Creativity

What is creativity?
• The problem with creativity is that we know
it when we see it, but it is hard to define.

Picasso
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 Creative stuff

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Frank
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Charles
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Darwin
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Michael Jordan
 Creativity and Cognition
• Creativity involves generation of new ideas
• Boden
– p-creativity: A new idea for a person
• A person may come to a new realization
– h-creativity: A new idea historically
• Novel inventions are h-creative
• Most of what we think of as creative is an
example of h-creativity.
– h-creativity can be studied historically
• You do not know when a creative event will happen
– p-creativity can be studied
 H-creativity
• We saw the dangers of looking at h-
creativity when we talked about insight.
– There are many myths that grow up around
great inventions.
– The significance of inventions is not realized
until much later
• Stories must be told in retrospect.
• People tend to dramatize the story.
• Most creative acts are rather mundane
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1% inspiration.
-Thomas Alva Edison
 Incremental invention
• Sewing machines
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Invented in 1848
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 Why is invention incremental?
• How can a creative idea come about?
• It must be related to existing ideas
– Otherwise, how would people think it up?
– How could it be implemented?
• What does it mean for an idea to be ahead of its time?
– A creative idea must be comprehensible to others
• What good is an invention that nobody wants?
• Suggests that existing ideas may constrain
creativity.
 New inventions
• Innovative inventions are often based on
known products.

Early railroad cars were designed like stagecoaches on tracks.

•Engineer and brakeman were not moved inside until later.
•Stagecoaches were a good solution to initial problems
•Other problems were not discovered until later.
 P-creativity
• In order to understand creative invention better,
use college students.
• The ideas may not be h-creative
– The same processes may be at work.
• Questions:
– Are creative ideas influenced by existing concepts?
– What will make people more creative?
– How should creativity be judged?
 Creativity and
Concepts
• Draw an animal that
does not exist.
– Ward
– Karmiloff-Smith QuickTime™ and a
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Novel animals have many

properties of real animals
•Often have bilateral
symmery
•Sense organs on head
•Similar sense organs to
humans.
 Where do examples come from?
• People select common concepts as examples
– They seem to use specific items
– When asked to create novel intelligent beings
• Animals typically walk upright
• Animals typically have two arms and two legs
• People seem to be using humans as a basis.
• Effect not limited to college students.

Even sci-fi authors

and movies seem
to have the same
constraints.
What makes people more creative?
• A paradox
– People access categories when being creative
– Categories are retrieved on the basis of cues
during the creative process
– The more cues available, the more access
– More specific situations lead to less creativity.
– Forcing people into strange situations can lead
to higher levels of creativity
 An example
• Four conditions.
– Pick a category of
invention and pick parts
– Parts assigned; pick
category
– Category assigned; pick QuickTime™ and a
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– Both category and parts

assigned
• Creativity of inventions
increases as you move
down this list
 Social Factors
• Creativity is fostered by an environment
– Creativity must be valued by a community
– Creativity is shaped by those who evaluate it
• Creator (the individual)
– Individuals must be experts
• Domain (what is being worked on)
• Field (the collaborators, colleagues, and audience)
 Group creativity
• Brainstorming
– Are N minds better than one?
– Often not
• Groups often come up with a smaller number of
possible solutions than the individuals would alone
• One person’s output interferes with other people’s
memories
• Growing conformity within a group
– Sherif studies of the autokinetic effect