) would influence the functional connectivity between regions involved in the default mode network (DMN), implicated in divergent thinking and generating novel ideas, and the executive control network (EN), implicated in evaluating and selecting ideas. We measured functional connectivity with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) during three different conditions: rest, visual imagery of the alphabet and planning an artwork to be executed immediately after the scanning session. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found stronger connectivity between areas of the DMN and EN during the creative task, and this difference was enhanced in professional artists. These findings suggest that creativity involves an expert balance of two brain networks typically viewed as being in opposition.

Brain networks for visual creativity: a functional connectivity study of planning a visual artwork

PubMed Central

De Pisapia, Nicola; Bacci, Francesca; Parrott, Danielle; Melcher, David

2016-01-01

Throughout recorded history, and across cultures, humans have made visual art. In recent years, the neural bases of creativity, including artistic creativity, have become a topic of interest. In this study we investigated the neural bases of the visual creative process with both professional artists and a group of control participants. We tested the idea that creativity (planning an artwork) would influence the functional connectivity between regions involved in the default mode network (DMN), implicated in divergent thinking and generating novel ideas, and the executive control network (EN), implicated in evaluating and selecting ideas. We measured functional connectivity with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) during three different conditions: rest, visual imagery of the alphabet and planning an artwork to be executed immediately after the scanning session. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found stronger connectivity between areas of the DMN and EN during the creative task, and this difference was enhanced in professional artists. These findings suggest that creativity involves an expert balance of two brain networks typically viewed as being in opposition. PMID:27991592

The Role of Domain Knowledge in Creative Generation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ward, Thomas B.

2008-01-01

Previous studies have shown that a predominant tendency in creative generation tasks is to base new ideas on well-known, specific instances of previous ideas (e.g., basing ideas for imaginary aliens on dogs, cats or bears). However, a substantial minority of individuals has been shown to adopt more abstract approaches to the task and to develop…

The Dynamics of Creativity & the Courage to BE

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abraham, Frederick David

The following sections are included: * Preliminary Note * Definitions Of Creativity * American Heritage (Morris, 1969-78)55 * Howard Gardner (1993)33 * Stephen Nachmanovich (1990)58 * Dynamical Metaphor * Literary, Philosophic, and Religious Roots of Ideas of Creativity * Myth * Mysticism * Existentialism * Psychological Analysis of Creativity * Barman (& Freud), The Two Faces of Creativity (1989)18 * Stephen Nachmanovich, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (1990)58 * Rollo May Man's Search for Himself, Chap 6, The Creative Conscience (1953)53. * Joy P. Guilford, The Psychometric Approach. (1950,1953)37,38 * Wolfgang Köhler, The Mentality of Apes (1925)46,47 * Csitszentmihalyi, Humanistic Attributional Approaches; Flow(1990)25; The Evolving Mind (1993)26 * Howard Gardner, Creating Minds (1993)33 * Summary of Dynamical Concepts Involved In Creativity * Self-Organizational Bifurcations are Creativity * Chaos and Instability Facilitate Creativity * Chaos at the Controls * Summary * Acknowledgement * References

Perceptual Creativity: Where Inner and Outer Reality Come Together

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dayton, Glenn C.

1976-01-01

Investigates two opposing views of creativity, that of the Freudian psychologists vs. the interpretation of humanistic psychologists, and offers a compromising, perhaps more gestalt solution, along with a new mathematical model and ideas for research in developing a more complete theory of creativity. (Author/RK)

Nudging Students into Writing Creatively (Teaching Ideas).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perreault, George; And Others

1996-01-01

Describes ideas for writing prompts and assignments proposed by three different teachers: (1) writing poems inspired by smells of herbs and spices; (2) writing about past perceptions and feelings after looking at a photograph; and (3) writing a "self-portrait." (TB)

Deathcore, creativity, and scientific thinking

USGS Publications Warehouse

Angeler, David G.; Sundstrom, Shana M.; Allen, Craig R.

2016-01-01

BackgroundMajor scientific breakthroughs are generally the result of materializing creative ideas, the result of an inductive process that sometimes spontaneously and unexpectedly generates a link between thoughts and/or objects that did not exist before. Creativity is the cornerstone of scientific thinking, but scientists in academia are judged by metrics of quantification that often leave little room for creative thinking. In many scientific fields, reductionist approaches are rewarded and new ideas viewed skeptically. As a result, scientific inquiry is often confined to narrow but safe disciplinary ivory towers, effectively preventing profoundly creative explorations that could yield unexpected benefits.New informationThis paper argues how apparently unrelated fields specifically music and belief systems can be combined in a provocative allegory to provide novel perspectives regarding patterns in nature, thereby potentially inspiring innovation in the natural, social and other sciences. The merger between basic human tensions such as those embodied by religion and music, for example the heavy metal genre of deathcore, may be perceived as controversial, challenging, and uncomfortable. However, it is an example of moving the thinking process out of unconsciously established comfort zones, through the connection of apparently unrelated entities. We argue that music, as an auditory art form, has the potential to enlighten and boost creative thinking in science. Metal, as a fast evolving and diversifying extreme form of musical art, may be particularly suitable to trigger surprising associations in scientific inquiry. This may pave the way for dealing with questions about what we don´t know that we don´t know in a fast-changing planet.

The Creativity of Reflective and Impulsive Selected Students in Solving Geometric Problems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shoimah, R. N.; Lukito, A.; Siswono, T. Y. E.

2018-01-01

This research purposed to describe the elementary students’ creativity with reflective and impulsive cognitive style in solving geometric problems. This research used qualitative research methods. The data was collected by written tests and task-based interviews. The subjects consisted of two 5th grade students that were measured by MFFT (Matching Familiar Figures Test). The data were analyzed based on the three main components of creativity; that is fluency, flexibility, and novelty. This results showed that subject with reflective cognitive style in solving geometric problems met all components of creativity (fluency; subject generated more than three different right-ideas in solving problems, flexibility; subject generated more than two different ways to get problem solved, and novelty; subject generated new ideas and new ways that original and has never been used before). While subject with impulsive cognitive style in solving geometric problems met two components of creativity (fluency; subject generated more than three different right-ideas in solving problems, flexibility; subject generated two different ways to get problem solved). Thus, it could be concluded that reflective students are more creative in solving geometric problems. The results of this research can also be used as a guideline in the future assessment of creativity based on cognitive style.

The Relationship between Traits of Creativity and Physical Activity in the Elderly.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malone, Harry Nevin

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between traits of creativity in the elderly and their level of physical activity. Another purpose was to determine if there was a relationship between traits of creativity focusing on arousal, sensation-seeking, and playfulness and activity. The study used an ex post facto…

Creativity and positive symptoms in schizophrenia revisited: Structural connectivity analysis with diffusion tensor imaging.

PubMed

Son, Shuraku; Kubota, Manabu; Miyata, Jun; Fukuyama, Hidenao; Aso, Toshihiko; Urayama, Shin-ichi; Murai, Toshiya; Takahashi, Hidehiko

2015-05-01

Both creativity and schizotypy are suggested to be manifestations of the hyperactivation of unusual or remote concepts/words. However, the results of studies on creativity in schizophrenia are diverse, possibly due to the multifaceted aspects of creativity and difficulties of differentiating adaptive creativity from pathological schizotypy/positive symptoms. To date, there have been no detailed studies comprehensively investigating creativity, positive symptoms including delusions, and their neural bases in schizophrenia. In this study, we investigated 43 schizophrenia and 36 healthy participants using diffusion tensor imaging. We used idea, design, and verbal (semantic and phonological) fluency tests as creativity scores and Peters Delusions Inventory as delusion scores. Subsequently, we investigated group differences in every psychological score, correlations between fluency and delusions, and relationships between these scores and white matter integrity using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). In schizophrenia, idea and verbal fluency were significantly lower in general, and delusion score was higher than in healthy controls, whereas there were no group differences in design fluency. We also found positive correlation between phonological fluency and delusions in schizophrenia. By correlation analyses using TBSS, we found that the anterior part of corpus callosum was the substantially overlapped area, negatively correlated with both phonological fluency and delusion severity. Our results suggest that the anterior interhemispheric dysconnectivity might be associated with executive dysfunction, and disinhibited automatic spreading activation in the semantic network was manifested as uncontrollable phonological fluency or delusions. This dysconnectivity could be one possible neural basis that differentiates pathological positive symptoms from adaptive creativity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Collaborative Sketching in Crowdsourcing Design: A New Method for Idea Generation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, Lingyun; Xiang, Wei; Chen, Shi; Yang, Zhiyuan

2015-01-01

Design integrates concepts and solves problems. Crowdsourcing design imports vast knowledge and produces creative ideas. It publishes design tasks, collects dozens of contributors' ideas and reward the best. Contributors in crowdsourcing design work individually when generating ideas. However, those who collaborate could make better use of crowd's…

The strength-of-weak-ties perspective on creativity: a comprehensive examination and extension.

PubMed

Baer, Markus

2010-05-01

Disentangling the effects of weak ties on creativity, the present study separated, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of the size and strength of actors' idea networks and examined their joint impact while simultaneously considering the separate, moderating role of network diversity. I hypothesized that idea networks of optimal size and weak strength were more likely to boost creativity when they afforded actors access to a wide range of different social circles. In addition, I examined whether the joint effects of network size, strength, and diversity on creativity were further qualified by the openness to experience personality dimension. As expected, results indicated that actors were most creative when they maintained idea networks of optimal size, weak strength, and high diversity and when they scored high on the openness dimension. The implications of these results are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

An Analysis of Creative Process Learning in Computer Game Activities through Player Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Inchamnan, Wilawan

2016-01-01

This research investigates the extent to which creative processes can be fostered through computer gaming. It focuses on creative components in games that have been specifically designed for educational purposes: Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL). A behavior analysis for measuring the creative potential of computer game activities and learning…

Creativity and Critical Thinking in the Globalised University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clegg, Phil

2008-01-01

This paper outlines the dynamic life of the university in the era of neo-liberal globalisation, and within this context, discusses the nature of "creativity" as a life force or power, similar to the Ancient Greek idea of "Eros". This power is contrasted with functionalist and bureaucratic notions of creativity, and a disjuncture is identified…

Teaching and Learning Economic Creativity: How to Overcome Uncertainty in Realizing Creative New Concepts That Have a Value? How the CRAP System--Coordination & Registration of Action Points--and External Assessment Generates Possible Solutions to Create Value of New Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roelofs, Henk; Nieuwenhuis, Adriaan

2016-01-01

How do we identify tools that can overcome uncertainty in realizing value with students using their "idea creativity" in generating and developing ideas in new concepts? Tools that better fit in the mindset of the new generations. The major question of idea creativity, especially in an educational environment is: How to determine and…

Creative benefits from well-connected leaders: leader social network ties as facilitators of employee radical creativity.

PubMed

Venkataramani, Vijaya; Richter, Andreas W; Clarke, Ronald

2014-09-01

Employee radical creativity critically depends on substantive informational resources from others across the wider organization. We propose that the social network ties of employees' immediate leaders assume a central role in garnering these resources, thereby fostering their employees' radical creativity both independent of and interactively with employees' own network ties. Drawing on data from 214 employees working in 30 teams of a public technology and environmental services organization, we find that team leaders' betweenness centrality in the idea network within their teams as well as among their peer leaders provides creative benefits beyond employees' own internal and external ties. Further, employees' and leaders' ties within and external to the team interactively predict employee radical creativity. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

The Role of Individualism-Collectivism in the Individual Creative Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yao, Xiang; Wang, Shuhong; Dang, Junhua; Wang, Lei

2012-01-01

This study is among the first to examine how individuals' cultural value orientations impact 2 separate stages of creativity: idea generation and idea implementation. A total of 247 Chinese employees completed questionnaires including individualism-collectivism culture orientation and their idea generation behavior. Supervisor ratings of idea…

Cognitive Profile in Low, Medium and High Creative Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferrando, Mercedes; Bermejo, Rosario; Sainz, Marta; Ferrandiz, Carmen; Prieto, Maria Dolores; Soto, Gloria

2012-01-01

Introduction: The aim of the present work is to advance in the study of creativity-intelligence relationship looking into the students' cognitive profiles. It is hypothesized that, if creative ideas emerge as result of connecting distant concepts, and a balanced cognitive profile (without significant differences between ability levels) can…

Protecting the turf: The effect of territorial marking on others' creativity.

PubMed

Brown, Graham; Baer, Markus

2015-11-01

Territorial marking allows people to communicate that a territory has been claimed. Across 2 studies, we examine the impact of territorial marking of one's ideas on others' invited creativity when asked to provide feedback. Integrating research on territoriality and self-construal, we examine the effect of control-oriented marking on invited creativity (Study 1), and the extent to which an independent versus interdependent self-construal moderates this effect (Study 2). Results of Study 1 demonstrate that the use of control-oriented marking to communicate a territorial claim over one's ideas inhibits invited creativity, and this effect is mediated by intrinsic motivation. Also consistent with our hypotheses, the results of Study 2 show that self-construal moderates the effect of control-oriented marking on others' intrinsic motivation and creativity. Marking diminishes invited creativity among people with an independent self-construal but serves to enhance the creativity of those with an interdependent self-construal. Consistent with Study 1, intrinsic motivation mediates this moderated effect. Our results highlight the important but heretofore understudied role of territoriality in affecting others' creativity as well as the role of independent versus interdependent self-construal in shaping this effect. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Inspiration from Nature: Creative Outdoor Writing Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cardno, Anthony R.

1998-01-01

When campers notice the natural world around them, they can identify with nature and build an emotional connection with the environment. Creative-writing activities tied to nature are presented that can help campers enhance their descriptive and communication skills, and also learn something about themselves in the process. (TD)

When Antecedents Diverge: Exploring Novelty and Value as Dimensions of Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gruys, Melissa L.; Munshi, Natasha V.; Dewett, Todd C.

2011-01-01

Though an ongoing debate exists concerning how creativity should be defined and measured, it is generally agreed upon that creativity is the generation of ideas that are novel and of value (Amabile, 1996; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). Yet most studies treat creativity as a black box in regards to the nature of the relationships between some commonly…

Case Study 2: Using Games Based on Giant Dice and Time Restrictions to Enable Creativity When Teaching Artistic or Creative Subjects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barnard, Dan

2017-01-01

This case study draws on some experiments I have been doing in the use of dice in the ideas generation phase of a creative project. It draws on workshops I have run with creative technology students at Goldsmiths, with a range of adults at the Counterplay Conference in Aarhus (Denmark) and the Playful Learning Conference at Manchester Metropolitan…

Promoting Creativity through Assessment: A Formative Computer-Assisted Assessment Tool for Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cropley, David; Cropley, Arthur

2016-01-01

Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is problematic when it comes to fostering creativity, because in educational thinking the essence of creativity is not finding the correct answer but generating novelty. The idea of "functional" creativity provides rubrics that can serve as the basis for forms of CAA leading to either formative or…

Mathematical Creative Activity and the Graphic Calculator

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duda, Janina

2011-01-01

Teaching mathematics using graphic calculators has been an issue of didactic discussions for years. Finding ways in which graphic calculators can enrich the development process of creative activity in mathematically gifted students between the ages of 16-17 is the focus of this article. Research was conducted using graphic calculators with…

Idea Bank: Assessing Your Curriculum with the Creative Rights Pyramid

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thibeault, Matthew D.

2011-01-01

This article presents a creative rights pyramid that was developed as part of the author's efforts to: (1) teach about copyright and intellectual property; and (2) increase students' awareness of their own intellectual property in and outside the music classroom. The pyramid is based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid to suggest…

Democratizing Creativity: How Arts/Philosophy Can Contribute to the Question of Arts Bias

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rocavert, Carla

2016-01-01

This article critically deconstructs the 21st-century economization and massification of creativity. It extends the discussion of arts bias and the associated ideas that artistic creativity is institutionalized, elitist, and an obstruction to more profitable applications of creativity. A tension is thus highlighted between the historically…

Effects of Concept Mapping on Creativity in Photo Stories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simper, Natalie; Reeve, Richard; Kirby, J. R.

2016-01-01

This research tested the use of concept map planning to support the development of creativity in photo stories, hypothesizing that skills taught to support organization would improve creativity. Concept maps are a type of graphic organizer, used to represent an ordering of ideas with nodes and linking words that form propositional statements. They…

Hippocampal amnesia disrupts creative thinking.

PubMed

Duff, Melissa C; Kurczek, Jake; Rubin, Rachael; Cohen, Neal J; Tranel, Daniel

2013-12-01

Creativity requires the rapid combination and recombination of existing mental representations to create novel ideas and ways of thinking. The hippocampal system, through its interaction with neocortical storage sites, provides a relational database necessary for the creation, updating, maintenance, and juxtaposition of mental representations used in service of declarative memory. Given this functionality, we hypothesized that hippocampus would play a critical role in creative thinking. We examined creative thinking, as measured by verbal and figural forms of the torrance tests of creative thinking (TTCT), in a group of participants with hippocampal damage and severe declarative memory impairment as well as in a group of demographically matched healthy comparison participants. The patients with bilateral hippocampal damage performed significantly worse than comparison participants on both the verbal and figural portions of the TTCT. These findings suggest that hippocampus plays a role critical in creative thinking, adding to a growing body of work pointing to the diverse ways the hallmark processing features of hippocampus serve a variety of behaviors that require flexible cognition. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Effect of Creative Drama Activities on Candidate Teachers' Self- Directed Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kosucu, Emine; Hursen, Cigdem

2017-01-01

This research aimed to specify the effect of creative drama activities on candidate teachers' self-directed skills. 35 candidate teachers participated in this study in which a mixture of a qualitative and quantitative method was used. The results obtained from the research showed that creative drama activities are effective on candidate teachers'…

Brain and Creativity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliverio, A.

Creativity can be considered from different points of view. Afirst possibility is to trace its natural history in mammals, mostly in non human primates. A second one is to consider mental processes, such as analogies, that may result in creative associations as evident in many fields, from arts to sciences. These two approaches lead to a better understanding of cognitive systems at the roots of creative behaviour. A third strategy relies on an analysis of primary and secondary states of mind characterizing flow and creativity. Flow, the mental state of operation in which a person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, typical of intense problem solving activities, has been explained in terms of reduced prefrontal activity. While it is not difficult to carry out tests of problem solving activity, creativity is much more elusive and it is not easy to measure it. Thus, flow has often been simplistically assimilated to creativity and it has been assumed that also creati ve performance depends on low prefrontal activity. It is instead proposed that creativity involves two consecutive steps: 1. Generation of novelty, mostly in the ventral striatum. 2. Analysis of novelty by the prefrontal cortex that transforms it into creative behaviour. The emergence of creativity has been explained through a Darwinian process based upon the classic variation-selection procedure. Thus, basal ganglia, with their implicit strategies and memories, may be regarded as a mechanism that continuously generates novelty (variation) while the prefrontal cortex, possibly its dorsolateral areas, may be considered as the computational mechanism that transforms novelty (selection) into explicit creative behaviours.

Creativity of Field-dependent and Field-independent Students in Posing Mathematical Problems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Azlina, N.; Amin, S. M.; Lukito, A.

2018-01-01

This study aims at describing the creativity of elementary school students with different cognitive styles in mathematical problem-posing. The posed problems were assessed based on three components of creativity, namely fluency, flexibility, and novelty. The free-type problem posing was used in this study. This study is a descriptive research with qualitative approach. Data collections were conducted through written task and task-based interviews. The subjects were two elementary students. One of them is Field Dependent (FD) and the other is Field Independent (FI) which were measured by GEFT (Group Embedded Figures Test). Further, the data were analyzed based on creativity components. The results show thatFD student’s posed problems have fulfilled the two components of creativity namely fluency, in which the subject posed at least 3 mathematical problems, and flexibility, in whichthe subject posed problems with at least 3 different categories/ideas. Meanwhile,FI student’s posed problems have fulfilled all three components of creativity, namely fluency, in which thesubject posed at least 3 mathematical problems, flexibility, in which thesubject posed problems with at least 3 different categories/ideas, and novelty, in which the subject posed problems that are purely the result of her own ideas and different from problems they have known.

The Creative Stereotype Effect

PubMed Central

Dumas, Denis; Dunbar, Kevin N.

2016-01-01

Because of its fundamental relevance to scientific innovation, artistic expression, and human ingenuity, creativity has long been the subject of systematic psychological investigation. Concomitantly, the far-reaching effects of stereotypes on various cognitive and social processes have been widely researched. Bridging these two literatures, we show in a series of two studies that stereotypes related to creativity can both enhance and diminish individuals’ performance on a divergent thinking task. Specifically, Study 1 demonstrated that participants asked to take on a stereotypically uninhibited perspective performed significantly better on a divergent thinking task than those participants who took on a stereotypically inhibited perspective, and a control group. Relatedly, Study 2 showed that the same effect is found within-subjects, with divergent thinking significantly improving when participants invoke an uninhibited stereotype. Moreover, we demonstrate the efficacy of Latent Semantic Analysis as an objective measure of the originality of ideas, and discuss implications of our findings for the nature of creativity. Namely, that creativity may not be best described as a stable individual trait, but as a malleable product of context and perspective. PMID:26863143

The Creative Stereotype Effect.

PubMed

Dumas, Denis; Dunbar, Kevin N

2016-01-01

Because of its fundamental relevance to scientific innovation, artistic expression, and human ingenuity, creativity has long been the subject of systematic psychological investigation. Concomitantly, the far-reaching effects of stereotypes on various cognitive and social processes have been widely researched. Bridging these two literatures, we show in a series of two studies that stereotypes related to creativity can both enhance and diminish individuals' performance on a divergent thinking task. Specifically, Study 1 demonstrated that participants asked to take on a stereotypically uninhibited perspective performed significantly better on a divergent thinking task than those participants who took on a stereotypically inhibited perspective, and a control group. Relatedly, Study 2 showed that the same effect is found within-subjects, with divergent thinking significantly improving when participants invoke an uninhibited stereotype. Moreover, we demonstrate the efficacy of Latent Semantic Analysis as an objective measure of the originality of ideas, and discuss implications of our findings for the nature of creativity. Namely, that creativity may not be best described as a stable individual trait, but as a malleable product of context and perspective.

One-Year-Olds Think Creatively, Just Like Their Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoicka, Elena; Mowat, Rachael; Kirkwood, Joanne; Kerr, Tiffany; Carberry, Megan; Bijvoet-van den Berg, Simone

2016-01-01

Creativity is an essential human ability, allowing adaptation and survival. Twenty-nine 1-year-olds and their parents were tested on divergent thinking (DT), a measure of creative potential counting how many ideas one can generate. Toddlers' and parents' DT was moderately to highly correlated. Toddlers showed a wide range of DT scores, which were…

Artists, Creativity and Knowledge: A Challenge for Doctoral Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Phillips, Maggi

2009-01-01

This paper aims to extrapolate the difficulties and challenges posed by ideas about creativity principally in the context of doctoral theses in which the practices of dance play a prominent, if not, pivotal role. While resisting definitive transparency, creativity is a crucial marker as much for postgraduate scholars as it is for artists. The…

Transforming Ideas: The Design Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nicol, Candace

2004-01-01

In this article, the author discusses how to teach students to think creatively. In the author's search for a way to teach students that there are multiple approaches to visual problems, she found inspiration from advertising. The author asserts students first need permission to explore their latent ideas, and second, they need the tools to…

Self-reported creativity in bipolar disorder: prevalence, types and associated outcomes in mania versus hypomania.

PubMed

McCraw, Stacey; Parker, Gordon; Fletcher, Kathryn; Friend, Paul

2013-12-01

Bipolar (BP) disorder has been linked to creativity following investigation of prominent artists and controlled trials of creativity in BP disorder patients. However, it is unclear whether creativity is differentially expressed across the BP I and BP II subtypes. 219 patients (aged 19-63 years) diagnosed with BP disorder by clinical interview and DSM-IV criteria were asked whether they tended to be more creative during hypo/manic episodes, and answered five questions about personality styles associated with creativity. Qualitative analyses were performed on a smaller subset of 69 BP patients (n=19 BP I, n=50 BP II) who provided written responses of the types of creative activities engaged in when hypo/manic and any perceived advantages or disadvantages of their creative pursuits. 82% of BP patients affirmed being creative when hypo/manic, with comparable results for the BP I and BP II subtypes (84% and 81% respectively). Both BP subtypes engaged mostly in writing, painting, work or business ideas and 'other' forms of art; however BP II patients were more likely to draw and be musical. Both subgroups reported the consequences of feeling good, being productive or quitting their project. BP I patients were more likely to overspend during their creative highs while BP II patients were more likely to experience improved focus and clarity. BP patients affirming creative highs were significantly more likely to report creative personality styles more generally outside of a mood episode. BP patients' self-reported creative activities were not retrospectively judged for quality or originality and so may reflect common creative abilities rather than exceptional quality. The impact of depressive episodes on creativity was not assessed. Uneven sample sizes in the BP I and BP II subgroups may have compromised statistical power. Creativity during hypo/manic episodes was extremely common in both BP subtypes. While some nuances in activity type and outcomes were observed, no

Neurophysiological basis of creativity in healthy elderly people: a multiscale entropy approach.

PubMed

Ueno, Kanji; Takahashi, Tetsuya; Takahashi, Koichi; Mizukami, Kimiko; Tanaka, Yuji; Wada, Yuji

2015-03-01

Creativity, which presumably involves various connections within and across different neural networks, reportedly underpins the mental well-being of older adults. Multiscale entropy (MSE) can characterize the complexity inherent in EEG dynamics with multiple temporal scales. It can therefore provide useful insight into neural networks. Given that background, we sought to clarify the neurophysiological bases of creativity in healthy elderly subjects by assessing EEG complexity with MSE, with emphasis on assessment of neural networks. We recorded resting state EEG of 20 healthy elderly subjects. MSE was calculated for each subject for continuous 20-s epochs. Their relevance to individual creativity was examined concurrently with intellectual function. Higher individual creativity was linked closely to increased EEG complexity across higher temporal scales, but no significant relation was found with intellectual function (IQ score). Considering the general "loss of complexity" theory of aging, our finding of increased EEG complexity in elderly people with heightened creativity supports the idea that creativity is associated with activated neural networks. Results reported here underscore the potential usefulness of MSE analysis for characterizing the neurophysiological bases of elderly people with heightened creativity. Copyright © 2014 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Lighthouse in the Desert? Evaluating the Effects of Creativity Training on Employee Innovation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birdi, Kamal

2007-01-01

The contribution of three different creativity training programmes to employees' workplace idea generation and implementation was evaluated. The research was conducted within a government organization, where 191 employees (a mixture of participants and non-participants in creativity training) were surveyed. Analyses showed that creativity training…

The Effect of Play on the Creativity of Young Children during Subsequent Activity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howard-Jones, Paul A.; Taylor, Jayne R.; Sutton, Lesley

2002-01-01

Investigated whether experiencing 25 minutes of unstructured play in a preceding task influenced the creativity of 6- and 7-year-olds in a subsequent activity. Found that there was a positive effect of a preceding salt-dough play activity upon the creativity and range of colors used in creating a collage with a controlled range of materials.…

Playwriting and Flow: The Interconnection between Creativity, Engagement and Skill Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gardiner, Paul

2017-01-01

Understanding, encouraging and developing creativity in the classroom is an international priority (Craft, 2011). This article outlines the findings of research into playwriting pedagogy. It interrogates the conceptual assumptions that surround teaching and learning for creativity, and how these ideas influence teacher practice and student…

The Importance of the Default Mode Network in Creativity--A Structural MRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kühn, Simone; Ritter, Simone M.; Müller, Barbara C. N.; van Baaren, Rick B.; Brass, Marcel; Dijksterhuis, Ap

2014-01-01

Anecdotal reports as well as behavioral studies have suggested that creative performance benefits from unconscious processes. So far, however, little is known about how creative ideas arise from the brain. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates of creativity by means of structural MRI research. Given that unconscious…

Professional training in creative writing is associated with enhanced fronto-striatal activity in a literary text continuation task.

PubMed

Erhard, K; Kessler, F; Neumann, N; Ortheil, H-J; Lotze, M

2014-10-15

The aim of the present study was to explore brain activities associated with creativity and expertise in literary writing. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we applied a real-life neuroscientific setting that consisted of different writing phases (brainstorming and creative writing; reading and copying as control conditions) to well-selected expert writers and to an inexperienced control group. During creative writing, experts showed cerebral activation in a predominantly left-hemispheric fronto-parieto-temporal network. When compared to inexperienced writers, experts showed increased left caudate nucleus and left dorsolateral and superior medial prefrontal cortex activation. In contrast, less experienced participants recruited increasingly bilateral visual areas. During creative writing activation in the right cuneus showed positive association with the creativity index in expert writers. High experience in creative writing seems to be associated with a network of prefrontal (mPFC and DLPFC) and basal ganglia (caudate) activation. In addition, our findings suggest that high verbal creativity specific to literary writing increases activation in the right cuneus associated with increased resources obtained for reading processes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

That's a good idea, but let's keep thinking! Can we prevent our initial ideas from being forgotten as a consequence of thinking of new ideas?

PubMed

Ditta, Annie S; Storm, Benjamin C

2017-05-01

Four experiments examined participants' ability to remember their own ideas in a modified Alternative Uses Task. Participants were asked to generate uses for objects, and on half of the trials participants were then asked to think of more uses. Memory for the initial uses they generated was then tested via a cued-recall task. Results demonstrated that participants forgot their initial uses as a consequence of thinking of new uses (referred to as the thinking-induced forgetting effect), and this effect persisted even when participants chose the subset of uses they thought were the most creative and to be remembered. The only scenario in which uses were protected from forgetting was when they were required to use their uses as hints for generating more ideas. Together, these findings demonstrate that one's own ideas are susceptible to forgetting when additional ideas must be generated, indicating that thinking is a modifier of memory despite one's motivation to preserve their ideas.

Creativity and Mobile Language Learning Using LingoBee

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petersen, Sobah Abbas; Procter-Legg, Emma; Cacchione, Annamaria

2013-01-01

In this paper, the authors explore the ideas of mobility and creativity through the use of LingoBee, a mobile app for situated language learning. LingoBee is based on ideas from crowd-sourcing and social networking to support language learners. Learners are able to create their own content and share it with other learners through a repository. The…

Malevolent Creativity in Terrorist Organizations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gill, Paul; Horgan, John; Hunter, Samuel T.; Cushenbery, Lily D.

2013-01-01

Terrorist organizations are both imitative and innovative in character. While the drivers of imitation have been extensively modeled using concepts such as contagion and diffusion, creativity and innovation remain relatively underdeveloped ideas in the context of terrorist behavior. This article seeks to redress this deficiency by presenting a…

Entrepreneurial Creativity through Motivational Synergy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amabile, Teresa M.

1997-01-01

Defines and describes entrepreneurial creativity, which is the generation and implementation of novel, appropriate ideas to establish a new venture. Discusses the need for motivational synergy, which results when strong levels of personal interest and involvement are combined with the promise of rewards that confirm competence. (Author/CR)

Brain structure links everyday creativity to creative achievement.

PubMed

Zhu, Wenfeng; Chen, Qunlin; Tang, Chaoying; Cao, Guikang; Hou, Yuling; Qiu, Jiang

2016-03-01

Although creativity is commonly considered to be a cornerstone of human progress and vital to all realms of our lives, its neural basis remains elusive, partly due to the different tasks and measurement methods applied in research. In particular, the neural correlates of everyday creativity that can be experienced by everyone, to some extent, are still unexplored. The present study was designed to investigate the brain structure underlying individual differences in everyday creativity, as measured by the Creative Behavioral Inventory (CBI) (N=163). The results revealed that more creative activities were significantly and positively associated with larger gray matter volume (GMV) in the regional premotor cortex (PMC), which is a motor planning area involved in the creation and selection of novel actions and inhibition. In addition, the gray volume of the PMC had a significant positive relationship with creative achievement and Art scores, which supports the notion that training and practice may induce changes in brain structures. These results indicate that everyday creativity is linked to the PMC and that PMC volume can predict creative achievement, supporting the view that motor planning may play a crucial role in creative behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Wanted: "Highly Motivated, Concept-Driven Stars"--Hiring Preferences of Top U.S. Creative Directors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Broyles, Sheri J.; Kendrick, Alice

A study surveyed creative directors of top United States advertising agencies to provide an idea of the expectations and hiring practices for both copywriters and art directors in creative departments of those agencies. Results revealed that two-thirds hire creative personnel "right out of school," but that little if any formal recruiting is…

Is There Creativity in Design? From a Perspective of School Design and Technology in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Yi Lin; Siu, Kin Wai Michael

2012-01-01

As creativity is likely to become a crucial aspect of living in the future, it is important for educators to teach students to think creatively when solving constantly evolving and increasingly complex problems. Supported by the idea that creativity can be taught and learnt, elements of creativity are now embedded in secondary school education.…

Neural Correlates of Musical Creativity: Differences between High and Low Creative Subjects

PubMed Central

Villarreal, Mirta F.; Cerquetti, Daniel; Caruso, Silvina; Schwarcz López Aranguren, Violeta; Gerschcovich, Eliana Roldán; Frega, Ana Lucía; Leiguarda, Ramón C.

2013-01-01

Previous studies of musical creativity suggest that this process involves multi-regional intra and interhemispheric interactions, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. However, the activity of the prefrontal cortex and that of the parieto-temporal regions, seems to depend on the domains of creativity that are evaluated and the task that is performed. In the field of music, only few studies have investigated the brain process of a creative task and none of them have investigated the effect of the level of creativity on the recruit networks. In this work we used magnetic resonance imaging to explore these issues by comparing the brain activities of subjects with higher creative abilities to those with lesser abilities, while the subjects improvised on different rhythmic fragments. We evaluated the products the subjects created during the fMRI scan using two musical parameters: fluidity and flexibility, and classified the subjects according to their punctuation. We examined the relation between brain activity and creativity level. Subjects with higher abilities generated their own creations based on modifications of the original rhythm with little adhesion to it. They showed activation in prefrontal regions of both hemispheres and the right insula. Subjects with lower abilities made only partial changes to the original musical patterns. In these subjects, activation was only observed in left unimodal areas. We demonstrated that the activations of prefrontal and paralimbic areas, such as the insula, are related to creativity level, which is related to a widespread integration of networks that are mainly associated with cognitive, motivational and emotional processes. PMID:24069414

"The Return of the Unicorn": Creative Writing Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Inman, Kathy Huse; Kreitzer, Jack

The classroom activities suggested in this resource booklet, proven successful by South Dakota poet Jack Kreitzer, are designed to spark or increase students' creativity by bringing the exciting language of poetry alive in the elementary and secondary classroom. Introductory comments present thoughts on what poetry is and how it should be taught,…

Imagination Unlimited: A Guide for Creative Problem Solving, Upper Elementary Summer School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cleveland Public Schools, OH. Div. of Major Work Classes.

The guide gives procedures for helping gifted upper elementary school students in Major Work classes utilize their imagination. Appropriate literary quotes introduce a discussion on creativity, which involves the imaginative recombination of known ideas into something new. Considered are obstacles that work against creativity such as mental…

Divergent Task Performance in Older Adults: Declarative Memory or Creative Potential?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leon, Susan A.; Altmann, Lori J. P.; Abrams, Lise; Gonzalez Rothi, Leslie J.; Heilman, Kenneth M.

2014-01-01

Divergent thinking is a process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions or responses, and is a critical element of creativity. Lesion and imaging studies have shown that the frontal lobes are important in mediating divergent thinking, and frontal lobe function is highly dependent on white matter connections…

A Handbook of Bright Ideas: Facilitating Giftedness.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cherry, Betty S., Ed.

Presented is a manual developed by the Manatee, Florida, program for gifted students which includes articles by leading thinkers, information on J. Guilford's structure of the intellect model, the importance of cognitive and affective balance, creative development, checklists, games, and other ideas for teachers of gifted students. Articles…

The roles of associative and executive processes in creative cognition.

PubMed

Beaty, Roger E; Silvia, Paul J; Nusbaum, Emily C; Jauk, Emanuel; Benedek, Mathias

2014-10-01

How does the mind produce creative ideas? Past research has pointed to important roles of both executive and associative processes in creative cognition. But such work has largely focused on the influence of one ability or the other-executive or associative-so the extent to which both abilities may jointly affect creative thought remains unclear. Using multivariate structural equation modeling, we conducted two studies to determine the relative influences of executive and associative processes in domain-general creative cognition (i.e., divergent thinking). Participants completed a series of verbal fluency tasks, and their responses were analyzed by means of latent semantic analysis (LSA) and scored for semantic distance as a measure of associative ability. Participants also completed several measures of executive function-including broad retrieval ability (Gr) and fluid intelligence (Gf). Across both studies, we found substantial effects of both associative and executive abilities: As the average semantic distance between verbal fluency responses and cues increased, so did the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses (Study 1 and Study 2). Moreover, the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses was predicted by the executive variables-Gr (Study 1) and Gf (Study 2). Importantly, the effects of semantic distance and the executive function variables remained robust in the same structural equation model predicting divergent thinking, suggesting unique contributions of both constructs. The present research extends recent applications of LSA in creativity research and provides support for the notion that both associative and executive processes underlie the production of novel ideas.

White Matter Integrity, Creativity, and Psychopathology: Disentangling Constructs with Diffusion Tensor Imaging

PubMed Central

Jung, Rex E.; Grazioplene, Rachael; Caprihan, Arvind; Chavez, Robert S.; Haier, Richard J.

2010-01-01

That creativity and psychopathology are somehow linked remains a popular but controversial idea in neuroscience research. Brain regions implicated in both psychosis-proneness and creative cognition include frontal projection zones and association fibers. In normal subjects, we have previously demonstrated that a composite measure of divergent thinking (DT) ability exhibited significant inverse relationships in frontal lobe areas with both cortical thickness and metabolite concentration of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA). These findings support the idea that creativity may reside upon a continuum with psychopathology. Here we examine whether white matter integrity, assessed by Fractional Anisotropy (FA), is related to two measures of creativity (Divergent Thinking and Openness to Experience). Based on previous findings, we hypothesize inverse correlations within fronto-striatal circuits. Seventy-two healthy, young adult (18–29 years) subjects were scanned on a 3 Tesla scanner with Diffusion Tensor Imaging. DT measures were scored by four raters (α = .81) using the Consensual Assessment Technique, from which a composite creativity index (CCI) was derived. We found that the CCI was significantly inversely related to FA within the left inferior frontal white matter (t = 5.36, p = .01), and Openness was inversely related to FA within the right inferior frontal white matter (t = 4.61, p = .04). These findings demonstrate an apparent overlap in specific white matter architecture underlying the normal variance of divergent thinking, openness, and psychotic-spectrum traits, consistent with the idea of a continuum. PMID:20339554

Profile of students’ generated representations and creative thinking skill in problem solving in vocational school

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fikri, P. M.; Sinaga, P.; Hasanah, L.; Solehat, D.

2018-05-01

This study aims to determine profile of students’ generated representations and creative thinking skill on problem solving in vocational school. This research is a descriptive research to get an idea of comprehend students’ generated representations and creative thinking skill on problem solving of vocational school in Bandung. Technique of collecting data is done by test method, observation, and interview. Representation is something that represents, describes or symbolizes an object or process. To evaluate the multi-representation skill used essay test with rubric of scoring was used to assess multi-depressant student skills. While creative thinking skill on problem solving used essay test which contains the components of skills in finding facts, problem finding skills, idea finding skills and solution finding skills. The results showed generated representations is still relatively low, this is proven by average student answers explanation is mathematically correct but there is no explanation verbally or graphically. While creative thinking skill on problem solving is still relatively low, this is proven by average score for skill indicator in finding the student problem is 1.52 including the non-creative category, average score for the skill indicator in finding the student idea is 1.23 including the non-creative category, and the average score of the students skill in finding this solution is 0.72 belongs to a very uncreative category.

Book of Ideas in Business Education. Activities and Ideas to Motivate Students toward Improved Business Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oklahoma State Dept. of Education, Oklahoma City.

Developed by Oklahoma Business Education Teachers under the auspices of the Oklahoma State Department of Education, this book of ideas contains short, one-to-three-paragraph descriptions of activities and ideas to motivate students toward improved business education. The business education content areas included in this document are divided into…

Beyond Right or Wrong: Challenges of Including Creative Design Activities in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brennan, Karen

2015-01-01

In this article, we explore challenges encountered by K-12 educators in establishing classroom cultures that support creative learning activities with the Scratch programming language. Providing opportunities for students to understand and to build capacities for creative work was described by many of the teachers that we interviewed as a central…

Activating and Encouraging Supervisees' Creativity and Intuition through the Clinical Supervisory Relationship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tolbert, Yvette R.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore how creativity and intuition were activated and encouraged by counseling supervisors within the clinical supervisory relationship with supervisees. Past research in this area was limited in scope, and suggestions for future research included uncovering what worked to encourage creativity and intuition for…

Student Activity Ideas for the Technology Sequence Systems and Foundation Courses.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New York State Education Dept., Albany.

This publication provides single-page outlines of brief ideas for high school student activities in each of the System and Foundation Courses of the New York State technology sequence. The idea outlines are provided as a resource to assist teachers in the development of student learning activities. The six courses for which ideas are presented are…

Addressing the Biggest (Baddest) and Best Ideas Ever: Through the Lens of Humility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sowcik, Matthew J.; Andenoro, Anthony C.; Council, Austin

2017-01-01

Now and into the foreseeable future, both effective leadership and creativity are going to be important when addressing complex problems. The connection between effective leadership and creativity will be critical as leaders look to turn big ideas into innovative solutions. However, it seems that there is often a disconnect between the two…

Sex differences in the relationship between white matter connectivity and creativity.

PubMed

Ryman, Sephira G; van den Heuvel, Martijn P; Yeo, Ronald A; Caprihan, Arvind; Carrasco, Jessica; Vakhtin, Andrei A; Flores, Ranee A; Wertz, Christopher; Jung, Rex E

2014-11-01

Creative cognition emerges from a complex network of interacting brain regions. This study investigated the relationship between the structural organization of the human brain and aspects of creative cognition tapped by divergent thinking tasks. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) was used to obtain fiber tracts from 83 segmented cortical regions. This information was represented as a network and metrics of connectivity organization, including connectivity strength, clustering and communication efficiency were computed, and their relationship to individual levels of creativity was examined. Permutation testing identified significant sex differences in the relationship between global connectivity and creativity as measured by divergent thinking tests. Females demonstrated significant inverse relationships between global connectivity and creative cognition, whereas there were no significant relationships observed in males. Node specific analyses revealed inverse relationships across measures of connectivity, efficiency, clustering and creative cognition in widespread regions in females. Our findings suggest that females involve more regions of the brain in processing to produce novel ideas to solutions, perhaps at the expense of efficiency (greater path lengths). Males, in contrast, exhibited few, relatively weak positive relationships across these measures. Extending recent observations of sex differences in connectome structure, our findings of sexually dimorphic relationships suggest a unique topological organization of connectivity underlying the generation of novel ideas in males and females. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: selective versus leaky sensory gating in divergent thinkers and creative achievers.

PubMed

Zabelina, Darya L; O'Leary, Daniel; Pornpattananangkul, Narun; Nusslock, Robin; Beeman, Mark

2015-03-01

Creativity has previously been linked with atypical attention, but it is not clear what aspects of attention, or what types of creativity are associated. Here we investigated specific neural markers of a very early form of attention, namely sensory gating, indexed by the P50 ERP, and how it relates to two measures of creativity: divergent thinking and real-world creative achievement. Data from 84 participants revealed that divergent thinking (assessed with the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking) was associated with selective sensory gating, whereas real-world creative achievement was associated with "leaky" sensory gating, both in zero-order correlations and when controlling for academic test scores in a regression. Thus both creativity measures related to sensory gating, but in opposite directions. Additionally, divergent thinking and real-world creative achievement did not interact in predicting P50 sensory gating, suggesting that these two creativity measures orthogonally relate to P50 sensory gating. Finally, the ERP effect was specific to the P50 - neither divergent thinking nor creative achievement were related to later components, such as the N100 and P200. Overall results suggest that leaky sensory gating may help people integrate ideas that are outside of focus of attention, leading to creativity in the real world; whereas divergent thinking, measured by divergent thinking tests which emphasize numerous responses within a limited time, may require selective sensory processing more than previously thought. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Creativity and psychopathology: a shared vulnerability model.

PubMed

Carson, Shelley H

2011-03-01

Creativity is considered a positive personal trait. However, highly creative people have demonstrated elevated risk for certain forms of psychopathology, including mood disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and alcoholism. A model of shared vulnerability explains the relation between creativity and psychopathology. This model, supported by recent findings from neuroscience and molecular genetics, suggests that the biological determinants conferring risk for psychopathology interact with protective cognitive factors to enhance creative ideation. Elements of shared vulnerability include cognitive disinhibition (which allows more stimuli into conscious awareness), an attentional style driven by novelty salience, and neural hyperconnectivity that may increase associations among disparate stimuli. These vulnerabilities interact with superior meta-cognitive protective factors, such as high IQ, increased working memory capacity, and enhanced cognitive flexibility, to enlarge the range and depth of stimuli available in conscious awareness to be manipulated and combined to form novel and original ideas.

Creative Aging.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ager, Charlene Lee; And Others

1981-01-01

Explores some divergent attitudes toward aging, negative as well as positive. Presents a neurophysiological framework to support the belief that aging is an active and creative process. Explores physical, psychological, and sociological aspects, and identifies three factors in the creative aging process. (Author/JAC)

The evolutionary roots of creativity: mechanisms and motivations.

PubMed

Wiggins, Geraint A; Tyack, Peter; Scharff, Constance; Rohrmeier, Martin

2015-03-19

We consider the evolution of cognition and the emergence of creative behaviour, in relation to vocal communication. We address two key questions: (i) what cognitive and/or social mechanisms have evolved that afford aspects of creativity?; (ii) has natural and/or sexual selection favoured human behaviours considered 'creative'? This entails analysis of 'creativity', an imprecise construct: comparable properties in non-humans differ in magnitude and teleology from generally agreed human creativity. We then address two apparent problems: (i) the difference between merely novel productions and 'creative' ones; (ii) the emergence of creative behaviour in spite of high cost: does it fit the idea that females choose a male who succeeds in spite of a handicap (costly ornament); or that creative males capable of producing a large and complex song repertoire grew up under favourable conditions; or a demonstration of generally beneficial heightened reasoning capacity; or an opportunity to continually reinforce social bonding through changing communication tropes; or something else? We illustrate and support our argument by reference to whale and bird song; these independently evolved biological signal mechanisms objectively share surface properties with human behaviours generally called 'creative'. Studying them may elucidate mechanisms underlying human creativity; we outline a research programme to do so. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Thinking outside the Clocks: The Effect of Layered-Task Time on the Creative Climate of Meetings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Agypt, Brett; Rubin, Beth A.; Spivack, April J.

2012-01-01

The turbulence of the new economy puts demands on organizations to respond rapidly, flexibly and creatively to changing environments. Meetings are one of the organizational sites in which organizational actors "do" creativity; interaction in groups can be an important site for generating creative ideas and brainstorming. Additionally, Blount…

Creativity and the Young Child

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mindham, Carole

2005-01-01

There is a Chinese proverb which tells that a child is like a piece of paper: everyone who touches it leaves a mark, so one should make sure those marks are positive. In this article, the author raises an issue which concerns providing for, recognizing and celebrating creativity in children's play. It involves challenging the set of ideas about…

Dopamine and the Creative Mind: Individual Differences in Creativity Are Predicted by Interactions between Dopamine Genes DAT and COMT.

PubMed

Zabelina, Darya L; Colzato, Lorenza; Beeman, Mark; Hommel, Bernhard

2016-01-01

The dopaminergic (DA) system may be involved in creativity, however results of past studies are mixed. We attempted to clarify this putative relation by considering the mediofrontal and the nigrostriatal DA pathways, uniquely and in combination, and their contribution to two different measures of creativity--an abbreviated version of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, assessing divergent thinking, and a real-world creative achievement index. We found that creativity can be predicted from interactions between genetic polymorphisms related to frontal (COMT) and striatal (DAT) DA pathways. Importantly, the Torrance test and the real-world creative achievement index related to different genetic patterns, suggesting that these two measures tap into different aspects of creativity, and depend on distinct, but interacting, DA sub-systems. Specifically, we report that successful performance on the Torrance test is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with good cognitive flexibility and medium top-down control, or with weak cognitive flexibility and strong top-down control. The latter is particularly true for the originality factor of divergent thinking. High real-world creative achievement, on the other hand, as assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with weak cognitive flexibility and weak top-down control. Taken altogether, our findings support the idea that human creativity relies on dopamine, and on the interaction between frontal and striatal dopaminergic pathways in particular. This interaction may help clarify some apparent inconsistencies in the prior literature, especially if the genes and/or creativity measures were analyzed separately.

Creative Natural Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clary, Renee; Wandersee, James

2012-01-01

In the authors' science classrooms, students respond favorably and with more enthusiasm when they engage them with doing activities and building their own connections, as opposed to simply listening to or reading about the important concepts. Creative activities are important in science classrooms because creativity is not only an integral…

Teaching Creative Problem Solving Methods to Undergraduate Economics and Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cancer, Vesna

2014-01-01

This paper seeks to explore the need for and possibility of teaching current and potential problem solvers--undergraduate students in the economic and business field to define problems, to generate and choose creative and useful ideas and to verify them. It aims to select an array of quick and easy-to-use creative problem solving (CPS) techniques.…

Extroversion Personality, Domain Knowledge, and the Creativity of New Product Development Engineers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiang, Yun-Hwa; Hsu, Chu-Chun; Shih, Hsi-An

2017-01-01

Creativity refers to a person's thinking of new and useful ideas at work. Drawing on the personality literature, this study proposes that employees with high extroversion personality will exchange job relevant information with colleagues to generate creativity. Drawing on the information exchange theory, this study further proposes that the effect…

The Effectiveness of the Creative Writing Instruction Program Based on Speaking Activities (CWIPSA)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bayat, Seher

2016-01-01

This study aims to develop a creative writing instruction program based on speaking activities and to investigate its effect on fourth-grade primary school students' creative writing achievements and writing attitudes. The experimental method based on the pre-test/post-test model was used in this research. The research was conducted with 42…

Cycles of insanity and creativity within contemplative neural systems.

PubMed

Thaler, Stephen L

2016-09-01

Random connection weight disturbances within an assembly of artificial neural networks (ANN) drive a progression of activation patterns that are tantamount to the memories and ideas nucleating within the brain's cortex. The numerical evaluation of these pattern-based notions by another, more placid system of ANNs governs the magnitude of weight disturbances administered to the former assembly, that perturbative intensity in turn controlling the novelty of the resulting ideational stream as well as the retention of newly formed concepts. In search of solution patterns to posed problems, such collaborating neural systems autonomously cycle between two extremes in mean synaptic perturbation level. The higher limit, characterized by chaos and inattentiveness to exogenous input patterns, is the regime in which ideas first form and incubate. The lower bound, marked by relative synaptic tranquility, is favorable to the reactivation and reinforcement of concepts first seeded during heightened perturbation. When considering this synthetic neural architecture as a cognitive model, the proposed source of such synaptic fluctuations is volume neurotransmitter release within cortex where both ideational and critic nets are commingled. As a result of their overlap, not only are the generative cortical networks suffused with neurotransmitters, but also those functioning in a critic role, leading to altered 'opinions' about the perturbation-driven stream of consciousness that then govern the injection of neurotransmitters into cortex. The likely effect of such chemical feedback is that the brain constantly cycles between states of idea generating chaos and perception stabilizing tranquility in much the same way that creative artificial neural systems do. Postulating that ideas are potentially useful or interesting false memories born within such turmoil, creativity appears to take place through a cyclic process consisting of alternating phases of (1) cognitive incapacitation

Creating connections to life during life-threatening illness: Creative activity experienced by elderly people and occupational therapists

PubMed Central

la Cour, Karen; Josephsson, Staffan; Luborsky, Mark

2014-01-01

Objective The aim of this study was to discover and characterize components of engagement in creative activity as occupational therapy for elderly people dealing with life-threatening illness, from the perspective of both clients and therapists. Despite a long tradition of use in clinical interventions, key questions remain little addressed concerning how and why people seek these activities and the kinds of benefits that may result. Method Qualitative interviews were conducted with 8 clients and 7 therapists participating in creative workshops using crafts at a nursing home in Sweden. Analysis of the interviews was conducted using a constant comparative method. Findings Engaging in creative activity served as a medium that enabled creation of connections to wider culture and daily life that counters consequences of terminal illness, such as isolation. Creating connections to life was depicted as the core category, carried out in reference to three subcategories: (1) a generous receptive environment identified as the foundation for engaging in creative activity; (2) unfolding creations—an evolving process; (3) reaching beyond for possible meaning horizons. Conclusion The findings suggest that the domain of creative activity can enable the creation of connections to daily life and enlarge the experience of self as an active person, in the face of uncertain life-threatening illness. Ultimately, the features that participants specify can be used to refine and substantiate the use of creative activities in intervention and general healthcare. PMID:16389735

The Structural Challenge: A Simple Design-Based Science Activity to Foster Creativity among Kinaesthetic Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amir, Nazir; Subramaniam, R.

2014-01-01

A suitable way for teachers to present science content and foster creativity in less academically inclined students is by getting them to engage in design-based science activities and guiding them along the way. This study illustrates how a design-and-make activity was carried out with the aim of getting students to showcase their creativity while…

A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus?

PubMed

Baas, Matthijs; De Dreu, Carsten K W; Nijstad, Bernard A

2008-11-01

This meta-analysis synthesized 102 effect sizes reflecting the relation between specific moods and creativity. Effect sizes overall revealed that positive moods produce more creativity than mood-neutral controls (r= .15), but no significant differences between negative moods and mood-neutral controls (r= -.03) or between positive and negative moods (r= .04) were observed. Creativity is enhanced most by positive mood states that are activating and associated with an approach motivation and promotion focus (e.g., happiness), rather than those that are deactivating and associated with an avoidance motivation and prevention focus (e.g., relaxed). Negative, deactivating moods with an approach motivation and a promotion focus (e.g., sadness) were not associated with creativity, but negative, activating moods with an avoidance motivation and a prevention focus (fear, anxiety) were associated with lower creativity, especially when assessed as cognitive flexibility. With a few exceptions, these results generalized across experimental and correlational designs, populations (students vs. general adult population), and facet of creativity (e.g., fluency, flexibility, originality, eureka/insight). The authors discuss theoretical implications and highlight avenues for future research on specific moods, creativity, and their relationships.

The link between hypomania risk and creativity: The role of heightened behavioral activation system (BAS) sensitivity.

PubMed

Kim, Bin-Na; Kwon, Seok-Man

2017-06-01

The relationship between bipolar disorder (BD) and creativity is well-known; however, relatively little is known about its potential mechanism. We investigated whether heightened behavioral activation system (BAS) sensitivity may mediate such relationship. Korean young adults (N=543) completed self-report questionnaires that included the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS), the Behavioral Activation System(BAS) Scale, the Everyday Creativity Scale (ECS), the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale (ASRM). Correlational, hierarchical regression and mediation analyses using bootstrap confidence intervals were conducted. As predicted, BAS sensitivity was associated with self-reported creativity as well as hypomania risk and symptoms. Even when positive affect was controlled, BAS sensitivity predicted incrementally significant variance in explaining creativity. In mediation analysis, BAS sensitivity partially mediated the relation between hypomania risk and creativity. Reliance on self-report measures in assessing creativity and usage of non-clinical sample. BAS sensitivity was related not only to mood pathology but also to creativity. As a basic affective temperament, BAS sensitivity may help explain incompatible sides of adaptation associated with BD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Creative Arts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castellano, Richard J.; Fleming, Mary Ann

Educational goals and objectives, student activities, and visual aids are included in this guide to a three-dimensional design unit that combines creative art and industrial arts skills. Course goals include challenging students' creative skills, encouraging student interaction and successful group work, and providing an atmosphere of fun and…

Experimental effects of acute exercise and music listening on cognitive creativity.

PubMed

Frith, Emily; Loprinzi, Paul D

2018-07-01

The purpose of this study was to extend previous experimental work suggesting that both exercise and music-based interventions may influence creativity processes, by investigating the independent influences of exercise or music stimuli on verbal creative performances in the laboratory environment. 32 students at the University of Mississippi participated in this within-subject intervention, which included three laboratory visits per participant. Individuals participated in three 15-min, randomized experimental conditions: Treadmill walking, self-selected music, or a seated control period, and subsequently completed four creativity assessments during each visit (three tests of divergent thinking, and one test of convergent thinking), with the order of divergent thinking tasks counterbalanced. Creativity task performance was independently scored across four dependent parameters, which included fluency (i.e., total number of ideas), flexibility (i.e., total number of categories), originality (i.e., responses thought of by <5% of the sample), and elaboration (i.e., degree of supplementary detail included per idea). Repeated Measures ANOVAs indicated that creativity scores for fluency (F(2, 60) = 0.63, p = 0.94), flexibility (F(2, 60) = 0.64, p = 0.53), originality (F(2, 60 = 0.23, p = 0.78), and elaboration (F(2, 60) = 2.74, p = 0.07), were not statistically significant across the visits. These findings add to the equivocal body of creativity research, uniquely assessing the effects of exercise and music on verbal creativity performance. The present study further highlights the critical need for improvement in the assessment and evaluation of laboratory-assessed cognitive creativity. Methodological strategies must be examined and refined for the meaningful and credible measurement and interpretation of experimental creativity. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dealing with the Criterion Problem by Measuring the Quality and Quantity of Creative Activity and Accomplishment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paek, Sue Hyeon; Runco, Mark A.

2017-01-01

The criterion problem was one of the focal points of early studies of creativity, but several useful criteria have been developed in the last few decades. The investigation reported here represents additional progress. This report (a) describes a new quality of creative achievement index for each domain of the Creative Activity and Accomplishment…

Bringing a Reading Passage to Life: A Creative Comprehension Activity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montone, Christopher L.; Short, Deborah J.

A creative reading comprehension activity developed for multi-grade (6-8) English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) social studies classes is described. The activity was developed as part of a project integrating language and culture in social studies instruction. Researchers worked with an ESL teacher and a social studies teacher to create a series of…

Is it new? Personal and contextual influences on perceptions of novelty and creativity.

PubMed

Zhou, Jing; Wang, Xiaoye May; Song, Lynda Jiwen; Wu, Junfeng

2017-02-01

Novelty recognition is the crucial starting point for extracting value from the ideas generated by others. In this paper we develop an associative evaluation account for how personal and contextual factors motivate individuals to perceive novelty and creativity. We report 4 studies that systematically tested hypotheses developed from this perspective. Study 1 (a laboratory experiment) showed that perceivers' regulatory focus, as an experimentally induced state, affected novelty perception. Study 2 (a field study) found that perceivers' promotion focus and prevention focus, measured as chronic traits, each interacted with normative level of novelty and creativity: perceivers who scored higher on promotion focus perceived more novelty (or creativity) in novel (or creative) targets than those who scored lower, whereas perceivers who scored higher on prevention focus perceived less novelty (or creativity) in novel (or creative) targets than those who scored lower. Study 3 (a field study) showed that organizational culture affected the perception of novelty and creativity. Study 4 (a laboratory experiment) found perceiver-by-idea-by-context 3-way interaction effects: for perceivers with prevention focus, the positive relation between normative level of novelty and novelty ratings was weakened in the loss-framing condition versus the gain-framing condition. We discuss implications of the findings for future research and management practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Dopamine and the Creative Mind: Individual Differences in Creativity Are Predicted by Interactions between Dopamine Genes DAT and COMT

PubMed Central

Zabelina, Darya L.; Colzato, Lorenza; Beeman, Mark; Hommel, Bernhard

2016-01-01

The dopaminergic (DA) system may be involved in creativity, however results of past studies are mixed. We attempted to clarify this putative relation by considering the mediofrontal and the nigrostriatal DA pathways, uniquely and in combination, and their contribution to two different measures of creativity–an abbreviated version of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, assessing divergent thinking, and a real-world creative achievement index. We found that creativity can be predicted from interactions between genetic polymorphisms related to frontal (COMT) and striatal (DAT) DA pathways. Importantly, the Torrance test and the real-world creative achievement index related to different genetic patterns, suggesting that these two measures tap into different aspects of creativity, and depend on distinct, but interacting, DA sub-systems. Specifically, we report that successful performance on the Torrance test is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with good cognitive flexibility and medium top-down control, or with weak cognitive flexibility and strong top-down control. The latter is particularly true for the originality factor of divergent thinking. High real-world creative achievement, on the other hand, as assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, is linked with dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with weak cognitive flexibility and weak top-down control. Taken altogether, our findings support the idea that human creativity relies on dopamine, and on the interaction between frontal and striatal dopaminergic pathways in particular. This interaction may help clarify some apparent inconsistencies in the prior literature, especially if the genes and/or creativity measures were analyzed separately. PMID:26783754

America's looming creativity crisis.

PubMed

Florida, Richard

2004-10-01

The strength of the American economy does not rest on its manufacturing prowess, its natural resources, or the size of its market. It turns on one factor--the country's openness to new ideas, which has allowed it to attract the brightest minds from around the world and harness their creative energies. But the United States is on the verge of losing that competitive edge. As the nation tightens its borders to students and scientists and subjects federal research funding to ideological and religious litmus tests, many other countries are stepping in to lure that creative capital away. Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and others are spending more on research and development and shoring up their universities in an effort to attract the world's best--including Americans. If even a few of these nations draw away just a small percentage of the creative workers from the U.S., the effect on its economy will be enormous. In this article, the author introduces a quantitative measure of the migration of creative capital called the Global Creative-Class Index. It shows that, far from leading the world, the United States doesn't even rank in the top ten in the percentage of its workforce engaged in creative occupations. What's more, the baby boomers will soon retire. And data showing large drops in foreign student applications to U.S. universities and in the number of visas issued to knowledge workers, along with concomitant increases in immigration in other countries, suggest that the erosion of talent from the United States will only intensify. To defend the U.S. economy, the business community must take the lead in ensuring that global talent can move efficiently across borders, that education and research are funded at radically higher levels, and that we tap into the creative potential of more and more workers. Because wherever creativity goes, economic growth is sure to follow.

Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking.

PubMed

Ritter, Simone M; Ferguson, Sam

2017-01-01

Creativity can be considered one of the key competencies for the twenty-first century. It provides us with the capacity to deal with the opportunities and challenges that are part of our complex and fast-changing world. The question as to what facilitates creative cognition-the ability to come up with creative ideas, problem solutions and products-is as old as the human sciences, and various means to enhance creative cognition have been studied. Despite earlier scientific studies demonstrating a beneficial effect of music on cognition, the effect of music listening on creative cognition has remained largely unexplored. The current study experimentally tests whether listening to specific types of music (four classical music excerpts systematically varying on valance and arousal), as compared to a silence control condition, facilitates divergent and convergent creativity. Creativity was higher for participants who listened to 'happy music' (i.e., classical music high on arousal and positive mood) while performing the divergent creativity task, than for participants who performed the task in silence. No effect of music was found for convergent creativity. In addition to the scientific contribution, the current findings may have important practical implications. Music listening can be easily integrated into daily life and may provide an innovative means to facilitate creative cognition in an efficient way in various scientific, educational and organizational settings when creative thinking is needed.

Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking

PubMed Central

Ferguson, Sam

2017-01-01

Creativity can be considered one of the key competencies for the twenty-first century. It provides us with the capacity to deal with the opportunities and challenges that are part of our complex and fast-changing world. The question as to what facilitates creative cognition—the ability to come up with creative ideas, problem solutions and products—is as old as the human sciences, and various means to enhance creative cognition have been studied. Despite earlier scientific studies demonstrating a beneficial effect of music on cognition, the effect of music listening on creative cognition has remained largely unexplored. The current study experimentally tests whether listening to specific types of music (four classical music excerpts systematically varying on valance and arousal), as compared to a silence control condition, facilitates divergent and convergent creativity. Creativity was higher for participants who listened to ‘happy music’ (i.e., classical music high on arousal and positive mood) while performing the divergent creativity task, than for participants who performed the task in silence. No effect of music was found for convergent creativity. In addition to the scientific contribution, the current findings may have important practical implications. Music listening can be easily integrated into daily life and may provide an innovative means to facilitate creative cognition in an efficient way in various scientific, educational and organizational settings when creative thinking is needed. PMID:28877176

Creative Thinking and Creative Performance in Adolescents as Predictors of Creative Attainments in Adults: A Follow-Up Study after 18 Years.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milgram, Roberta M.; Hong, Eunsook

1993-01-01

Results of an 18-year longitudinal study of 48 Israeli high school students who were seniors at the study's start suggest that measures of creative thinking and creative leisure activities were more important than school-oriented predictors of intelligence and school grades in predicting creative attainments in adults. (DB)

Creative Dramatics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Practical Pointers, 1977

1977-01-01

Described are uses of creative dramatics with handicapped and non-handicapped children and adults. Creative dramatics is seen to involve acting out situations without formal or strict guidelines, with focus on expression of one's feelings and working cooperatively with others. Activities and leadership hints are listed for warm-up games and…

Self-Esteem, Creativity, and Music: Implications and Directions for Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

VanderArk, Sherman

1989-01-01

This paper seeks to give potentially pertinent information and ideas for the development of a model and of hypotheses that are relevant in terms of combining the areas of self-concept and creativity. Selected sources from the areas of psychology, education, and music education are presented as the basis for ideas and thoughts for further research.…

What a great idea! Someone should evaluate that...

PubMed

Schmidt, David D

2016-06-01

How often, as clinicians, do we see a really clever idea implemented in the workplace? In rural health in particular, creative work-around solutions are relatively commonplace. However, the evaluation and promotion of these ideas is less so, and this leads to lost opportunities for perpetuating these clever ideas. This paper explores one rural clinician's experience of what can happen if, instead of appreciating and complementing a great idea, that step of evaluating the great idea is taken. A reflective narrative was created, beginning with a corridor conversation ('What a great idea! Someone should evaluate that...'), continuing through a formal research project and ending with the impact of that project and the way its findings were communicated and implemented. The narrative outlines the effect of evaluating one great idea at the individual, workplace, organisational, state and national levels. Clinicians are well placed to identify great ideas in practice. Making the decision to evaluate these ideas can lead to personal growth, professional discovery and organisational benefits. With motivation and organisational support, who knows where evaluation may lead?

Evaluation of Computer Tools for Idea Generation and Team Formation in Project-Based Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ardaiz-Villanueva, Oscar; Nicuesa-Chacon, Xabier; Brene-Artazcoz, Oscar; Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga, Maria Luisa; Sanz de Acedo Baquedano, Maria Teresa

2011-01-01

The main objective of this research was to validate the effectiveness of Wikideas and Creativity Connector tools to stimulate the generation of ideas and originality by university students organized into groups according to their indexes of creativity and affinity. Another goal of the study was to evaluate the classroom climate created by these…

Creativity through a Rhetorical Lens: Implications for Schooling, Literacy and Media Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Banaji, Shakuntala; Burn, Andrew

2007-01-01

This article, which is speculative in outlook and emerges from an extended literature review on this subject, takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of "creativity"--whether in relation to literacy, schooling or the economy, is constructed as a series of rhetorical claims. These rhetorics of creativity emerge from the contexts of…

Commentary: Overview of Developmental Perspectives on Creativity and the Realization of Potential

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Runco, Mark A.

2016-01-01

The articles in this issue of "New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development" nicely summarize recent findings about creativity and development. This commentary underscores some of the key ideas and puts them into a larger context (i.e., the corpus of creativity research). It pinpoints areas of agreement (e.g., the need to take…

Role of Creativity in the Effectiveness of Cognitive Reappraisal

PubMed Central

Wu, Xiaofei; Guo, Tingting; Tang, Tengteng; Shi, Baoguo; Luo, Jing

2017-01-01

As a well-recognized and widely adopted emotional regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal has generally been proven to be efficient. However, the cognitive mechanism underlying regulatory efficiency, particularly the role of creativity, in cognitive reappraisal is unclear. Although previous studies have evaluated the relationship between creativity and reappraisal from the perspectives of generation (i.e., generating cognitive reappraisals and generating creative ideas involve similar cognitive neural networks) and individual differences (i.e., the ability to generate different cognitive reappraisals can be predicted by scores on creativity-related tests), how cognitive reappraisal’s efficiency can be related to creativity is still unknown. In this research, we assessed the relationship between cognitive reappraisal’s creativity and its effectiveness in regulating negative emotion. In Study 1, participants were asked to generate reappraisals of negative stimuli and then evaluate the creativity and regulatory effectiveness of these reappraisals. The results indicated positive correlation between creativity rating and regulatory effectiveness, but we found that it was difficult for the participants to generate highly creative reappraisals on their own. Therefore, in Study 2, we showed participants well-prepared reappraisal materials that varied in their creativity and asked them to evaluate their regulatory effectiveness and creativity. The results suggested that creativity and appropriateness were significant predictors of the regulating effects of the reappraisal and that creativity was the most dominant predictor. In summary, both experiments found a positive correlation between reappraisal’s creativity and effectiveness, thus implying that creativity plays an important role in reappraisal. PMID:28966603

The origins of originality: the neural bases of creative thinking and originality.

PubMed

Shamay-Tsoory, S G; Adler, N; Aharon-Peretz, J; Perry, D; Mayseless, N

2011-01-01

Although creativity has been related to prefrontal activity, recent neurological case studies postulate that patients who have left frontal and temporal degeneration involving deterioration of language abilities may actually develop de novo artistic abilities. In this study, we propose a neural and cognitive model according to which a balance between the two hemispheres affects a major aspect of creative cognition, namely, originality. In order to examine the neural basis of originality, that is, the ability to produce statistically infrequent ideas, patients with localized lesions in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and posterior parietal and temporal cortex (PC), were assessed by two tasks involving divergent thinking and originality. Results indicate that lesions in the mPFC involved the most profound impairment in originality. Furthermore, precise anatomical mapping of lesions indicated that while the extent of lesion in the right mPFC was associated with impaired originality, lesions in the left PC were associated with somewhat elevated levels of originality. A positive correlation between creativity scores and left PC lesions indicated that the larger the lesion is in this area the greater the originality. On the other hand, a negative correlation was observed between originality scores and lesions in the right mPFC. It is concluded that the right mPFC is part of a right fronto-parietal network which is responsible for producing original ideas. It is possible that more linear cognitive processing such as language, mediated by left hemisphere structures interferes with creative cognition. Therefore, lesions in the left hemisphere may be associated with elevated levels of originality. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Making ideas at scientific fabrication laboratories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fonda, Carlo; Canessa, Enrique

2016-11-01

Creativity, together with the making of ideas into fruition, is essential for progress. Today the evolution from an idea to its application can be facilitated by the implementation of Fabrication Laboratories, or FabLabs, having affordable digital tools for prototyping. FabLabs aiming at scientific research and invention are now starting to be established inside Universities, Research Centers and Schools. We review the setting up of the ICTP Scientific FabLab in Trieste, Italy, give concrete examples on the use in physics, and propose to replicate world-wide this class of multi-purpose workplaces within academia as a support for physics and math education and for community development.

Fostering Creativity in Tablet-Based Interactive Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Hye Jeong; Park, Ji Hyeon; Yoo, Sungae; Kim, Hyeoncheol

2016-01-01

This article aims to examine the effects of an instructional model that leverages innovative technologies in the classroom to cultivate collaboration that improves students' comprehension, fosters their creativity, and enables them to better express and communicate their ideas through drawing. This discussion focuses on classroom interaction…

Idea Bank: The Protein Résumé

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caraballo, Tami; Crowther, Gregory

2018-01-01

The Idea Bank column provides tips and techniques for creative teaching, in about 1,000 words. As students use increasingly diverse internet sources, it becomes hard to tell whether their answers are truly original. A general solution to this dilemma is to ask students to present information in a format that they are unlikely to encounter in books…

Creatively Expanding Minds through Interdisciplinary Exploration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ambrose, Don

2010-01-01

A long term, ever broadening search for ideas from multiple disciplines strengthens creative thinking for many gifted young people, especially if the search is guided by the evolving interests of the individual. Instead of asking students to delve deeply into a particular topic, encourage them to allow one point of study to suggest others, and…

Brain illness and creativity: mechanisms and treatment risks.

PubMed

Flaherty, Alice W

2011-03-01

Brain diseases and their treatment may help or hurt creativity in ways that shape quality of life. Increased creative drive is associated with bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, temporal lobe epilepsy, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson disease treatments, and autism. Creativity depends on goal-driven approach motivation from midbrain dopaminergic systems. Fear-driven avoidance motivation is of less aid to creativity. When serotonin and norepinephrine lower motivation and flexible behaviour, they can inhibit creativity. Hemispheric lateralization and frontotemporal connections must interact to create new ideas and conceptual schemes. The right brain and temporal lobe contribute skill in novelty detection, while the left brain and frontal lobe foster approach motivation and more easily generate new patterns of action from the novel perceptions. Genes and phenotypes that increase plasticity and creativity in tolerant environments with relaxed selection pressure may confer risk in rigorous environments. Few papers substantively address this important but fraught topic. Antidepressants (ADs) that inhibit fear-driven motivation, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, sometimes inhibit goal-oriented motivation as well. ADs that boost goal-directed motivation, such as bupropion, may remediate this effect. Benzodiazepines and alcohol may be counterproductive. Although dopaminergic agonists sometimes stimulate creativity, their doing so may inappropriately disinhibit behaviour. Dopamine antagonists may suppress creative motivation; lithium and anticonvulsant mood stabilizers may do so less. Physical exercise and REM sleep may help creativity. Art therapy and psychotherapy are not well studied. Preserving creative motivation can help creativity and other aspects of well-being in all patients, not just artists or researchers.

Psycho-Pedagogical Conditions of Formation of Professional Creative Activity of Future Professionals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Askarovna, Uzakbayeva Sakypzhamal; Yertaevna, Abeltayeva Zhanel; Erhanovna, Sadykova Ayzhan; Rysbekova, R.

2015-01-01

Organizational, psychological and pedagogical conditions (the position of student in the educational process, the inclusion of students in active and independent activities, the creation of a positive creative environment and psychological climate, the active use of the forms, methods, technologies, adequate formation of professional creative…

Developing High School Students' Creativity by Teaching Them To Take Risks and Defer Judgment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Israel, Elfie

A practicum was designed to help high school students become more creative by encouraging them to be audacious, divergent thinkers capable of entertaining several contradictory ideas simultaneously. Tolerating paradox and ambiguity are vital components in developing creativity. These goals were achieved by developing a nurturing, caring, accepting…

The Role of Sketching States in the Stimulation of Idea Generation: An Eye Movement Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, Lingyun; Xiang, Wei; Yang, Cheng; Yang, Zhiyuan; Lou, Yun

2014-01-01

Sketching is widely used in design to generate creative ideas. Design studies present stimuli during sketching to enhance creativity. This study examines the effect of stimuli presented during different sketching states, especially of those presented during the stuck period. It conducted a sketching experiment that enrolled 41 students with an…

Writing Down the Days: 365 Creative Journaling Ideas for Young People.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dahlstrom, Lorraine M.; Espeland, Pamela, Ed.

This book offers an entire year of journaling ideas--some serious, some "silly," but all tied to the calendar year. In fact, the book's sections are the months of the year. Each idea in the book comes with a fact-filled introduction and aims to prove that writing does not have to be boring or dull. As a special feature, many entries in…

Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Neural Activity Associated with Information Selection in Open-ended Creativity.

PubMed

Zhou, Siyuan; Chen, Shi; Wang, Shuang; Zhao, Qingbai; Zhou, Zhijin; Lu, Chunming

2018-02-10

Novel information selection is a crucial process in creativity and was found to be associated with frontal-temporal functional connectivity in the right brain in closed-ended creativity. Since it has distinct cognitive processing from closed-ended creativity, the information selection in open-ended creativity might be underlain by different neural activity. To address this issue, a creative generation task of Chinese two-part allegorical sayings was adopted, and the trials were classified into novel and normal solutions according to participants' self-ratings. The results showed that (1) novel solutions induced a higher lower alpha power in the temporal area, which might be associated with the automatic, unconscious mental process of retrieving extensive semantic information, and (2) upper alpha power in both frontal and temporal areas and frontal-temporal alpha coherence were higher in novel solutions than in normal solutions, which might reflect the selective inhibition of semantic information. Furthermore, lower alpha power in the temporal area showed a reduction with time, while the frontal-temporal and temporal-temporal coherence in the upper alpha band appeared to increase from the early to the middle phase. These dynamic changes in neural activity might reflect the transformation from divergent thinking to convergent thinking in the creative progress. The advantage of the right brain in frontal-temporal connectivity was not found in the present work, which might result from the diversity of solutions in open-ended creativity. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fostering Creativity: A Multiple Intelligences Approach to Designing Learning in Undergraduate Fine Art

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clarke, Angela; Cripps, Peter

2012-01-01

Curriculum and pedagogy in undergraduate fine art can promote an approach to learning creativity that is more about being an artist than knowing about art. Lecturers can provide a road map for developing particular dispositions, in relation to student ideas and perceptions, to foster personalised creativity. This requires that lecturers have an…

Gender and creativity: an overview of psychological and neuroscientific literature.

PubMed

Abraham, Anna

2016-06-01

The topic of gender differences in creativity is one that generates substantial scientific and public interest, but also courts considerable controversy. Owing to the heterogeneous nature of the findings associated with this line of research, the general picture often appears puzzling or obscure. This article presents a selective overview of psychological and neuroscientific literature that has a relevant bearing on the theme of gender and creativity. Topics that are explored include the definition and methods of assessing creativity, a summary of behavioral investigations on gender in relation to creativity, postulations that have been put forward to understand gender differences in creative achievement, gender-based differences in the structure and function of the brain, gender-related differences in behavioral performance on tasks of normative cognition, and neuroscientific studies of gender and creativity. The article ends with a detailed discussion of the idea that differences between men and women in creative cognition are best explained with reference to the gender-dependent adopted strategies or cognitive style when faced with generative tasks.

Possible Brain Mechanisms of Creativity.

PubMed

Heilman, Kenneth M

2016-06-01

Creativity is the new discovery, understanding, development and expression of orderly and meaningful relationships. Creativity has three major stages: preparation, the development (nature and nurture) of critical knowledge and skills; innovation, the development of a creative solution; and creative production. Successful preparation requires a basic level of general intelligence and domain specific knowledge and skills and highly creative people may have anatomic alterations of specific neocortical regions. Innovation requires disengagement and divergent thinking primarily mediated by frontal networks. Creative people are often risk-takers and novelty seekers, behaviors that activate their ventral striatal reward system. Innovation also requires associative and convergent thinking, activities that are dependent on the integration of highly distributed networks. People are often most creative when they are in mental states associated with reduced levels of brain norepinephrine, which may enhance the communication between distributed networks. We, however, need to learn more about the brain mechanisms of creativity. Published by Oxford University Press 2016. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Archetypes, Causal Description and Creativity in Natural World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiatti, Leonardo

The idea, formulated for the first time by Pauli, of a "creativity" of natural processes on a quantum scale is briefly investigated, with particular reference to the phenomena, common throughout the biological world, involved in the amplification of microscopic "creative" events at oscopic level. The involvement of non-locality is also discussed with reference to the synordering of events, a concept introduced for the first time by Bohm. Some convergences are proposed between the metamorphic process envisaged by Bohm and that envisaged by Goethe, and some possible applications concerning known biological phenomena are briefly discussed.

Training of verbal creativity modulates brain activity in regions associated with language- and memory-related demands.

PubMed

Fink, Andreas; Benedek, Mathias; Koschutnig, Karl; Pirker, Eva; Berger, Elisabeth; Meister, Sabrina; Neubauer, Aljoscha C; Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M

2015-10-01

This functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study was designed to investigate changes in functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation as a result of a computerized, 3-week verbal creativity training. The training was composed of various verbal divergent thinking exercises requiring participants to train approximately 20 min per day. Fifty-three participants were tested three times (psychometric tests and fMRI assessment) with an intertest-interval of 4 weeks each. Participants were randomly assigned to two different training groups, which received the training time-delayed: The first training group was trained between the first and the second test, while the second group accomplished the training between the second and the third test session. At the behavioral level, only one training group showed improvements in different facets of verbal creativity right after the training. Yet, functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation were strikingly similar across both training groups. Whole-brain voxel-wise analyses (along with supplementary region of interest analyses) revealed that the training was associated with activity changes in well-known creativity-related brain regions such as the left inferior parietal cortex and the left middle temporal gyrus, which have been shown as being particularly sensitive to the originality facet of creativity in previous research. Taken together, this study demonstrates that continuous engagement in a specific complex cognitive task like divergent thinking is associated with reliable changes of activity patterns in relevant brain areas, suggesting more effective search, retrieval, and integration from internal memory representations as a result of the training. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Motivation and Creativity: Effects of Motivational Orientation on Creative Writers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amabile, Teresa M.

This study directly tested the hypothesis that intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity and extrinsic motivation is detrimental. Chosen because they identified themselves as actively involved in creative writing, 72 young adults participated in individual laboratory sessions where they were asked to write two brief poems. Before writing the…

Checklists, rules and creativity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glasmacher, Thomas

2009-01-01

Universities have something that private industry wants - a unique culture of continuous learning, curiosity-driven research and international collaboration. According to an unending string of accounts in the business press, adopting this university culture is imperative for survival and success in the "technology-driven" 21st-century economy. The industry poster child for this idea is the IT giant Google. Its success undoubtedly buys the company increasing freedom to experiment with and nurture its own unique culture. But Google is routinely lauded for fostering academic-style debate in meetings, maintaining a fluid organization chart that allows employees to try other roles, and giving its engineers one day a week to pursue their own creative ideas for advancing the company's interests.

Twitter Fiction: A New Creative Literary Landscape

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al Sharaqi, Laila; Abbasi, Irum

2016-01-01

Twitter, synonymous with social networking, has become a successful social platform for the exchange of ideas, news, and information. It has also emerged as an experimental platform through which users explore creative realms of poetic and narrative content, albeit in 140 characters. The real-time tweets are fundamentally unique and increasingly…

Elusive Quality of Giftedness: Creative Life Spark

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sisk, Dorothy A.

2012-01-01

Some children and adults have a creative life spark, and in a spontaneous environment, they are able to demonstrate a spirit of "free play" in generating ideas, planning, and implementing projects, or just thoroughly entertaining others with their wry humor and curiosity. In Joan Freeman's thought-provoking article, "A Quality of…

Examining small "c" creativity in the science classroom: Multiple case studies of five high school teachers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lasky, Dorothea Shawn

As the US continues to strive toward building capacity for a workforce in STEM fields (NSF, 2006), educational organizations and researchers have constructed frameworks that focus on increasing competencies in creativity in order to achieve this goal (ISTE, 2007; Karoly & Panis, 2004; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007). Despite these recommendations, many teachers either do not believe in the relevance of nurturing creativity in their students (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007) or accept the importance of it, but do not know how best to foster it in their classrooms (Kampylis et al., 2009). Researchers conclude that teachers need to revise their ideas about the kind of creativity they can expect from their students to reflect the idea of small 'c' versus large 'C' creativity. There is a dearth of literature that looks closely at teacher practice surrounding creativity in the US and gives teachers a set of practical suggestions they can follow easily. I examined five case studies of teachers as they participated in and implemented a large-scale, NSF-funded project premised on the idea that training teachers in 21 st century pedagogies, (for example, problem-based learning), helps teachers create classrooms that increase science competencies in students. I investigated how teachers' curricular choices affect the amount of student creativity produced in their classrooms. Analysis included determining CAT scores for student products and continua scores along the Small 'c' Creativity Framework. In the study, I present an understanding of how teachers' beliefs influence practice and how creativity is fostered in students through various styles of teacher practice. The data showed a relationship between teachers' CAT scores, framework scores, and school context. Thus, alongside CAT, the framework was determined to be a successful tool for understanding the degree to which teachers foster small 'c' creativity. Other themes emerged, which included teachers' allotment of

Idea Bank.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Science Teacher, 1993

1993-01-01

Presents three teaching ideas entitled (1) Rearview Mirrors; (2) Chills and Fevers; and (3) Science Activities and the Learner. The second idea presents a poem to help students with the relationship between Centigrade and Fahrenheit. The third idea presents activities on evaporation. (PR)

This idea worth anything? Mechanics of technology transfer.

PubMed

Goodson, J Max

2006-01-01

The path from a proven scientific idea to a commercially viable product is seldom easy. It often requires ten or more years and millions of dollars. The essential elements include a creative concept that has been proven sound, identification of the commercial applicability of the concept, and financing and management of the development process.

When Did You Last Predict a Good Idea?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Penaluna, Kathryn; Penaluna, Andrew; Jones, Colin; Matlay, Harry

2014-01-01

It has been noted elsewhere that an idea is acknowledged to be creative if it is novel, or surprising and adaptive. So how does that fit with education's desire to measure student performance against fixed, consistent and predicted learning outcomes? This study explores practical measures and theoretical constructs that address the dearth of…

Idea Bank: Using Apps That Support Scientific Practices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mills, Kelly; Seligman, Eileen; Ketelhut, Diane Jass

2017-01-01

The Idea Bank provides tips and techniques for creative teaching, in about 1,000 words. For this article, the authors analyzed 93 educational applications (apps) that have the potential to help students meaningfully engage in the science practices outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards. Some of the ways teachers can use these apps in…

Hypothalamic digoxin, hemispheric chemical dominance, and creativity.

PubMed

Kurup, Ravi Kumar; Kurup, Parameswara Achutha

2003-04-01

The human hypothalamus produces an endogenous membrane Na(+)-K+ ATPase inhibitor, digoxin, which regulates neuronal transmission. The digoxin status and neurotransmitter patterns were studied in creative and non-creative individuals, as well as in individuals with differing hemispheric dominance, in order to find out the role of cerebral dominance in this respect. The activity of HMG CoA reductase and serum levels of digoxin, magnesium, tryptophan catabolites, and tyrosine catabolites were measured in creative/non-creative individuals, and in individuals with differing hemispheric dominance. In creative individuals there was increased digoxin synthesis, decreased membrane Na(+)-K+ ATPase activity, increased tryptophan catabolites (serotonin, quinolinic acid, and nicotine), and decreased tyrosine catabolites (dopamine, noradrenaline, and morphine). The pattern in creative individuals correlated with right hemispheric dominance. In non-creative individuals there was decreased digoxin synthesis, increased membrane Na(+)-K+ ATPase activity, decreased tryptophan catabolites (serotonin, quinolinic acid, and nicotine), and increased tyrosine catabolites (dopamine, noradrenaline, and morphine). This pattern in non-creative individuals correlated with that obtained in left hemispheric chemical dominance. Hemispheric chemical dominance and hypothalamic digoxin could regulate the predisposition to creative tendency.

Fostering Creativity through Educational Video Game Development Projects: A Study of Contextual and Task Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fabricatore, Carlo; López, Ximena

2013-01-01

The increasing demand for creative individuals in the labor market requires well-prepared professionals, capable of enhancing competitiveness through new ideas and innovative actions. Educational programs should, therefore, rely on approaches and learning environments that foster creativity. In this study, video game development projects were used…

The Influence of Different Pictorial Representations during Idea Generation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cardoso, Carlos; Badke-Schaub, Petra

2011-01-01

During creative problem-solving, designers frequently come across a variety of rich visual displays. While browsing for different sources of information, pictorial representations of existing concepts take prominence. However, once designers start generating new solution ideas to design problems, they often become too attached to some of the…

Meaningful Learning and Creativity in Virtual Worlds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferguson, Rebecca

2011-01-01

Virtual worlds open new possibilities for learners, prompting a reconsideration of how learning takes place, and setting education in a context of playfulness, delight and creativity. They provide environments in which it is not only possible but also necessary to generate and try out ideas. They therefore offer opportunities to explore new…

An Arts Activities Approach: Counseling the Gifted, Creative, and Talented.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kenny, Adele

1987-01-01

The visual arts can be employed as a counseling vehicle for gifted, creative, and talented students. Color, image proportion, subject matter, and texture in student art facilitate assessment and guidance. Craft, drawing, painting, photography, printing, design, and sculpture activities which could help in this process are briefly described. (CB)

The evolutionary roots of creativity: mechanisms and motivations

PubMed Central

Wiggins, Geraint A.; Tyack, Peter; Scharff, Constance; Rohrmeier, Martin

2015-01-01

We consider the evolution of cognition and the emergence of creative behaviour, in relation to vocal communication. We address two key questions: (i) what cognitive and/or social mechanisms have evolved that afford aspects of creativity?; (ii) has natural and/or sexual selection favoured human behaviours considered ‘creative’? This entails analysis of ‘creativity’, an imprecise construct: comparable properties in non-humans differ in magnitude and teleology from generally agreed human creativity. We then address two apparent problems: (i) the difference between merely novel productions and ‘creative’ ones; (ii) the emergence of creative behaviour in spite of high cost: does it fit the idea that females choose a male who succeeds in spite of a handicap (costly ornament); or that creative males capable of producing a large and complex song repertoire grew up under favourable conditions; or a demonstration of generally beneficial heightened reasoning capacity; or an opportunity to continually reinforce social bonding through changing communication tropes; or something else? We illustrate and support our argument by reference to whale and bird song; these independently evolved biological signal mechanisms objectively share surface properties with human behaviours generally called ‘creative’. Studying them may elucidate mechanisms underlying human creativity; we outline a research programme to do so. PMID:25646522

Creativity with dementia patients. Can creativity and art stimulate dementia patients positively?

PubMed

Hannemann, Beat Ted

2006-01-01

Creative activities could be stimulating for dementia patients. This article gives a review of practical forms of treating dementia patients with art therapeutic indications. It is also a ground for long-term research objective: in brief, I take exception to such a view, contrary to the common belief in the society and some professionals in the healthcare of dementia patients, on the ground that the patients do not have the capacity to improve their own creativity. The theory of cognition tells us about the principle of being creative as a basis for human life. This specific principle is effective for the aged as well. In the long-term, the creative potential of old patients will be unblocked in individual and group therapy sessions. Creative activity has been shown to reduce depression and isolation, offering the power of choice and decisions. Towards the end of life, art and creativity offer a path of opening up the windows to people's emotional interiors. Creative- and art therapy provides possibilities that are mostly indicated to sharpen the capacity of the senses and the patients' propensity to act themselves. Nonverbal therapy methods, such as painting, music, etc., are able to influence the well-being of the patients positively, within the modern healthcare system in nursing homes. The elderly and some of the dementia patients take the initiative to combine creativity and arts and to define his/her feeling for aesthetical matters. Furthermore, group therapy sessions help against isolation and lack of life perspective and hope. Copyright 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Cannabis and Ecstasy/ MDMA: empirical measures of creativity in recreational users.

PubMed

Jones, Katy A; Blagrove, M; Parrott, A C

2009-12-01

This study investigated the associations between chronic cannabis and Ecstasy/MDMA use and one objective and two subjective measure of creativity. Fifteen abstinent Ecstasy users, 15 abstinent cannabis users, and 15 nondrug-user controls, completed three measures of creativity: the Consequences behavioral test of creativity, self-assessed performance on the Consequences test, and Gough's Trait Self-Report Creative Adjective Checklist. The Consequences test involved five scenarios where possible consequences had to be devised; scoring was conducted by the standard blind rating (by two independent judges) for "remoteness" and "rarity," and by a frequency and rarity of responses method. Cannabis users had significantly more "rare-creative" responses than controls (Tukey, p < 0.05); this effect remained significant with gender as a covariate. There were no significant differences between the groups on the number of standard scoring "remote-creative" ideas or for fluency of responses. On self-rated creativity, there was a significant ANOVA group difference (p < 0.05), with Ecstasy users tending to rate their answers as more creative than controls (Tukey comparison; p = 0.058, two-tailed). Ecstasy users did not differ from controls on the behavioral measures of creativity, although there was a borderline trend for self-assessment of greater creativity. Cannabis users produced significantly more "rare-creative" responses, but did not rate themselves as more creative.

From ideas to studies: how to get ideas and sharpen them into research questions.

PubMed

Vandenbroucke, Jan P; Pearce, Neil

2018-01-01

Where do new research questions come from? This is at best only partially taught in courses or textbooks about clinical or epidemiological research. Methods are taught under the assumption that a researcher already knows the research question and knows which methods will fit that question. Similarly, the real complexity of the thought processes that lead to a scientific undertaking is almost never described in published papers. In this paper, we first discuss how to get an idea that is worth researching. We describe sources of new ideas and how to foster a creative attitude by "cultivating your thoughts". Only a few of these ideas will make it into a study. Next, we describe how to sharpen and focus a research question so that a study becomes feasible and a valid test of the underlying idea. To do this, the idea needs to be "pruned". Pruning a research question means cutting away anything that is unnecessary, so that only the essence remains. This includes determining both the latent and the stated objectives, specific pruning questions, and the use of specific schemes to structure reasoning. After this, the following steps include preparation of a brief protocol, conduct of a pilot study, and writing a draft of the paper including draft tables. Then you are ready to carry out your research.

From ideas to studies: how to get ideas and sharpen them into research questions

PubMed Central

Vandenbroucke, Jan P; Pearce, Neil

2018-01-01

Where do new research questions come from? This is at best only partially taught in courses or textbooks about clinical or epidemiological research. Methods are taught under the assumption that a researcher already knows the research question and knows which methods will fit that question. Similarly, the real complexity of the thought processes that lead to a scientific undertaking is almost never described in published papers. In this paper, we first discuss how to get an idea that is worth researching. We describe sources of new ideas and how to foster a creative attitude by “cultivating your thoughts”. Only a few of these ideas will make it into a study. Next, we describe how to sharpen and focus a research question so that a study becomes feasible and a valid test of the underlying idea. To do this, the idea needs to be “pruned”. Pruning a research question means cutting away anything that is unnecessary, so that only the essence remains. This includes determining both the latent and the stated objectives, specific pruning questions, and the use of specific schemes to structure reasoning. After this, the following steps include preparation of a brief protocol, conduct of a pilot study, and writing a draft of the paper including draft tables. Then you are ready to carry out your research. PMID:29563838

Accessing Creativity: Jungian Night Sea Journeys, Wandering Minds, and Chaos.

PubMed

Rosen, Diane

2016-01-01

NDS theory has been meaningfully applied to the dynamics of creativity and psychology. These complex systems have much in common, including a broad definition of "product" as new order emerging from disorder, a new whole (etymologically, 'health') out of disintegration or destabilization. From a nonlinear dynamical systems perspective, this paper explores the far-from-equilibrium zone of creative incubation: first in the Jungian night sea journey, a primordial myth of psychological and creative transformation; then in the neuroscience of mind wandering, the well-spring of creative ideation within the larger neural matrix. Finally, chaos theory grounds the elusive subject of creativity, modeling chaotic generation of idea elements that tend toward strange attractors, combine unpredictably, and produce change by means of tension between opposites, particularly notes consciousness (light) and the poetic unconscious (darkness). Examples from my own artwork illustrate this dialectical process. Considered together, the unconscious mythic sea journey, the unknowing wandering mind, and the generative paradigm of deterministic chaos suggest conditions that facilitate creativity across disciplines, providing fresh indications that the darkness of the unknown or irrational is, paradoxically, the illuminative source and strength of creativity.

Primary Teachers' beliefs about Scientific Creativity in the Classroom Context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Shu-Chiu; Lin, Huann-shyang

2014-07-01

While a number of studies have investigated people's perceptions or conceptions of creativity, there is a lack of studies looking into science teachers' views. The study aimed to explore the meanings of scientific creativity in the classroom context as perceived by a selective group of upper primary (Grades 3-6; student ages 8-12) science teachers (n = 16) in Taiwan. Using a self-report, open-ended questionnaire and follow-up interviews, the participants responded to questions as to (1) what quality, behaviours and abilities characterise a creative learner in their science classrooms, (2) what a science classroom should be like if it is to facilitate scientific creativity, and (3) whether and what particular elements of the inquiry approach are incorporated in such a classroom. The analyses revealed that the teachers captured the central features of creativity and proposed diverse ideas about how to foster creativity in school science, but seemed to overlook some aspects, such as convergent thinking, problem-finding, and linking the arts and science. These missing features are regarded as important for scientific creativity in contemporary research. The findings were discussed along with their implications for teacher education and future research.

Creativity in the English Class: Activities to Promote EFL Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Avila, Hernán A.

2016-01-01

This article introduces a pedagogical intervention that includes a set of creative activities designed to improve the oral and written production of students in the English classroom, especially those who have shown a lack of interest or attention. It was observed that participants initially seemed careless about studying the language. Eventually…

Fiches pratiques: Le jardin d'epicure; Information sante; Quand la grammaire voit "rouge"...; Jeu des prenoms (Practical Ideas: The Epicure's Garden; Health Information; When Grammar Sees "Red"...; First Name Game).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bertocchini, Paola; And Others

1991-01-01

Four ideas for French language classroom activities are described, including an exercise highlighting creative use of language in daily commercial life, a language activity focusing on acquired immune deficiency syndrome; a grammar lesson using a French song about colors; and a game designed to teach French names. (MSE)

To Think without Thinking: The Implications of Combinatory Play and the Creative Process for Neuroaesthetics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stevens, Victoria

2014-01-01

The author considers combinatory play as an intersection between creativity, play, and neuroaesthetics. She discusses combinatory play as vital to the creative process in art and science, particularly with regard to the incubation of new ideas. She reviews findings from current neurobiological research and outlines the way that the brain activates…

Creative Stories: A Storytelling Game Fostering Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koukourikos, Antonis; Karampiperis, Pythagoras; Panagopoulos, George

2014-01-01

The process of identifying techniques for fostering creativity, and applying these theoretical constructs in real-world educational activities, is, by nature, multifaceted and not straightforward, pertaining to several fields such as cognitive theory and psychology. Furthermore, the quantification of the impact of different activities on…

A Pharmacy Elective Course on Creative Thinking, Innovation, and TED Talks.

PubMed

Cain, Jeff

2016-12-25

Objective. To implement and assess an elective course designed to enhance student creative thinking and presentation skills. Design. A two-credit elective course was developed that incorporated creative-thinking exercises, article discussions pertaining to creativity, TED Talk (TED Conferences, New York, NY) analyses, and presentation design and delivery exercises. Assessment. Assessment instruments included pre- and post-course Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). A scoring rubric was developed and used to evaluate a final mock TED Talk presented to faculty and students. Course evaluations were also used to assess student experiences in the course. Students' TTCT verbal creativity scores increased significantly ( p <0.05) during the course and their mock TED Talk mean scores (135±6.4) out of 150 were rated highly. Conclusion. The outcomes from this elective course confirmed that pharmacy students could develop and present an original "idea worth sharing" using the TED Talk format.

Teacher Use of Creativity-Enhancing Activities in Chinese and American Elementary Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartley, Kylie A.; Plucker, Jonathan A.

2014-01-01

The purpose of these exploratory studies was to examine Chinese and American elementary teachers' perceptions of how various classroom activities contribute to student creativity, and how often teachers report engaging their students in these activities. Third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers in the Midwestern United States (N = 51) and in…

Critical thinking and creativity in nursing: learners' perspectives.

PubMed

Chan, Zenobia C Y

2013-05-01

Although the development of critical thinking and the development of creativity are major areas in nursing programme, little has been explored about learners' perspectives towards these two concepts, especially in Chinese contexts. This study aimed to reveal nursing learners' perspectives on creativity and critical thinking. Qualitative data collection methods were adopted, namely group interviews and concept map drawings. The process of data collection was conducted in private rooms at a University. 36 nursing students from two problem-based learning classes were recruited in two groups for the study. After data collection, content analysis with axial coding approach was conducted to explore the narrative themes, to summarise the main ideas, and to make valid inferences from the connections among critical thinking, creativity, and other exogenous variables. Based on the findings, six major themes were identified: "revisiting the meanings of critical thinking"; "critical thinking and knowledge: partners or rivals?"; "is critical thinking criticising?"; "revising the meanings of creativity"; "creativity and experience: partners or rivals?"; and "should creativity be practical?". This study showed that learners had diverse perspectives towards critical thinking and creativity, and their debate on these two domains provided implications on nursing education, since the voices of learners are crucial in teaching. By closing the gap between learners and educators, this study offered some insights on nursing education in the new curriculum, in particular to co-construct nursing knowledge which is student-driven, and to consider students' voices towards understanding and applying creativity and critical thinking in nursing. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development and community-based validation of the IDEA study Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IDEA-IADL) questionnaire

PubMed Central

Collingwood, Cecilia; Paddick, Stella-Maria; Kisoli, Aloyce; Dotchin, Catherine L.; Gray, William K.; Mbowe, Godfrey; Mkenda, Sarah; Urasa, Sarah; Mushi, Declare; Chaote, Paul; Walker, Richard W.

2014-01-01

Background The dementia diagnosis gap in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is large, partly due to difficulties in assessing function, an essential step in diagnosis. Objectives As part of the Identification and Intervention for Dementia in Elderly Africans (IDEA) study, to develop, pilot, and validate an Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) questionnaire for use in a rural Tanzanian population to assist in the identification of people with dementia alongside cognitive screening. Design The questionnaire was developed at a workshop for rural primary healthcare workers, based on culturally appropriate roles and usual activities of elderly people in this community. It was piloted in 52 individuals under follow-up from a dementia prevalence study. Validation subsequently took place during a community dementia-screening programme. Construct validation against gold standard clinical dementia diagnosis using DSM-IV criteria was carried out on a stratified sample of the cohort and validity assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve analysis. Results An 11-item questionnaire (IDEA-IADL) was developed after pilot testing. During formal validation on 130 community-dwelling elderly people who presented for screening, the AUROC curve was 0.896 for DSM-IV dementia when used in isolation and 0.937 when used in conjunction with the IDEA cognitive screen, previously validated in Tanzania. The internal consistency was 0.959. Performance on the IDEA-IADL was not biased with regard to age, gender or education level. Conclusions The IDEA-IADL questionnaire appears to be a useful aid to dementia screening in this setting. Further validation in other healthcare settings in SSA is required. PMID:25537940

Development and community-based validation of the IDEA study Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IDEA-IADL) questionnaire.

PubMed

Collingwood, Cecilia; Paddick, Stella-Maria; Kisoli, Aloyce; Dotchin, Catherine L; Gray, William K; Mbowe, Godfrey; Mkenda, Sarah; Urasa, Sarah; Mushi, Declare; Chaote, Paul; Walker, Richard W

2014-01-01

The dementia diagnosis gap in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is large, partly due to difficulties in assessing function, an essential step in diagnosis. As part of the Identification and Intervention for Dementia in Elderly Africans (IDEA) study, to develop, pilot, and validate an Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) questionnaire for use in a rural Tanzanian population to assist in the identification of people with dementia alongside cognitive screening. The questionnaire was developed at a workshop for rural primary healthcare workers, based on culturally appropriate roles and usual activities of elderly people in this community. It was piloted in 52 individuals under follow-up from a dementia prevalence study. Validation subsequently took place during a community dementia-screening programme. Construct validation against gold standard clinical dementia diagnosis using DSM-IV criteria was carried out on a stratified sample of the cohort and validity assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve analysis. An 11-item questionnaire (IDEA-IADL) was developed after pilot testing. During formal validation on 130 community-dwelling elderly people who presented for screening, the AUROC curve was 0.896 for DSM-IV dementia when used in isolation and 0.937 when used in conjunction with the IDEA cognitive screen, previously validated in Tanzania. The internal consistency was 0.959. Performance on the IDEA-IADL was not biased with regard to age, gender or education level. The IDEA-IADL questionnaire appears to be a useful aid to dementia screening in this setting. Further validation in other healthcare settings in SSA is required.

Different brain structures associated with artistic and scientific creativity: a voxel-based morphometry study.

PubMed

Shi, Baoguo; Cao, Xiaoqing; Chen, Qunlin; Zhuang, Kaixiang; Qiu, Jiang

2017-02-21

Creativity is the ability to produce original and valuable ideas or behaviors. In real life, artistic and scientific creativity promoted the development of human civilization; however, to date, no studies have systematically investigated differences in the brain structures responsible for artistic and scientific creativity in a large sample. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), this study identified differences in regional gray matter volume (GMV) across the brain between artistic and scientific creativity (assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire) in 356 young, healthy subjects. The results showed that artistic creativity was significantly negatively associated with the regional GMV of the supplementary motor area (SMA) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In contrast, scientific creativity was significantly positively correlated with the regional GMV of the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and left inferior occipital gyrus (IOG). Overall, artistic creativity was associated with the salience network (SN), whereas scientific creativity was associated with the executive attention network and semantic processing. These results may provide an effective marker that can be used to predict and evaluate individuals' creative performance in the fields of science and art.

Different brain structures associated with artistic and scientific creativity: a voxel-based morphometry study

PubMed Central

Shi, Baoguo; Cao, Xiaoqing; Chen, Qunlin; Zhuang, Kaixiang; Qiu, Jiang

2017-01-01

Creativity is the ability to produce original and valuable ideas or behaviors. In real life, artistic and scientific creativity promoted the development of human civilization; however, to date, no studies have systematically investigated differences in the brain structures responsible for artistic and scientific creativity in a large sample. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), this study identified differences in regional gray matter volume (GMV) across the brain between artistic and scientific creativity (assessed by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire) in 356 young, healthy subjects. The results showed that artistic creativity was significantly negatively associated with the regional GMV of the supplementary motor area (SMA) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In contrast, scientific creativity was significantly positively correlated with the regional GMV of the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and left inferior occipital gyrus (IOG). Overall, artistic creativity was associated with the salience network (SN), whereas scientific creativity was associated with the executive attention network and semantic processing. These results may provide an effective marker that can be used to predict and evaluate individuals’ creative performance in the fields of science and art. PMID:28220826

Teaching through Trade Books: What We Do with Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Royce, Christine Anne

2016-01-01

Creative thinking is important to scientists and engineers as they frame their work and engage in the practices of their fields. Elementary-age children need opportunities to think about and develop an idea from its inception through to its conclusion to expand their thinking and engage in scientific processes. Generating and expanding on ideas…

The Impact of Peer Review on Creative Self-Efficacy and Learning Performance in Web 2.0 Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Chen-Chung; Lu, Kuan-Hsien; Wu, Leon Yufeng; Tsai, Chin-Chung

2016-01-01

Many studies have pointed out the significant contrast between the creative nature of Web 2.0 learning activities and the structured learning in school. This study proposes an approach to leveraging Web 2.0 learning activities and classroom teaching to help students develop both specific knowledge and creativity based on Csikzentmihalyi's system…

Another Way to Develop Chinese Students' Creativity: Extracurricular Innovation Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xiao-jiang, Zhao; Xue-ting, Zhao

2012-01-01

In China, improving students' creativity is becoming an important goal of modern colleges and universities, especially in the domain of science and technology. The efforts made for this goal can be observed not only in classroom, but also in activities and competitions which were held out-of-school. This paper will firstly give a brief description…

Creative thinking as orchestrated by semantic processing vs. cognitive control brain networks

PubMed Central

Abraham, Anna

2014-01-01

Creativity is primarily investigated within the neuroscientific perspective as a unitary construct. While such an approach is beneficial when trying to infer the general picture regarding creativity and brain function, it is insufficient if the objective is to uncover the information processing brain mechanisms by which creativity occurs. As creative thinking emerges through the dynamic interplay between several cognitive processes, assessing the neural correlates of these operations would enable the development and characterization of an information processing framework from which to better understand this complex ability. This article focuses on two aspects of creative cognition that are central to generating original ideas. “Conceptual expansion” refers to the ability to widen one’s conceptual structures to include unusual or novel associations, while “overcoming knowledge constraints” refers to our ability to override the constraining influence imposed by salient or pertinent knowledge when trying to be creative. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence is presented to illustrate how semantic processing and cognitive control networks in the brain differentially modulate these critical facets of creative cognition. PMID:24605098

Creative thinking as orchestrated by semantic processing vs. cognitive control brain networks.

PubMed

Abraham, Anna

2014-01-01

Creativity is primarily investigated within the neuroscientific perspective as a unitary construct. While such an approach is beneficial when trying to infer the general picture regarding creativity and brain function, it is insufficient if the objective is to uncover the information processing brain mechanisms by which creativity occurs. As creative thinking emerges through the dynamic interplay between several cognitive processes, assessing the neural correlates of these operations would enable the development and characterization of an information processing framework from which to better understand this complex ability. This article focuses on two aspects of creative cognition that are central to generating original ideas. "Conceptual expansion" refers to the ability to widen one's conceptual structures to include unusual or novel associations, while "overcoming knowledge constraints" refers to our ability to override the constraining influence imposed by salient or pertinent knowledge when trying to be creative. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence is presented to illustrate how semantic processing and cognitive control networks in the brain differentially modulate these critical facets of creative cognition.

Creative Activities for String Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stabley, Nola Campbell

2001-01-01

Discusses how to teach improvisation, creativity, and movement to beginning music classroom students. Includes background information on teaching each concept and lesson plans to be used with beginning string students. Provides rhythm patterns, exercises, and an assignment used in the lessons. (CMK)

A Pharmacy Elective Course on Creative Thinking, Innovation, and TED Talks

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Objective. To implement and assess an elective course designed to enhance student creative thinking and presentation skills. Design. A two-credit elective course was developed that incorporated creative-thinking exercises, article discussions pertaining to creativity, TED Talk (TED Conferences, New York, NY) analyses, and presentation design and delivery exercises. Assessment. Assessment instruments included pre- and post-course Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). A scoring rubric was developed and used to evaluate a final mock TED Talk presented to faculty and students. Course evaluations were also used to assess student experiences in the course. Students’ TTCT verbal creativity scores increased significantly (p<0.05) during the course and their mock TED Talk mean scores (135±6.4) out of 150 were rated highly. Conclusion. The outcomes from this elective course confirmed that pharmacy students could develop and present an original “idea worth sharing” using the TED Talk format. PMID:28179719

Jazz musicians reveal role of expectancy in human creativity.

PubMed

Przysinda, Emily; Zeng, Tima; Maves, Kellyn; Arkin, Cameron; Loui, Psyche

2017-12-01

Creativity has been defined as the ability to produce work that is novel, high in quality, and appropriate to an audience. While the nature of the creative process is under debate, many believe that creativity relies on real-time combinations of known neural and cognitive processes. One useful model of creativity comes from musical improvisation, such as in jazz, in which musicians spontaneously create novel sound sequences. Here we use jazz musicians to test the hypothesis that individuals with training in musical improvisation, which entails creative generation of musical ideas, might process expectancy differently. We compare jazz improvisers, non-improvising musicians, and non-musicians in the domain-general task of divergent thinking, as well as the musical task of preference ratings for chord progressions that vary in expectation while EEGs were recorded. Behavioral results showed for the first time that jazz musicians preferred unexpected chord progressions. ERP results showed that unexpected stimuli elicited larger early and mid-latency ERP responses (ERAN and P3b), followed by smaller long-latency responses (Late Positivity Potential) in jazz musicians. The amplitudes of these ERP components were significantly correlated with behavioral measures of fluency and originality on the divergent thinking task. Together, results highlight the role of expectancy in creativity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sakharov Prize Talk: Creativity of Physicists in the Struggle for Human Rights

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altshuler, Boris

2014-03-01

USSR was a totalitarian State with an almighty secret service - KGB. To save the repressed victim of regime, let it be dissident or scientists - Jewish refuzenik, was seemingly an absolutely impossible task. ``For success of our hopeless adventure!'', - as Andrei Sakharov used to say. There were no natural checks and balances in the Former USSR and there none in modern Russia - that is why the task to save the child in Russia is not less `hopeless' today. But the key word in Sakharov's motto is `success' - and we managed to reach it earlier in cooperation with the world scientific community, and we manage to reach it now in our work of protecting of rights of children. The Know How is creativity. To achieve something absolutely impossible needs unexpected `crazy' ideas (`it's not crazy enough to be true', - Niels Bohr). The same in science, in physics in particular, the Step to Unknown always demands `crazy' creative ideas. The Talk traces the parallels between creativity in physics and in human rights struggle. I acknowledge the support from the Committee of Concerned Scientists.

Hemispheric specialization and creative thinking: a meta-analytic review of lateralization of creativity.

PubMed

Mihov, Konstantin M; Denzler, Markus; Förster, Jens

2010-04-01

In the last two decades research on the neurophysiological processes of creativity has found contradicting results. Whereas most research suggests right hemisphere dominance in creative thinking, left-hemisphere dominance has also been reported. The present research is a meta-analytic review of the literature to establish how creative thinking relates to relative hemispheric dominance. The analysis was performed on the basis of a non-parametric vote-counting approach and effect-size calculations of Cramer's phi suggest relative dominance of the right hemisphere during creative thinking. Moderator analyses revealed no difference in predominant right-hemispheric activation for verbal vs. figural tasks, holistic vs. analytical tasks, and context-dependent vs. context-independent tasks. Suggestions for further investigations with the meta-analytic and neuroscience methodologies to answer the questions of left hemispheric activation and further moderation of the effects are discussed. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Creativity and borderline personality disorder: evidence from a voxel-based morphometry study.

PubMed

Leutgeb, Verena; Ille, Rottraut; Wabnegger, Albert; Schienle, Anne; Schöggl, Helmut; Weber, Bernhard; Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M; Fink, Andreas

2016-05-01

Throughout the history, various examples of eminent creative people suffering from mental disorders along with some empirical research reports strengthened the idea of a potential link between creativity and psychopathology. This study investigated different facets of psychometrically determined creativity in 20 females diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) relative to 19 healthy female controls. In addition, group differences in grey matter (GM) were examined. Behavioural findings revealed no significant differences between the BPD group and healthy controls with respect to verbal and figural-graphic creative task performance and creativity-related personality characteristics. Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed a distinct pattern of GM reductions in the BPD group (relative to controls) in a network of brain regions closely associated with various cognitive and emotional functions (including the bilateral orbital inferior frontal gyri and the left superior temporal gyrus), partly overlapping with creativity-related brain regions. Correlation analyses moreover revealed that in the BPD group GM reductions in the orbital parts of the inferior and middle frontal gyri were associated with lower levels of creativity. This study provides no indications in favour of the putative link between creativity and psychopathology, as sometimes reported in the literature.

A Creatively Creative Taxonomy on Creativity: A New Model of Creativity and Other Novel Forms of Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stahl, Robert J.

Some of the most used, misused, and abused terms in contemporary education are the words "create,""creative," and "creativity." One way of understanding creativity is to reject the current practice of assuming that creative behavior is directly caused by some special kind of mental operation called "creative thinking." What can be accepted is the…

Effects of Argumentation on Group Micro-Creativity: Statistical Discourse Analyses of Algebra Students' Collaborative Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiu, Ming Ming

2008-01-01

The micro-time context of group processes (such as argumentation) can affect a group's micro-creativity (new ideas). Eighty high school students worked in groups of four on an algebra problem. Groups with higher mathematics grades showed greater micro-creativity, and both were linked to better problem solving outcomes. Dynamic multilevel analyses…

Transforming an idea into a scholarly project.

PubMed

Ng, Lillian; Cullum, Sarah; Cheung, Gary; Friedman, Susan Hatters

2018-04-01

This article describes components of a workshop designed to orientate psychiatric trainees to the task of conducting a scholarly project. The aims are: to promote an approach that incorporates principles of adult learning to guide trainees who are undertaking research; to allow trainees to transform their ideas into more tangible research questions; and to enable supervisors to reflect on delivering similar content in scholarly project workshops. The workshop comprised: creating a safe space to explore ideas; discussing the process of posing a question or hypothesis; using group interactions to generate concepts; and considering personal values that influence the choice of research methodology to answer a question. Examples are provided from the workshop. The process enabled trainees to generate and distil ideas into more concrete questions and methods in three phases: introductory, exploratory and tangible. Adult learning principles may assist trainees to develop their ideas for a scholarly project into research questions that are relevant to clinical practice. Harnessing the creative potential of a peer collective may encourage deeper inquiry, shifts to a tangible output and a sustained interest in research.

Integrating Creativity into Online University Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Muirhead, Brent

2007-01-01

In this article, the author provides a concise discussion on creativity, defining the term, sharing theoretical background information and offering insights into promoting creativity in online university classes. Emphasis will be placed on relevant ways to integrate creativity into instructional activities across the academic disciplines. He…

Training of verbal creativity modulates brain activity in regions associated with language‐ and memory‐related demands

PubMed Central

Benedek, Mathias; Koschutnig, Karl; Pirker, Eva; Berger, Elisabeth; Meister, Sabrina; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.; Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M.

2015-01-01

Abstract This functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study was designed to investigate changes in functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation as a result of a computerized, 3‐week verbal creativity training. The training was composed of various verbal divergent thinking exercises requiring participants to train approximately 20 min per day. Fifty‐three participants were tested three times (psychometric tests and fMRI assessment) with an intertest‐interval of 4 weeks each. Participants were randomly assigned to two different training groups, which received the training time‐delayed: The first training group was trained between the first and the second test, while the second group accomplished the training between the second and the third test session. At the behavioral level, only one training group showed improvements in different facets of verbal creativity right after the training. Yet, functional patterns of brain activity during creative ideation were strikingly similar across both training groups. Whole‐brain voxel‐wise analyses (along with supplementary region of interest analyses) revealed that the training was associated with activity changes in well‐known creativity‐related brain regions such as the left inferior parietal cortex and the left middle temporal gyrus, which have been shown as being particularly sensitive to the originality facet of creativity in previous research. Taken together, this study demonstrates that continuous engagement in a specific complex cognitive task like divergent thinking is associated with reliable changes of activity patterns in relevant brain areas, suggesting more effective search, retrieval, and integration from internal memory representations as a result of the training. Hum Brain Mapp 36:4104–4115, 2015. © 2015 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:26178653

The structure of creative cognition in the human brain

PubMed Central

Jung, Rex E.; Mead, Brittany S.; Carrasco, Jessica; Flores, Ranee A.

2013-01-01

Creativity is a vast construct, seemingly intractable to scientific inquiry—perhaps due to the vague concepts applied to the field of research. One attempt to limit the purview of creative cognition formulates the construct in terms of evolutionary constraints, namely that of blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). Behaviorally, one can limit the “blind variation” component to idea generation tests as manifested by measures of divergent thinking. The “selective retention” component can be represented by measures of convergent thinking, as represented by measures of remote associates. We summarize results from measures of creative cognition, correlated with structural neuroimaging measures including structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). We also review lesion studies, considered to be the “gold standard” of brain-behavioral studies. What emerges is a picture consistent with theories of disinhibitory brain features subserving creative cognition, as described previously (Martindale, 1981). We provide a perspective, involving aspects of the default mode network (DMN), which might provide a “first approximation” regarding how creative cognition might map on to the human brain. PMID:23847503

Assessing Associative Distance among Ideas Elicited by Tests of Divergent Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Acar, Selcuk; Runco, Mark A.

2014-01-01

Tests of divergent thinking represent the most commonly used assessment of creative potential. Typically they are scored for total ideational output (fluency), ideational originality, and, sometimes, ideational flexibility. That scoring system provides little information about the underlying process and about the associations among ideas. It also…

A flexible influence of affective feelings on creative and analytic performance.

PubMed

Huntsinger, Jeffrey R; Ray, Cara

2016-09-01

Considerable research shows that positive affect improves performance on creative tasks and negative affect improves performance on analytic tasks. The present research entertained the idea that affective feelings have flexible, rather than fixed, effects on cognitive performance. Consistent with the idea that positive and negative affect signal the value of accessible processing inclinations, the influence of affective feelings on performance on analytic or creative tasks was found to be flexibly responsive to the relative accessibility of different styles of processing (i.e., heuristic vs. systematic, global vs. local). When a global processing orientation was accessible happy participants generated more creative uses for a brick (Experiment 1), successfully solved more remote associates and insight problems (Experiment 2) and displayed broader categorization (Experiment 3) than those in sad moods. When a local processing orientation was accessible this pattern reversed. When a heuristic processing style was accessible happy participants were more likely to commit the conjunction fallacy (Experiment 3) and showed less pronounced anchoring effects (Experiment 4) than sad participants. When a systematic processing style was accessible this pattern reversed. Implications of these results for relevant affect-cognition models are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity.

PubMed

Beaty, Roger E; Kenett, Yoed N; Christensen, Alexander P; Rosenberg, Monica D; Benedek, Mathias; Chen, Qunlin; Fink, Andreas; Qiu, Jiang; Kwapil, Thomas R; Kane, Michael J; Silvia, Paul J

2018-01-30

People's ability to think creatively is a primary means of technological and cultural progress, yet the neural architecture of the highly creative brain remains largely undefined. Here, we employed a recently developed method in functional brain imaging analysis-connectome-based predictive modeling-to identify a brain network associated with high-creative ability, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired from 163 participants engaged in a classic divergent thinking task. At the behavioral level, we found a strong correlation between creative thinking ability and self-reported creative behavior and accomplishment in the arts and sciences ( r = 0.54). At the neural level, we found a pattern of functional brain connectivity related to high-creative thinking ability consisting of frontal and parietal regions within default, salience, and executive brain systems. In a leave-one-out cross-validation analysis, we show that this neural model can reliably predict the creative quality of ideas generated by novel participants within the sample. Furthermore, in a series of external validation analyses using data from two independent task fMRI samples and a large task-free resting-state fMRI sample, we demonstrate robust prediction of individual creative thinking ability from the same pattern of brain connectivity. The findings thus reveal a whole-brain network associated with high-creative ability comprised of cortical hubs within default, salience, and executive systems-intrinsic functional networks that tend to work in opposition-suggesting that highly creative people are characterized by the ability to simultaneously engage these large-scale brain networks.

Management Matters. Display and Promotion Ideas for Library Media Centers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pappas, Marjorie L.

2005-01-01

School library media centers should be warm and inviting places where the environment entices children to read and explore. Creative bulletin board and case displays along with other exhibits help to make the library media center an exciting place. Bulletin board displays that promote authors, books, and exciting ideas motivate children to find…

Improved Creative Thinkers in a Class: A Model of Activity Based Tasks for Improving University Students' Creative Thinking Abilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oncu, Elif Celebi

2016-01-01

The main objective of this study was improving university students' from different faculties creativity thinking through a creativity education process. The education process took twelve weeks' time. As pretest, Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT) figural form was used. Participants were 24 university students from different faculties who…

EEG alpha activity during imagining creative moves in soccer decision-making situations.

PubMed

Fink, Andreas; Rominger, Christian; Benedek, Mathias; Perchtold, Corinna M; Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M; Seidel, Anna; Memmert, Daniel

2018-06-01

This study investigated task-related changes of EEG alpha power while participants were imagining creative moves in soccer decision-making situations. After presenting brief video clips of a soccer scene, participants had to imagine themselves as the acting player and to think either of a creative/original or an obvious/conventional move (control condition) that might lead to a goal. Performance of the soccer task generally elicited comparatively strong alpha power decreases at parietal and occipital sites, indicating high visuospatial processing demands. This power decrease was less pronounced in the creative vs. control condition, reflecting a more internally oriented state of information processing characterized by more imaginative mental simulation rather than stimulus-driven bottom-up processing. In addition, more creative task performance in the soccer task was associated with stronger alpha desynchronization at left cortical sites, most prominently over motor related areas. This finding suggests that individuals who generated more creative moves were more intensively engaged in processes related to movement imagery. Unlike the domain-specific creativity measure, individual's trait creative potential, as assessed by a psychometric creativity test, was globally positively associated with alpha power at all cortical sites. In investigating creative processes implicated in complex creative behavior involving more ecologically valid demands, this study showed that thinking creatively in soccer decision-making situations recruits specific brain networks supporting processes related to visuospatial attention and movement imagery, while the relative increase in alpha power in more creative conditions and in individuals with higher creative potential might reflect a pattern relevant across different creativity domains. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Exploring the neural correlates of visual creativity

PubMed Central

Liew, Sook-Lei; Dandekar, Francesco

2013-01-01

Although creativity has been called the most important of all human resources, its neural basis is still unclear. In the current study, we used fMRI to measure neural activity in participants solving a visuospatial creativity problem that involves divergent thinking and has been considered a canonical right hemisphere task. As hypothesized, both the visual creativity task and the control task as compared to rest activated a variety of areas including the posterior parietal cortex bilaterally and motor regions, which are known to be involved in visuospatial rotation of objects. However, directly comparing the two tasks indicated that the creative task more strongly activated left hemisphere regions including the posterior parietal cortex, the premotor cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial PFC. These results demonstrate that even in a task that is specialized to the right hemisphere, robust parallel activity in the left hemisphere supports creative processing. Furthermore, the results support the notion that higher motor planning may be a general component of creative improvisation and that such goal-directed planning of novel solutions may be organized top-down by the left DLPFC and by working memory processing in the medial prefrontal cortex. PMID:22349801

Developing On-Campus Work-Integrated Learning Activities: The Value of Integrating Community and Industry Partners into the Creative Arts Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleischmann, Katja

2015-01-01

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is increasingly identified as essential to helping creative arts students' transition from university into the creative industries workplace. Off-campus activities, such as work placements, play a major role in educating work-ready graduates. At the same time, increasing enrolment numbers in creative arts education…

Virtues in participatory design: cooperation, curiosity, creativity, empowerment and reflexivity.

PubMed

Steen, Marc

2013-09-01

In this essay several virtues are discussed that are needed in people who work in participatory design (PD). The term PD is used here to refer specifically to an approach in designing information systems with its roots in Scandinavia in the 1970s and 1980s. Through the lens of virtue ethics and based on key texts in PD, the virtues of cooperation, curiosity, creativity, empowerment and reflexivity are discussed. Cooperation helps people in PD projects to engage in cooperative curiosity and cooperative creativity. Curiosity helps them to empathize with others and their experiences, and to engage in joint learning. Creativity helps them to envision, try out and materialize ideas, and to jointly create new products and services. Empowerment helps them to share power and to enable other people to flourish. Moreover, reflexivity helps them to perceive and to modify their own thoughts, feelings and actions. In the spirit of virtue ethics-which focuses on specific people in concrete situations-several examples from one PD project are provided. Virtue ethics is likely to appeal to people in PD projects because it is practice-oriented, provides room for exploration and experimentation, and promotes professional and personal development. In closing, some ideas for practical application, for education and for further research are discussed.

Investigation of effective strategies for developing creative science thinking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Kuay-Keng; Lee, Ling; Hong, Zuway-R.; Lin, Huann-shyang

2016-09-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the creative inquiry-based science teaching on students' creative science thinking and science inquiry performance. A quasi-experimental design consisting one experimental group (N = 20) and one comparison group (N = 24) with pretest and post-test was conducted. The framework of the intervention focused on potential strategies such as promoting divergent and convergent thinking and providing an open, inquiry-based learning environment that are recommended by the literature. Results revealed that the experimental group students outperformed their counterparts in the comparison group on the performances of science inquiry and convergent thinking. Additional qualitative data analyses from classroom observations and case teacher interviews identified supportive teaching strategies (e.g. facilitating associative thinking, sharing impressive ideas, encouraging evidence-based conclusions, and reviewing and commenting on group presentations) for developing students' creative science thinking.

The relationship of individual characteristics, perceived worksite support and perceived creativity to clinical nurses' innovative outcome.

PubMed

Tsai, Hsiu-Min; Liou, Shwu-Ru; Hsiao, Ya-Chu; Cheng, Ching-Yu

2013-09-01

To understand the relationship of individual characteristics, perceived worksite support and perceived personal creativity to clinical nurses' innovative outcome (receiving the Nursing Innovation Award). Since the idea of applying creativity and innovation to clinical nursing practice and management was first advocated in the Nursing Administration Quarterly in 1982, the topic of nursing innovation has gained worldwide attention. To increase the prevalence of nursing innovation, it is important to identify and understand the related factors that influence nurses' innovative outcome. This study used a cross-sectional descriptive survey design. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 32 award winners and 506 nonawarded clinical nurses in Taiwan. The level of creativity perceived by all participants was moderate-to-high. Individual characteristics (r = 0·61) and worksite support (r = 0·27) were both correlated with perceived creativity. Individual characteristics and worksite support showed some correlation as well (r = 0·21). Individual characteristics and worksite support could predict perceived creativity after controlling for demographic variables, but only individual characteristics had an effect on innovative outcome. Perceived creativity did not have mediation effects either between individual characteristics and innovative outcome or between worksite support and innovative outcome. Clinical nurses' individual characteristics had a direct relationship to innovative outcome, whereas neither worksite support nor creativity was correlated with innovative outcome. Although worksite support did not show effects on innovative outcome, it was related to both perceived creativity and individual characteristics. As suggested by other scholars, there might be other related factors between creativity and innovative outcome. Although worksite support did not have effect on clinical nurses' innovative outcome, it was related to individual characteristics

The influence of creative process engagement on employee creative performance and overall job performance: a curvilinear assessment.

PubMed

Zhang, Xiaomeng; Bartol, Kathryn M

2010-09-01

Integrating theories addressing attention and activation with creativity literature, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between creative process engagement and overall job performance among professionals in complex jobs in an information technology firm. Work experience moderated the curvilinear relationship, with low-experience employees generally exhibiting higher levels of overall job performance at low to moderate levels of creative process engagement and high-experience employees demonstrating higher overall performance at moderate to high levels of creative process engagement. Creative performance partially mediated the relationship between creative process engagement and job performance. These relationships were tested within a moderated mediation framework. Copyright 2010 APA, all rights reserved

The Road to Creative Achievement: A Latent Variable Model of Ability and Personality Predictors

PubMed Central

Jauk, Emanuel; Benedek, Mathias; Neubauer, Aljoscha C

2014-01-01

This study investigated the significance of different well-established psychometric indicators of creativity for real-life creative outcomes. Specifically, we tested the effects of creative potential, intelligence, and openness to experiences on everyday creative activities and actual creative achievement. Using a heterogeneous sample of 297 adults, we performed latent multiple regression analyses by means of structural equation modelling. We found openness to experiences and two independent indicators of creative potential, ideational originality and ideational fluency, to predict everyday creative activities. Creative activities, in turn, predicted actual creative achievement. Intelligence was found to predict creative achievement, but not creative activities. Moreover, intelligence moderated the effect of creative activities on creative achievement, suggesting that intelligence may play an important role in transforming creative activities into publically acknowledged creative achievements. This study supports the view of creativity as a multifaceted construct and provides an integrative model illustrating the potential interplay between its different facets. PMID:24532953

From Compliance to Creative Rights in Music Education: Rethinking Intellectual Property in the Age of New Media

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thibeault, Matthew D.

2012-01-01

This article examines one possible approach to teaching music in higher education with regards to creative rights and copyright. The author shares theoretical ideas underlying changes in content, creativity and culture brought about by the rise of new media and the Internet. Comparing examples of professional and student works, the author details…

Enhancing Verbal Creativity via Brief Interventions during an Incubation Interval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hao, Ning; Ku, Yixuan; Liu, Meigui; Hu, Yi; Grabner, Roland H.; Fink, Andreas

2014-01-01

Previous studies revealed inconsistent findings about the effects of cognitively low or high demanding interpolated tasks during incubation period on post-incubation creative performance. To explain this contradiction, two intervention tasks were administered (Reflecting on the generated ideas [RF] and the Word puzzle task [WP]), which are…

Effect of quantum learning model in improving creativity and memory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sujatmika, S.; Hasanah, D.; Hakim, L. L.

2018-04-01

Quantum learning is a combination of many interactions that exist during learning. This model can be applied by current interesting topic, contextual, repetitive, and give opportunities to students to demonstrate their abilities. The basis of the quantum learning model are left brain theory, right brain theory, triune, visual, auditorial, kinesthetic, game, symbol, holistic, and experiential learning theory. Creativity plays an important role to be success in the working world. Creativity shows alternatives way to problem-solving or creates something. Good memory plays a role in the success of learning. Through quantum learning, students will use all of their abilities, interested in learning and create their own ways of memorizing concepts of the material being studied. From this idea, researchers assume that quantum learning models can improve creativity and memory of the students.

Industrial and Biological Analogies Used Creatively by Business Professionals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Emily B.; Miller, Derek J.; Niewiarowski, Peter H.

2018-01-01

The objective of this study was to test the effect of far-field industrial (i.e., man-made) versus biological analogies on creativity of business professionals from two organizations engaged in the idea generation phase of new product development. Psychological effects, as reflected in language use, were measured via computerized text analysis of…

Imagery, Concept Formation and Creativity--From Past to Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silverstein, Ora. N. Asael

At the center of the conceptual framework there is visual imagery. Man's emotional and mental behavior is built on archetypal symbols that are the source of creative ideas. Native American pictography, in particular, illustrates this in the correlation between gesture speech and verbal speech. The author's research in this area has included a…

How Multiple Social Identities Are Related to Creativity.

PubMed

Steffens, Niklas K; Gocłowska, Małgorzata A; Cruwys, Tegan; Galinsky, Adam D

2016-02-01

The present research examined whether possessing multiple social identities (i.e., groups relevant to one's sense of self) is associated with creativity. In Study 1, the more identities individuals reported having, the more names they generated for a new commercial product (i.e., greater idea fluency). In Study 2, multiple identities were associated with greater fluency and originality (mediated by cognitive flexibility, but not by persistence). Study 3 validated these findings using a highly powered sample. We again found that multiple identities increase fluency and originality, and that flexibility (but not persistence) mediated the effect on originality. Study 3 also ruled out several alternative explanations (self-affirmation, novelty seeking, and generalized persistence). Across all studies, the findings were robust to controlling for personality, and there was no evidence of a curvilinear relationship between multiple identities and creativity. These results suggest that possessing multiple social identities is associated with enhanced creativity via cognitive flexibility. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Musical Creativity in Slovenian Elementary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rozman, Janja Crcinovic

2009-01-01

Background: The Slovenian music education curriculum for the first years of elementary school emphasises the following musical activities in the classroom: singing, playing instruments, listening to music, movement to music and musical creativity. In the field of musical creativity, there are two activities where students can be original and…

Creative industry in supporting economy growth in Indonesia: Perspective of regional innovation system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hidayat, AR R. T.; Asmara, A. Y.

2017-06-01

Creative Industry is one of the most influential economy sources in the world in era 2000 years. It was introduced by John Howkins [1] in which economy growth is dependent on new ideas. This concept answers concerning to industrial-based economy and has shifted from industrial economy (manufacture) to creative economy (intellectual as main asset). As developing countries, Government of Indonesia has seriously paid attention on creative industry sectors since 2009 through President Instruction Number 6 Year 2009 about Development of Creative Economy in Indonesia [23]. Since Joko Widodo has been President of Republic of Indonesia, creative economy is more developed by forming creative economy agency (Bekraf). Now, economy creative is one of new economy sources which is promoted by Government of Indonesia. Many creative sectors are pushed to complete national economy in Indonesia. In this term, perspective of regional innovation system is also important to understand what is creative industry expected by Government of Indonesia. Innovation and creative economy is two terms which is not separated each other. This paper uses case study in Indonesia as research methodology, also perspective of regional innovation system is to be main perspective in this study. The result is that creative industry and innovation are mutual relation each other in conceptual level. Practically, both are aimed to support national economy growth in Indonesia

Explaining the Mathematical Creativity of a Young Boy: An Interdisciplinary Venture between Mathematics Education and Psychoanalysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krummheuer, Götz; Leuzinger-Bohleber, Marianne; Müller-Kirchof, Marion; Münz, Melanie; Vogel, Rose

2013-01-01

First results of the project "Mathematical Creativity of Children at Risk" (MaKreKi) will be presented. The project is conducted in the interdisciplinary research center "Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk" (IDeA [http://www.idea-frankfurt.eu; accessed 7 June 2013]). Combining a…

Creative design inspired by biological knowledge: Technologies and methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Runhua; Liu, Wei; Cao, Guozhong; Shi, Yuan

2018-05-01

Biological knowledge is becoming an important source of inspiration for developing creative solutions to engineering design problems and even has a huge potential in formulating ideas that can help firms compete successfully in a dynamic market. To identify the technologies and methods that can facilitate the development of biologically inspired creative designs, this research briefly reviews the existing biological-knowledge-based theories and methods and examines the application of biological-knowledge-inspired designs in various fields. Afterward, this research thoroughly examines the four dimensions of key technologies that underlie the biologically inspired design (BID) process. This research then discusses the future development trends of the BID process before presenting the conclusions.

Effect of Activities Prepared by Different Teaching Techniques on Scientific Creativity Levels of Prospective Pre-School Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akcanca, Nur; Cerrah Ozsevgec, Lale

2018-01-01

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities, which are prepared by teaching techniques that support scientific creativity, on the scientific creativity levels of prospective pre-school teachers. In the research, combined design is used, which is one of the mixed research approaches. The study group of the…

The integration of creative drama into science teaching

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arieli, Bracha (Bari)

This study explored the inclusion of creative drama into science teaching as an instructional strategy for enhancing elementary school students' understanding of scientific concepts. A treatment group of sixth grade students was taught a Full Option Science System (FOSS) science unit on Mixtures and Solutions with the addition of creative drama while a control group was taught using only the FOSS teaching protocol. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses demonstrated that students who studied science through creative drama exhibited a greater understanding of scientific content of the lessons and preferred learning science through creative drama. Treatment group students stated that they enjoyed participating in the activities with their friends and that the creative drama helped them to better understand abstract scientific concepts. Teachers involved with the creative drama activities were positively impressed and believed creative drama is a good tool for teaching science. Observations revealed that creative drama created a positive classroom environment, improved social interactions and self-esteem, that all students enjoyed creative drama, and that teachers' teaching style affected students' use of creative drama. The researcher concluded that the inclusion of creative drama with the FOSS unit enhanced students' scientific knowledge and understanding beyond that of the FOSS unit alone, that both teachers and students reacted positively to creative drama in science and that creative drama requires more time.

Brain activity and connectivity during poetry composition: Toward a multidimensional model of the creative process.

PubMed

Liu, Siyuan; Erkkinen, Michael G; Healey, Meghan L; Xu, Yisheng; Swett, Katherine E; Chow, Ho Ming; Braun, Allen R

2015-09-01

Creativity, a multifaceted construct, can be studied in various ways, for example, investigating phases of the creative process, quality of the creative product, or the impact of expertise. Previous neuroimaging studies have assessed these individually. Believing that each of these interacting features must be examined simultaneously to develop a comprehensive understanding of creative behavior, we examined poetry composition, assessing process, product, and expertise in a single experiment. Distinct activation patterns were associated with generation and revision, two major phases of the creative process. Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was active during both phases, yet responses in dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal executive systems (DLPFC/IPS) were phase-dependent, indicating that while motivation remains unchanged, cognitive control is attenuated during generation and re-engaged during revision. Experts showed significantly stronger deactivation of DLPFC/IPS during generation, suggesting that they may more effectively suspend cognitive control. Importantly however, similar overall patterns were observed in both groups, indicating the same cognitive resources are available to experts and novices alike. Quality of poetry, assessed by an independent panel, was associated with divergent connectivity patterns in experts and novices, centered upon MPFC (for technical facility) and DLPFC/IPS (for innovation), suggesting a mechanism by which experts produce higher quality poetry. Crucially, each of these three key features can be understood in the context of a single neurocognitive model characterized by dynamic interactions between medial prefrontal areas regulating motivation, dorsolateral prefrontal, and parietal areas regulating cognitive control and the association of these regions with language, sensorimotor, limbic, and subcortical areas distributed throughout the brain. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Creative Thinking Ability to Increase Student Mathematical of Junior High School by Applying Models Numbered Heads Together

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lince, Ranak

2016-01-01

Mathematical ability of students creative thinking is a component that must be mastered by the student. Mathematical creative thinking plays an important role, both in solving the problem and well, even in high school students. Therefore, efforts are needed to convey ideas in mathematics. But the reality is not yet developed the ability to…

Encountering the Creative Museum: Museographic Creativeness and the "Bricolage" of Time Materials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tlili, Anwar

2016-01-01

The aim of this article is to trace some lines of thinking towards a conceptualization of the uniqueness of the creative work of museums, the mode of creativeness that belongs exclusively to museums, or at least that museums are capable of by virtue of the types of materials and forms as well as activities unique to what will be referred to as…

The Interface of Creativity, Fluency, Lateral Thinking, and Technology While Designing Serious Educational Games in a Science Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamb, Richard; Annetta, Leonard; Vallett, David

2015-01-01

Introduction: Creativity is the production of the new, original, unique, and divergent products and ideas mediated through lateral thinking. Evidence suggests that high levels of creativity and fluency are important in the continued development of student interest, efficacy and ultimately career impact in the sciences. Method: In this study, 559…

Investigation the Scientific Creativity of Gifted Students through Project-Based Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karademir, Ersin

2016-01-01

In this research, it is aimed to identify the scientific creativity of gifted students through project-based activities. In accordance with this purpose, a study has been carried out with 13 gifted students studying in third and fifth grade. In the study, students have been informed about the project development stages and they have been asked…

Developing Knowledge Intensive Ideas in Engineering Education: The Application of Camp Methodology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lassen, Astrid Heidemann; Nielsen, Suna Lowe

2011-01-01

Background: Globalization, technological advancement, environmental problems, etc. challenge organizations not just to consider cost-effectiveness, but also to develop new ideas in order to build competitive advantages. Hence, methods to deliberately enhance creativity and facilitate its processes of development must also play a central role in…

[Sex differences in relationship between creativity and hemispheric information processing in global and local levels].

PubMed

Razumnikova, O M; Vol'f, N V

2012-01-01

Sex differences in creativity related global-local hemispheric selective processing were examined by hierarchical letter presenting in conditions of their perception and comparison. Fifty-six right-handed males and 68 females (aged 17-22 years) participated in the experiments. Originality-imagery was assessed by a computer-based Torrance 'Incomplete Figures' test software. Verbal creativity was valued by original sentence using of three nouns from remote semantic categories. The results show that irrespectively of the sex factor and the type of creative thinking, its originality is provided by high speed of right-hemispheric processes of information selection on the global level and delay in the interhemispheric communication. Relationships between originality of ideas and hemispheric attentional characteristics are presented mostly in men while verbal creative problem solving, and in women while figurative original thinking. Originality of verbal activity in men is more associated with success of selective processes in the left hemisphere, but in women--with selective functions of both hemispheres. Figurative thinking in men is less related to hemispheric characteristics of attention compared with women. Increase of figurative originality in women is accompanied acceleration of processes of selection of the information in the right hemisphere, and also higher efficiency of local attention as well as speeds ofglobal processing in the left hemisphere.

Cross-Field Differences in Creative Problem-Solving Skills: A Comparison of Health, Biological, and Social Sciences

PubMed Central

Mumford, Michael D.; Antes, Alison L.; Caughron, Jared J.; Connelly, Shane; Beeler, Cheryl

2010-01-01

In the present study, 258 doctoral students working in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to solve a series of field-relevant problems calling for creative thought. Proposed solutions to these problems were scored with respect to critical creative thinking skills such as problem definition, conceptual combination, and idea generation. Results indicated that health, biological, and social scientists differed with respect to their skill in executing various operations, or processes, involved in creative thought. Interestingly, no differences were observed as a function of the students’ level of experience. The implications of these findings for understanding cross-field, and cross-experience level, differences in creative thought are discussed. PMID:20936085

Creative Concept Mapping.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, David S.

2002-01-01

Recommends the use of concept mapping in science teaching and proposes that it be presented as a creative activity. Includes a sample lesson plan of a potato stamp concept mapping activity for astronomy. (DDR)

Applying the neuroscience of creativity to creativity training

PubMed Central

Onarheim, Balder; Friis-Olivarius, Morten

2013-01-01

This article investigates how neuroscience in general, and neuroscience of creativity in particular, can be used in teaching “applied creativity” and the usefulness of this approach to creativity training. The article is based on empirical data and our experiences from the Applied NeuroCreativity (ANC) program, taught at business schools in Denmark and Canada. In line with previous studies of successful creativity training programs the ANC participants are first introduced to cognitive concepts of creativity, before applying these concepts to a relevant real world creative problem. The novelty in the ANC program is that the conceptualization of creativity is built on neuroscience, and a crucial aspect of the course is giving the students a thorough understanding of the neuroscience of creativity. Previous studies have reported that the conceptualization of creativity used in such training is of major importance for the success of the training, and we believe that the neuroscience of creativity offers a novel conceptualization for creativity training. Here we present pre/post-training tests showing that ANC students gained more fluency in divergent thinking (a traditional measure of trait creativity) than those in highly similar courses without the neuroscience component, suggesting that principles from neuroscience can contribute effectively to creativity training and produce measurable results on creativity tests. The evidence presented indicates that the inclusion of neuroscience principles in a creativity course can in 8 weeks increase divergent thinking skills with an individual relative average of 28.5%. PMID:24137120

Bringing us back to our creative senses: Fostering creativity in graduate-level nursing education: A literary review.

PubMed

Duhamel, Karen V

2016-10-01

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirical findings of five studies related to graduate-level nurse educators' and nursing students' perceptions about the roles of creativity and creative problem-solving in traditional and innovative pedagogies, and examines conceptual differences in the value of creativity from teacher and student viewpoints. Five peer-reviewed scholarly articles; professional nursing organizations; conceptual frameworks of noted scholars specializing in creativity and creative problem-solving; business-related sources; primary and secondary sources of esteemed nurse scholars. Quantitative and qualitative studies were examined that used a variety of methodologies, including surveys, focus groups, 1:1 interviews, and convenience sampling of both nursing and non-nursing college students and faculty. Innovative teaching strategies supported student creativity and creative problem-solving development. Teacher personality traits and teaching styles receptive to students' needs led to greater student success in creative development. Adequate time allocation and perceived usefulness of creativity and creative problem-solving by graduate-level nurse educators must be reflected in classroom activities and course design. Findings indicated conservative teaching norms, evident in graduate nursing education today, should be revised to promote creativity and creative problem-solving development in graduate-level nursing students for best practice outcomes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Applied Creativity: The Creative Marketing Breakthrough Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Titus, Philip A.

2007-01-01

Despite the increasing importance of personal creativity in today's business environment, few conceptual creativity frameworks have been presented in the marketing education literature. The purpose of this article is to advance the integration of creativity instruction into marketing classrooms by presenting an applied creative marketing…

[Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT): elements for construct validity in Portuguese adolescents].

PubMed

Oliveira, Ema; Almeida, Leandro; Ferrándiz, Carmen; Ferrando, Mercedes; Sainz, Marta; Prieto, María Dolores

2009-11-01

The aim of this work is to study the unidimensional and multidimensional nature of creativity when assessed through divergent thinking tasks, as proposed in Torrance's battery (Torrance Creative Thinking Test, TTCT). This battery is made up of various tasks with verbal and figurative content, aimed at estimating the level of creativity according to the dimensions or cognitive functions of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration of the individuals' ideas. This work used a sample of 595 Portuguese students from 5th and 6th grade. The results of confirmatory factor analysis reveals that the unidimensional model (a general factor of creativity) and the model of factors as a function of the cognitive dimensions of creativity, based on task content, do not fit well. The model with the best fit has a hierarchical factor structure, in which the first level comprises the factors for each of the subtests applied and the second level includes verbal or figurative content. The difficulty to verify the structural validity of the TTCT is noted, and the need for further studies to achieve, in practice, better individual creativity scores.

Meta-Creativity: Being Creative about Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Runco, Mark A.

2015-01-01

The concept of meta-creativity is defined and explored, with examples drawn from the long and productive career of Arthur Cropley. "Meta-creativity" may sound like jargon, but then again, given how meta is used in the sciences (e.g., "meta-analysis," "meta-cognition"), it is a perfectly apt term. It is the best label…

Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaufman, James C.; Sternberg, Robert J.

2007-01-01

Creativity is sometimes seen as irrelevant to educational practice. With an increased focus on standardized test scores, creative teachers and those who encourage creativity in the classroom often are accused of being idealists or missing the big picture. But the authors believe instead that creativity brings valuable benefits to the classroom. In…

Concerted Creativity: Emergence in the Socio-(Im)Material and Intangible Practice of Making Music.

PubMed

Hvidtfeldt, Dan Lund

2018-06-01

The purpose of this article is to explore how the basic conception of 'emergence' informs the study of creativity as a socio-material practice. Initially, the article explicates how creative processes, products and performances involve not only tangible, but also intangible and social elements. Secondly, the theoretical conception of creativity as socio-material and the general philosophical notion of emergence are introduced. Inspired by the idea that a 'whole' is other than the sum of its 'parts' and by examples primarily from the world of music, the article argues that the relationship between subject and object - the main analytical focus of studies on creativity as a socio-material practice - is fundamentally embedded in an emergent process. The article concludes by highlighting how emergence theory acknowledges the performance or product as an intangible material for creative processes of musicians, and that studies of the socio-materiality of creative practices clearly involving tangible, intangible and social elements must refer to the emergent process through which the creative product or performance evolves meaning. The theoretical framework suggested is relevant for researchers interested in exploring how materials, social settings and physical environments are involved in creative processes.

Brain activity and connectivity during poetry composition: Toward a multidimensional model of the creative process

PubMed Central

Liu, Siyuan; Erkkinen, Michael G.; Healey, Meghan L.; Xu, Yisheng; Swett, Katherine E.; Chow, Ho Ming

2015-01-01

Abstract Creativity, a multifaceted construct, can be studied in various ways, for example, investigating phases of the creative process, quality of the creative product, or the impact of expertise. Previous neuroimaging studies have assessed these individually. Believing that each of these interacting features must be examined simultaneously to develop a comprehensive understanding of creative behavior, we examined poetry composition, assessing process, product, and expertise in a single experiment. Distinct activation patterns were associated with generation and revision, two major phases of the creative process. Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was active during both phases, yet responses in dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal executive systems (DLPFC/IPS) were phase‐dependent, indicating that while motivation remains unchanged, cognitive control is attenuated during generation and re‐engaged during revision. Experts showed significantly stronger deactivation of DLPFC/IPS during generation, suggesting that they may more effectively suspend cognitive control. Importantly however, similar overall patterns were observed in both groups, indicating the same cognitive resources are available to experts and novices alike. Quality of poetry, assessed by an independent panel, was associated with divergent connectivity patterns in experts and novices, centered upon MPFC (for technical facility) and DLPFC/IPS (for innovation), suggesting a mechanism by which experts produce higher quality poetry. Crucially, each of these three key features can be understood in the context of a single neurocognitive model characterized by dynamic interactions between medial prefrontal areas regulating motivation, dorsolateral prefrontal, and parietal areas regulating cognitive control and the association of these regions with language, sensorimotor, limbic, and subcortical areas distributed throughout the brain. Hum Brain Mapp 36:3351–3372, 2015. © 2015 The Authors. Human Brain

A picture's worth a thousand words: engaging youth in CBPR using the creative arts.

PubMed

Yonas, Michael A; Burke, Jessica G; Rak, Kimberly; Bennett, Antoine; Kelly, Vera; Gielen, Andrea C

2009-01-01

Engaging youth and incorporating their unique expertise into the research process is important when addressing issues related to their health. Visual Voices is an arts-based participatory data collection method designed to work together with young people and communities to collaboratively elicit, examine, and celebrate the perspectives of youth. To present a process for using the creative arts with young people as a participatory data collection method and to give examples of their perspectives on safety and violence. Using the creative arts, this study examined and illustrates the perspectives of how community factors influence safety and violence. Visual Voices was conducted with a total of 22 African-American youth in two urban neighborhoods. This method included creative arts-based writing, drawing, and painting activities designed to yield culturally relevant data generated and explored by youth. Qualitative data were captured through the creative content of writings, drawings, and paintings created by the youths as well as transcripts from audio recorded group discussion. Data was analyzed for thematic content and triangulated across traditional and nontraditional mediums. Findings were interpreted with participants and shared publicly for further reflection and utilization. The youth participants identified a range of issues related to community factors, community safety, and violence. Such topics included the role of schools and social networks within the community as safe places and corner stores and abandoned houses as unsafe places. Visual Voices is a creative research method that provides a unique opportunity for youth to generate a range of ideas through access to the multiple creative methods provided. It is an innovative process that generates rich and valuable data about topics of interest and the lived experiences of young community members.

Mind the gap: an attempt to bridge computational and neuroscientific approaches to study creativity

PubMed Central

Wiggins, Geraint A.; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2014-01-01

Creativity is the hallmark of human cognition and is behind every innovation, scientific discovery, piece of music, artwork, and idea that have shaped our lives, from ancient times till today. Yet scientific understanding of creative processes is quite limited, mostly due to the traditional belief that considers creativity as a mysterious puzzle, a paradox, defying empirical enquiry. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in revealing the neural correlates of human creativity. Though many of these studies, pioneering in nature, help demystification of creativity, but the field is still dominated by popular beliefs in associating creativity with “right brain thinking”, “divergent thinking”, “altered states” and so on (Dietrich and Kanso, 2010). In this article, we discuss a computational framework for creativity based on Baars’ Global Workspace Theory (GWT; Baars, 1988) enhanced with mechanisms based on information theory. Next we propose a neurocognitive architecture of creativity with a strong focus on various facets (i.e., unconscious thought theory, mind wandering, spontaneous brain states) of un/pre-conscious brain responses. Our principal argument is that pre-conscious creativity happens prior to conscious creativity and the proposed computational model may provide a mechanism by which this transition is managed. This integrative approach, albeit unconventional, will hopefully stimulate future neuroscientific studies of the inscrutable phenomenon of creativity. PMID:25104930

Creativity in the Later Life: Factors Associated with the Creativity of the Chinese Elderly

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Wei; Niu, Weihua

2013-01-01

This study examined a total of 140 elderly Chinese from China and the United States to investigate the relationship between attitude toward aging, daily activities, general health, education, and other demographics and rated creativity as measured by collage making and storytelling. The result of this study shows that creativity declines with age.…

The perceived importance and the presence of creative potential in the health professional's work environment.

PubMed

Lukersmith, Sue; Burgess-Limerick, Robin

2013-01-01

The value of creative employees to an organisation's growth and innovative development, productivity, quality and sustainability is well established. This study examined the perceived relationship between creativity and work environment factors of 361 practicing health professionals, and whether these factors were present (realised) in their work environment. Job design (challenges, team work, task rotation, autonomy) and leadership (coaching supervisor, time for thinking, creative goals, recognition and incentives for creative ideas and results) were perceived as the most important factors for stimulating creativity. There was room for improvement of these in the work environment. Many aspects of the physical work environment were less important. Public health sector employers and organisations should adopt sustainable strategies which target the important work environment factors to support employee creativity and so enhance service quality, productivity, performance and growth. Implications of the results for ergonomists and workplace managers are discussed with a participatory ergonomics approach recommended. Creative employees are important to an organisation's innovation, productivity and sustainability. The survey identified health professionals perceive a need to improve job design and leadership factors at work to enhance and support employee creativity. There are implications for organisations and ergonomists to investigate the creative potential of work environments.

Fostering and Assessing Creativity in Technology Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buelin-Biesecker, Jennifer Katherine

2012-01-01

This study compared the creative outcomes in student work resulting from two pedagogical approaches to creative problem solving activities. A secondary goal was to validate the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) as a means of assessing creativity. Linear models for problem solving and design processes serve as the current paradigm in classroom…

Leisure Activities for the Development of Creative Intelligence in Mathematical Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castro, Angélica Mercedes Tumbaco; Guerra, Galo Ernestro Cabanilla; Brito, Christian Antonio Pavón; Chávez, Tannia Gabriela Acosta

2018-01-01

The present work studies the influence of leisure activities on the creative intelligence of the students. An experimental pre- and post-test design was carried out with individuals selected in a sampling process. The design identifies the ease of students to place themselves in possible contexts and solve them mathematically through Polya's…

Cowboys and Butterflies: Creative Uses of Spontaneous Fantasy in Career Counseling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owen, Dean W., Jr.; Wilson, Jean

1980-01-01

The spontaneous fantasy experiences of students represent a rich source of information that can be creatively structured and used to enhance vocational counseling and career education. The structured sharing and discussion of vocational fantasy offers an enjoyable, flexible method for assessing a wide range of vocational ideas. (Author)

Developing Critical Thinking Skills and Improving Expressive Language through Creative Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodman, Harriet E.

A practicum was conducted to develop critical thinking and improve expression through creative written language utilizing precision teaching as an evaluation of student performance. Six students (grades second through sixth) with low idea generation and few organization skills were trained by three teachers and a teacher advisor using…

Collaborating with the unconscious other. The analysand's capacity for creative thinking.

PubMed

Rather, L

2001-06-01

The analysand's capacity for making use of psychoanalytic treatment has been a subject of importance since the beginning of psychoanalysis. The author addresses an aspect of the difficulty encountered by analysands in achieving a psychic state that allows the creative use of free association, dreams, parapraxes and other spontaneous phenomena occurring during the course of treatment. He suggests that a very specific state of mind is essential to both the psychoanalytic process and the creative process. Using theoretical concepts derived from Freud, Klein and Bion, he develops the idea of an internal object relationship, 'the collaboration with the unconscious other', which forms the basis for both creative thinking and the psychoanalytic function of the personality. Creative thinking is distinguished from artistic endeavour and discussed as a universal potential, on which growth in psychoanalysis depends. The term 'unconscious other' is meant to signify the subjective experience of a foreign presence within oneself from which both spontaneous creative inspiration and involuntary psychic phenomena are felt to emanate. The author presents clinical material to suggest that paranoid-schizoid and depressive anxieties form obstacles to collaborating with the unconscious other, and must be worked through in order to achieve an analytic process.

Participatory Creativity: Getting the Creative Juices Flowing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hernandez, Luis

2012-01-01

Why is creativity an important part of an organization? Isn't that something that the children should be doing so that their families can put it up on the refrigerator door and say, "Look how creative she is!"? But creativity is much more than that and should be an ingredient of any smart and savvy organization. Creativity reflects that an…

Creativity in adolescence.

PubMed

Rothenberg, A

1990-09-01

Findings from an empirical research project on creativity, including controlled experimental assessment, indicate that the development of creative capacity occurs primarily during the adolescent period. Defined as the production of entities that are both new and valuable, creativity necessarily involves two specific types of cognition designated as the janusian and homospatial processes. Although there are precursors to the development of creativity during earlier childhood, both the motivation and the capacity to create appear first in the adolescent period. Important motivational factors derive from adolescent conflicts and developmental tasks such as the impetus to solve and consolidate issues relating to identity, the return of oedipal conflicts, and the pressures toward autonomy and independence. Engaging in creative types of fields and outlets helps generally to establish coherent identity during adolescence and beyond; the beginnings of a specific creative identity in adolescence are a necessary foundation for creative motivation and ability to create throughout life. The return of the oedipal conflict at the onset of puberty motivates the dual compliance and competition of the creatively disposed adolescent with his or her same-sex parent. The pressures toward autonomy and independence provide the motivational and affective substrate for the development of the homospatial and janusian processes. The homospatial process arises from the vacillating and concomitant experiences of autonomy (or separation) and connectedness. In the creatively disposed adolescent, one who activates and uses cognition to express and explore affect, the creative aspect of those experiences begins to be manifested in the concomitant cognitive separation and connection involved in superimposition of mental images. The janusian process arises from the experiences of rebellious oppositionality and intense emotional ambivalence. The creative cognitive aspect of these experiences is

Creatives Teaching Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gustina, Charles; Sweet, Rebecca

2014-01-01

Creativity is very much in the forefront of current international economic news. As developing countries successfully vie with established economies for manufacturing and less-skilled jobs, the pressure is on the developed world to move on to the next economic break-through. Innovation and the creativity that drive it are seen as crucial to this…

Creative self-efficacy development and creative performance over time.

PubMed

Tierney, Pamela; Farmer, Steven M

2011-03-01

Building from an established framework of self-efficacy development, this study provides a longitudinal examination of the development of creative self-efficacy in an ongoing work context. Results show that increases in employee creative role identity and perceived creative expectation from supervisors over a 6-month time period were associated with enhanced sense of employee capacity for creative work. Contrary to what was expected, employees who experienced increased requirements for creativity in their jobs actually reported a decreased sense of efficaciousness for creative work. Results show that increases in creative self-efficacy corresponded with increases in creative performance as well. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Creative Cognition and Brain Network Dynamics

PubMed Central

Beaty, Roger E.; Benedek, Mathias; Silvia, Paul J.; Schacter, Daniel L.

2015-01-01

Creative thinking is central to the arts, sciences, and everyday life. How does the brain produce creative thought? A series of recently published papers has begun to provide insight into this question, reporting a strikingly similar pattern of brain activity and connectivity across a range of creative tasks and domains, from divergent thinking to poetry composition to musical improvisation. This research suggests that creative thought involves dynamic interactions of large-scale brain systems, with the most compelling finding being that the default and executive control networks, which can show an antagonistic relationship, actually cooperate during creative cognition and artistic performance. These findings have implications for understanding how brain networks interact to support complex cognitive processes, particularly those involving goal-directed, self-generated thought. PMID:26553223

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lessig, Lawrence

Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig asserts that laws concerning copyright and the Internet have a negative impact on the expression and dissemination of ideas and innovation. Unlike other technologies, the Internet's historical design and technical structure produced an environment that was creative, protected, and free--a place in…

Marketing When Your Creativity is High and Your Budget Is Low.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Silvana

1995-01-01

Informs early childhood center directors of efficient ways to promote and market their facilities and programs. Because the day-to-day logistics of scheduling teachers, ordering supplies, and communicating with parents often leave little time for formal marketing, creative ideas are needed. Suggestions include yellow-page ads, a variety of…

Creative Intelligence, Creative Practice: Lowenfeld Redux

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burton, Judith M.

2009-01-01

Volume 1, No. 2, of "Studies in Art Education," appearing in spring 1960, included an article by Viktor Lowenfeld titled "Creative Intelligence." Here, he highlighted his belief in the importance of creative intelligence to human functioning, linking it to creative practice as represented most purely in the artworks of children and untutored…

An Education Track for Creativity and Other Quality Thinking Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bleedorn, Berenice

2003-01-01

The need for new thinking in the world, both official leadership and for all participating members of society has been a glaring reality in recent times. To Berenice Bleedorn, the idea of teaching students how to use the full potential of their thinking apparatus is not absurd--simply logical and timely. Creative expression is central to the…

Effects of Evaluation Expectation on Artistic Creativity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amabile, Teresa M.

Conditions are examined under which the imposition of an extrinsic constraint upon performance of an activity can lead to decrements in creativity. Female college students worked on an art activity either with or without the expectation of external evaluation. In addition, subjects were asked to focus upon either the creative or the technical…

Developing Interactive E-Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watkins, Ryan

2005-01-01

Although e-learning can offer interactive and engaging learning experiences, the creative ideas that are necessary to create such environments are not always easy to come up with when designing, developing, or teaching e-learning courses. E-learning activities use online technologies such as chat rooms, discussion boards, or email to facilitate…

The Big Book of Therapeutic Activity Ideas for Children and Teens: Inspiring Arts-Based Activities and Character Education Curricula

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joiner, Lindsey

2011-01-01

For difficult or challenging children and teenagers in therapeutic or school settings, creative activities can be an excellent way of increasing enjoyment and boosting motivation, making the sessions more rewarding and successful for everyone involved. This resource provides over one hundred tried-and-tested fun and imaginative therapeutic…

69 Good Ideas: Responses to Changing Educational Needs by State Colleges and Universities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Costello, Libby, Comp.

A collection of program ideas are presented that were nominated by their institutions in the 1983 competition for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities' G. Theodore Mitau Award for Innovation and Change in Higher Education. The programs demonstrate creative approaches to such academic/administrative concerns as student access…

The Development of Creative Thinking in Graduate Students Doing Scientific Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Truran, Peter

2016-01-01

The teaching of research methodology to graduate science students places an emphasis on scientific reasoning and on the generation and evaluation of evidence in support of research conclusions. Very little attention is paid to the teaching of scientific creativity, the processes for generation of new ideas, hypotheses, and theories. By contrast,…

Translanguaging Space and Creative Activity: Theorising Collaborative Arts-Based Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bradley, Jessica; Moore, Emilee; Simpson, James; Atkinson, Louise

2018-01-01

This paper focuses on an innovative transdisciplinary educational arts-based learning project, LangScape Curators, which links to and leads from research conducted for the AHRC-funded "Translation and Translanguaging" project. Here, we describe how we work collaboratively with creative practitioners to use a variety of creative arts…

Creative Cognition and Brain Network Dynamics.

PubMed

Beaty, Roger E; Benedek, Mathias; Silvia, Paul J; Schacter, Daniel L

2016-02-01

Creative thinking is central to the arts, sciences, and everyday life. How does the brain produce creative thought? A series of recently published papers has begun to provide insight into this question, reporting a strikingly similar pattern of brain activity and connectivity across a range of creative tasks and domains, from divergent thinking to poetry composition to musical improvisation. This research suggests that creative thought involves dynamic interactions of large-scale brain systems, with the most compelling finding being that the default and executive control networks, which can show an antagonistic relation, tend to cooperate during creative cognition and artistic performance. These findings have implications for understanding how brain networks interact to support complex cognitive processes, particularly those involving goal-directed, self-generated thought. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Artistic creativity, style and brain disorders.

PubMed

Bogousslavsky, Julien

2005-01-01

The production of novel, motivated or useful material defines creativity, which appears to be one of the higher, specific, human brain functions. While creativity can express itself in virtually any domain, art might particularly well illustrate how creativity may be modulated by the normal or pathological brain. Evidence emphasizes global brain functioning in artistic creativity and output, but critical steps which link perception processing to execution of a work, such as extraction-abstraction, as well as major developments of non-esthetic values attached to art also underline complex activation and inhibition processes mainly localized in the frontal lobe. Neurological diseases in artists provide a unique opportunity to study brain-creativity relationships, in particular through the stylistic changes which may develop after brain lesion. (c) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

The Influence of Creative Process Engagement on Employee Creative Performance and Overall Job Performance: A Curvilinear Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Xiaomeng; Bartol, Kathryn M.

2010-01-01

Integrating theories addressing attention and activation with creativity literature, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between creative process engagement and overall job performance among professionals in complex jobs in an information technology firm. Work experience moderated the curvilinear relationship, with low-experience employees…

Visual artistic creativity and the brain.

PubMed

Heilman, Kenneth M; Acosta, Lealani Mae

2013-01-01

Creativity is the development of a new or novel understanding--insight that leads to the expression of orderly relationships (e.g., finding and revealing the thread that unites). Visual artistic creativity plays an important role in the quality of human lives, and the goal of this chapter is to describe some of the brain mechanisms that may be important in visual artistic creativity. The initial major means of learning how the brain mediates any activity is to understand the anatomy and physiology that may support these processes. A further understanding of specific cognitive activities and behaviors may be gained by studying patients who have diseases of the brain and how these diseases influence these functions. Physiological recording such as electroencephalography and brain imaging techniques such as PET and fMRI have also allowed us to gain a better understanding of the brain mechanisms important in visual creativity. In this chapter, we discuss anatomic and physiological studies, as well as neuropsychological studies of healthy artists and patients with neurological disease that have helped us gain some insight into the brain mechanisms that mediate artistic creativity. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of Handcraft Exercise Courses that Bring Out Student's Creativity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Senda, Shinkoh; Yamamoto, Koji; Fukumori, Tutom; Matsuura, Hideo; Sato, Kazuo

We have developed a new type of handcraft exercise program that aims to stimulate student's creativity on the way of design and fabrication of the subject machines. Conventional handicraft exercise program used to aim at letting students learn procedures of machining operation in accordance with a designated manual. Students having experienced our conventional exercise did not fully satisfied at those programs because of the lack in a room for their idea and creativity. Authors, a group of both technical and academic staffs, have developed and started the new type of program since 2003 at the Creation Plaza in Nagoya University. Developed program is classified into grades according to the difference in technical contents required for students.

Masculinity-Feminity in Creative College Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suter, Barbara; Domino, George

1975-01-01

The possible relationship between masculinity and creativity in college women was investigated through a battery of masculinity-femininity scales that tapped both manifest and latent anxiety, factorially derived clusters, and an ipsative measure. Highly creative subjects scored higher on activity and described themselves as more masculine.…

Neural networks involved in artistic creativity.

PubMed

Kowatari, Yasuyuki; Lee, Seung Hee; Yamamura, Hiromi; Nagamori, Yusuke; Levy, Pierre; Yamane, Shigeru; Yamamoto, Miyuki

2009-05-01

Creativity has been proposed to be either the result of solely right hemisphere processes or of interhemispheric interactions. Little information is available, however, concerning the neuronal foundations of creativity. In this study, we introduced a new artistic task, designing a new tool (a pen), which let us quantitatively evaluate creativity by three indices of originality. These scores were analyzed in combination with brain activities measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results were compared between subjects who had been formally trained in design (experts) and novice subjects. In the experts, creativity was quantitatively correlated with the degree of dominance of the right prefrontal cortex over that of the left, but not with that of the right or left prefrontal cortex alone. In contrast, in novice subjects, only a negative correlation with creativity was observed in the bilateral inferior parietal cortex. We introduced structure equation modeling to analyze the interactions among these four brain areas and originality indices. The results predicted that training exerts a direct effect on the left parietal cortex. Additionally, as a result of the indirect effects, the activity of the right prefrontal cortex was facilitated, and the left prefrontal and right parietal cortices were suppressed. Our results supported the hypothesis that training increases creativity via reorganized intercortical interactions. (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Thinking with Hands-On Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conover, Patricia Ross

2009-01-01

The goal for library media specialists and teachers is to lead students to use technology to communicate, in a powerful and meaningful way, and to creatively display what they have learned. With these ideas in mind, this article details several projects using Microsoft PowerPoint XP. The activities, with simplified instructions, can be adapted to…

Unconventional Reservoirs: Ideas to Commercialization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tinker, S. W.

2015-12-01

There is no shortage of coal, oil, and natural gas in the world. What are sometimes in short supply are fresh ideas. Scientific innovation combined with continued advances in drilling and completion technology revitalized the natural gas industry in North America by making production from shale economic. Similar advances are now happening in shale oil. The convergence of ideas and technology has created a commercial environment in which unconventional reservoirs could supply natural gas to the North American consumer for 50 years or more. And, although not as far along in terms of resource development, oil from the Eagle Ford and Bakken Shales and the oil sands in Alberta could have a similar impact. Without advanced horizontal drilling, geosteering, staged hydraulic-fracture stimulation, synthetic and natural proppants, evolution of hydraulic fluid chemistry, and high-end monitoring and simulation, many of these plays would not exist. Yet drilling and completion technology cannot stand alone. Also required for success are creative thinking, favorable economics, and a tolerance for risk by operators. Current understanding and completion practices will leave upwards of 80% of oil and natural gas in the shale reservoirs. The opportunity to enhance recovery through advanced reservoir understanding and imaging, as well as through recompletions and infill drilling, is considerable. The path from ideas to commercialization will continue to provide economic results in unconventional reservoirs.

Black History and Culture. Ideas and Activities for Studying.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stanton, Roland; And Others

This booklet contains information, ideas, and activities to help schools celebrate Black History Week. It is devoted to black achievements in the areas of music, politics, and business with the intention of developing respect for, awareness of, and a sense of the relationship between past and present events in the history of black Americans. There…

Creative Activity, Personality, Mental Illness, and Short-Term Mating Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beaussart, Melanie L.; Kaufman, Scott Barry; Kaufman, James C.

2012-01-01

It has been argued that creativity evolved, at least in part, through sexual selection to attract mates. Recent research lends support to this view and has also demonstrated a link between certain dimensions of schizotypy, creativity, and short-term mating. The current study delves deeper into these relationships by focusing on engagement in…

Developing Creativity through Collaborative Problem Solving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Albert, Lillie R.; Kim, Rina

2013-01-01

This paper discusses an alternative approach for developing problem solving experiences for students. The major argument is that students can develop their creativity by engaging in collaborative problem solving activities in which they apply a variety of mathematical methods creatively to solve problems. The argument is supported by: considering…

Toward an evolutionary-predictive foundation for creativity : Commentary on "Human creativity, evolutionary algorithms, and predictive representations: The mechanics of thought trials" by Arne Dietrich and Hilde Haider, 2014 (Accepted pending minor revisions for publication in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review).

PubMed

Gabora, Liane; Kauffman, Stuart

2016-04-01

Dietrich and Haider (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21 (5), 897-915, 2014) justify their integrative framework for creativity founded on evolutionary theory and prediction research on the grounds that "theories and approaches guiding empirical research on creativity have not been supported by the neuroimaging evidence." Although this justification is controversial, the general direction holds promise. This commentary clarifies points of disagreement and unresolved issues, and addresses mis-applications of evolutionary theory that lead the authors to adopt a Darwinian (versus Lamarckian) approach. To say that creativity is Darwinian is not to say that it consists of variation plus selection - in the everyday sense of the term - as the authors imply; it is to say that evolution is occurring because selection is affecting the distribution of randomly generated heritable variation across generations. In creative thought the distribution of variants is not key, i.e., one is not inclined toward idea A because 60 % of one's candidate ideas are variants of A while only 40 % are variants of B; one is inclined toward whichever seems best. The authors concede that creative variation is partly directed; however, the greater the extent to which variants are generated non-randomly, the greater the extent to which the distribution of variants can reflect not selection but the initial generation bias. Since each thought in a creative process can alter the selective criteria against which the next is evaluated, there is no demarcation into generations as assumed in a Darwinian model. We address the authors' claim that reduced variability and individuality are more characteristic of Lamarckism than Darwinian evolution, and note that a Lamarckian approach to creativity has addressed the challenge of modeling the emergent features associated with insight.

Computational Social Creativity.

PubMed

Saunders, Rob; Bown, Oliver

2015-01-01

This article reviews the development of computational models of creativity where social interactions are central. We refer to this area as computational social creativity. Its context is described, including the broader study of creativity, the computational modeling of other social phenomena, and computational models of individual creativity. Computational modeling has been applied to a number of areas of social creativity and has the potential to contribute to our understanding of creativity. A number of requirements for computational models of social creativity are common in artificial life and computational social science simulations. Three key themes are identified: (1) computational social creativity research has a critical role to play in understanding creativity as a social phenomenon and advancing computational creativity by making clear epistemological contributions in ways that would be challenging for other approaches; (2) the methodologies developed in artificial life and computational social science carry over directly to computational social creativity; and (3) the combination of computational social creativity with individual models of creativity presents significant opportunities and poses interesting challenges for the development of integrated models of creativity that have yet to be realized.

The relationship between intelligence and creativity: New support for the threshold hypothesis by means of empirical breakpoint detection

PubMed Central

Jauk, Emanuel; Benedek, Mathias; Dunst, Beate; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2013-01-01

The relationship between intelligence and creativity has been subject to empirical research for decades. Nevertheless, there is yet no consensus on how these constructs are related. One of the most prominent notions concerning the interplay between intelligence and creativity is the threshold hypothesis, which assumes that above-average intelligence represents a necessary condition for high-level creativity. While earlier research mostly supported the threshold hypothesis, it has come under fire in recent investigations. The threshold hypothesis is commonly investigated by splitting a sample at a given threshold (e.g., at 120 IQ points) and estimating separate correlations for lower and upper IQ ranges. However, there is no compelling reason why the threshold should be fixed at an IQ of 120, and to date, no attempts have been made to detect the threshold empirically. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between intelligence and different indicators of creative potential and of creative achievement by means of segmented regression analysis in a sample of 297 participants. Segmented regression allows for the detection of a threshold in continuous data by means of iterative computational algorithms. We found thresholds only for measures of creative potential but not for creative achievement. For the former the thresholds varied as a function of criteria: When investigating a liberal criterion of ideational originality (i.e., two original ideas), a threshold was detected at around 100 IQ points. In contrast, a threshold of 120 IQ points emerged when the criterion was more demanding (i.e., many original ideas). Moreover, an IQ of around 85 IQ points was found to form the threshold for a purely quantitative measure of creative potential (i.e., ideational fluency). These results confirm the threshold hypothesis for qualitative indicators of creative potential and may explain some of the observed discrepancies in previous research. In addition, we obtained

The "Iron Inventor": Using Creative Problem Solving to Spur Student Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Seung Hwan; Hoffman, K. Douglas

2014-01-01

Based on the popular television show the "Iron Chef," an innovative marketing activity called the "Iron Inventor" is introduced. Using the creative problem-solving approach and active learning techniques, the Iron Inventor facilitates student learning pertaining to the step-by-step processes of creating a new product and…

Creative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiggins, Grant

2017-01-01

This article consists of short quotations from the author's chapter "Creative Learning" written for the "Routledge International Handbook of Creative Learning." It argues that, when assessing creativity, we should look for fitness to purpose as well as inventiveness, and that creativity can be assessed and recognised in a wide…

Creativity at the Crossroads: Pragmatic versus Humanist Claims in Education Reform Speeches

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Katz-Buonincontro, Jen

2012-01-01

Obama's, and other policymakers', speeches claim that "creativity"--the ability to derive novel, excellent and relevant ideas and products--is a valuable student asset for the 21st century, but why? Two types of rhetorical appeals to long-held educational values in these speeches are examined: pragmatic claims about student creativity…

Pedagogical Synergetics as the Activity Approach Basis in Professional and Pedagogical Training at the University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serezhnikova, Raisa Kuzminichna; Fishman, Boris Entilyevich; Abramenko, Natalya Yurevna; Zhoglo, Lyubov Yakovlevna; Fishbein, Miron Honevich

2015-01-01

The article considers an idea of activity approach realization in professional training assuming not only change of the contents, forms and methods of students' educational activities, but also not less radical transformation of teacher's activities oriented at the students' development of creative self-realization experience. The authors…

Pleasantness of Creative Tasks and Creative Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zenasni, Franck; Lubart, Todd

2011-01-01

To examine the impact of emotion on creative potential, experimental studies have typically focused on the impact of induced or spontaneous mood states on creative performance. In this report the relationship between the perceived pleasantness of tasks (using divergent thinking and story writing tasks) and creative performance was examined.…

Creative Work Careers: Pathways and Portfolios for the Creative Economy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ashton, Daniel

2015-01-01

This article examines the career opportunities, challenges and trajectories of creative work. As part of the Creative Trident approach to creative workforce measurements, the embedded mode draws attention to creative work as it is undertaken outside of the creative industries. This article further considers and conceptualises the complex careers…

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: Engaging Youth in CBPR Using the Creative Arts

PubMed Central

Yonas, Michael A.; Burke, Jessica G.; Rak, Kimberly; Bennett, Antoine; Kelly, Vera; Gielen, Andrea C.

2010-01-01

Background Engaging youth and incorporating their unique expertise into the research process is important when addressing issues related to their health. Visual Voices is an arts-based participatory data collection method designed to work together with young people and communities to collaboratively elicit, examine, and celebrate the perspectives of youth. Objectives To present a process for using the creative arts with young people as a participatory data collection method and to give examples of their perspectives on safety and violence. Methods Using the creative arts, this study examined and illustrates the perspectives of how community factors influence safety and violence. Visual Voices was conducted with a total of 22 African-American youth in two urban neighborhoods. This method included creative arts-based writing, drawing, and painting activities designed to yield culturally relevant data generated and explored by youth. Qualitative data were captured through the creative content of writings, drawings, and paintings created by the youths as well as transcripts from audio recorded group discussion. Data was analyzed for thematic content and triangulated across traditional and nontraditional mediums. Findings were interpreted with participants and shared publicly for further reflection and utilization. Conclusion The youth participants identified a range of issues related to community factors, community safety, and violence. Such topics included the role of schools and social networks within the community as safe places and corner stores and abandoned houses as unsafe places. Visual Voices is a creative research method that provides a unique opportunity for youth to generate a range of ideas through access to the multiple creative methods provided. It is an innovative process that generates rich and valuable data about topics of interest and the lived experiences of young community members. PMID:20097996

Gray matter correlates of creative potential: A latent variable voxel-based morphometry study

PubMed Central

Jauk, Emanuel; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.; Dunst, Beate; Fink, Andreas; Benedek, Mathias

2015-01-01

There is increasing research interest in the structural and functional brain correlates underlying creative potential. Recent investigations found that interindividual differences in creative potential relate to volumetric differences in brain regions belonging to the default mode network, such as the precuneus. Yet, the complex interplay between creative potential, intelligence, and personality traits and their respective neural bases is still under debate. We investigated regional gray matter volume (rGMV) differences that can be associated with creative potential in a heterogeneous sample of N = 135 individuals using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). By means of latent variable modeling and consideration of recent psychometric advancements in creativity research, we sought to disentangle the effects of ideational originality and fluency as two independent indicators of creative potential. Intelligence and openness to experience were considered as common covariates of creative potential. The results confirmed and extended previous research: rGMV in the precuneus was associated with ideational originality, but not with ideational fluency. In addition, we found ideational originality to be correlated with rGMV in the caudate nucleus. The results indicate that the ability to produce original ideas is tied to default-mode as well as dopaminergic structures. These structural brain correlates of ideational originality were apparent throughout the whole range of intellectual ability and thus not moderated by intelligence. In contrast, structural correlates of ideational fluency, a quantitative marker of creative potential, were observed only in lower intelligent individuals in the cuneus/lingual gyrus. PMID:25676914

Grow Creativity!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shively, Candace Hackett

2011-01-01

Creativity matters. A shared vocabulary and lens for creativity helps teachers and students know what it means to "be creative" and where to start. J. P. Guilford's FFOE model of divergent thinking from the 1950s offers four dimensions to describe creativity: (1) Fluency; (2) Flexibility; (3) Originality; and (4) Elaboration. FFOE makes time spent…

Multimedia Activities for Students: A Teachers' and Librarians' Handbook.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sorrow, Barbara Head

This book is a collection of multimedia ideas and activities for use in classrooms and libraries. Each activity is intended to be adaptable and for use in many subject areas and for a wide range of age groups. The book emphasizes the creative learning of the student, programs, and available resources. Six chapters are as follows: (1)…

Defining and Measuring Creativity: Are Creativity Tests Worth Using?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cropley, Arthur J.

2000-01-01

This article argues that creativity tests are best thought of as measures of creative potential because creative achievement depends on additional factors not measured by creativity tests, such as technical skill, field knowledge, mental health, and opportunity. The need for assessment to be based on several tests is emphasized. (Contains…

Creativity and Introductory Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guilaran, Ildefonso (Fonsie) J.

2012-01-01

When I was an undergraduate physics major, I would often stay up late with my physics major roommate as we would digest the physics content we were learning in our courses and explore our respective imaginations armed with our new knowledge. Such activity during my undergraduate years was confined to informal settings, and the first formal creativity assignment in my physics education did not come until well into my graduate years when my graduate advisor demanded that I write a prospectus for my dissertation. I have often lamented the fact that the first formal assignment in which I was required to be creative, take responsibility for my own learning and research objectives, and see them to completion during my physics education came so late, considering the degree to which creative attributes are celebrated in the personalities of great physicists. In this essay I will apply some of the basic concepts as defined by creativity-related psychology literature to physics pedagogy, relate these concepts to the exchanges in this journal concerning Michael Sobel's paper "Physics for the Non-Scientist: A Middle Way," and provide the framework for a low-overhead creativity assignment that can easily be implemented at all levels of physics education.

Development of an Empirically Based Questionnaire to Investigate Young Students' Ideas about Nature of Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Sufen; Chang, Wen-Hua; Lieu, Sang-Chong; Kao, Huey-Lien; Huang, Mao-Tsai; Lin, Shu-Fen

2013-01-01

This study developed an empirically based questionnaire to monitor young learners' conceptions of nature of science (NOS). The questionnaire, entitled Students' Ideas about Nature of Science (SINOS), measured views on theory-ladenness, use of creativity and imagination, tentativeness of scientific knowledge, durability of scientific knowledge,…

Night Shift: Ideas and Strategies for Homework. Pathfinder 20. A CILT Series for Language Teachers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buckland, David; Short, Mike

A variety of ideas and strategies for homework assignments that can be stimulating and useful to second language learners are presented. Underlying principles are that homework can: give control; develop confidence; promote creativity; support differentiation by task and outcome; encourage pupil independence; support parent-school communication;…

Turning Pupils on to Learning: Creative Classrooms in Action. Creative Teaching/Creative Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elkington, Rob, Ed.

2011-01-01

"Turning Pupils on to Learning" documents and makes visible how creative learning approaches can engage and motivate children in their learning. The book features six case studies of creative learning projects that cover the early years through to Key Stage 3 which are written by the teachers and creative practitioners involved. From the creation…

Developing thinking skill system for modelling creative thinking and critical thinking of vocational high school student

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dewanto, W. K.; Agustianto, K.; Sari, B. E.

2018-01-01

Vocational students must have practical skills in accordance with the purpose of vocational school that creating the skilled graduates according to their field. Graduates of vocational education are required not just as users, but be able to create. Thus requiring critical and creative thinking skills to assist students in generating ideas, analyzing and creating a product of value. Based on this, then this research aims to develop a system to know the level of ability to think critically and creative students, that resulted students can do self-reflection in improving the ability to think critically and creatively as a supporter of practical ability. The system testing using Naïve Bayes Correlation shown an average accuracy of 93.617% in assessing the students’ critical and creative thinking ability. By using modeling with this system will be known level of students’ critical and creative thinking ability, then the output of the system is used to determine the type of innovation in the learning process to improve the critical and creative thinking skills to support the practical skills of students as skilled vocational students.

Melding Environmental Education and Creative Learning in Elementary and Middle-school Settings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jain, S.; Baker, T.; Crofton-Macdonald, J.; Scott, M.

2017-12-01

Teaching environmental topics, such as sustainability and ecosystem management, to students through the lens of computational thinking provides unique educational opportunities. Environmental topics are an excellent source for multidisciplinary learning, as questions concerning human well-being, environmental policy, science, and mathematics can naturally be incorporated into educational discussions and activities. The use of computational modeling allows students to critically reason about and explore environmental concepts by envisioning complexity, and asking and investigating a series of "what if" questions. Students can furthermore reflect on their own relationship with their local ecology. For the past five years, we have tested and developed activities for middle school students. Through in-class activities, workshop, and summer clubs, we have explored these ideas. We plan to present examples from our work and a tentative framework for a new approach to environmental education, one reinforced by computational thinking and creative learning.

Models Role within Active Learning in Biology. A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pop-Pacurar, Irina; Tirla, Felicia-Doina

2009-01-01

In order to integrate ideas and information creatively, to motivate students and activate their thinking, we have used in Biology classes a series of active methods, among which the methods of critical thinking, which had very good results. Still, in the case of some intuitive, abstract, more difficult topics, such as the cell structure,…

Facilitation of creative performance by using blue and red accent lighting in work and learning areas.

PubMed

Kombeiz, Olga; Steidle, Anna

2018-03-01

Research has shown that colours influence motivation and cognitive performance. In achievement contexts, red evokes avoidance motivation that hinders creativity, while blue elicits an approach motivation that facilitates creativity. However, due to their position and mode of presentation, colours may convey a different message. Red accent lighting creates a cosy, friendly room atmosphere that may, even in an achievement context, elicit an approach rather than an avoidance motivation. Results (N = 146) showed that both blue and red accent light increased strategic approach motivation compared to white accent light. Moreover, through the heightened approach motivation, colourful accent light indirectly improved creative performance. Implications for future research on colour and practical implications for colour usage are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Designing work environments for creativity is a new topic in ergonomics research and practice. The present study demonstrates indirect effects of coloured accent light on creativity providing interesting possibilities for the design of workplaces for knowledge workers, classrooms and all other rooms in which people work on new ideas.

Iowa Developed Energy Activity Sampler (IDEAS), Grades 7-12: Industrial Arts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simonis, Doris G.

Described is the Industrial Arts component of the Iowa Developed Energy Activity Sampler (IDEAS), a multidisciplinary energy education program designed for infusion into the curriculum of grades 7-12. Also included in the program are activity sets for Home Economics (SE 034 678), Language Arts (SE 034 680), Mathematics (SE 034 681), Science (SE…

From Creativity to Responsible Createlligence®

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Urban, Klaus K.

2014-01-01

A creative life is described with a dual perspective. Starting with the input of family and schools and crystallizing around the aspects of "spoken word" and "need of/for novelty," a scholarly career and research of new topics (in the country) developed on the one hand; on the other hand, creative activities and products in…