Colin Martindale

Personality, Situation, and Creativity

Because creativity has to do with the production of new ideas, one might think that its study rightly falls within the domain of cognitive psychology. Of course, creativity involves cognition, but it involves a type of cognition that seems only to occur within a matrix of associated motivational, attitudinal, and personalogical traits. Thus, to understand creativity, the person as a whole must be considered. Because of this, theories about the creative process have traditionally been personality theories rather than purely cognitive theories. In 1949, Guilford (1950) pointed out that we did not know enough about creativity. We can never know too much about the creative personality, but we certainly know more than I could hope to cover in this chapter. For more information, the reader may consult the reviews of the literature by Dellas and Gaier (1970), Wallach (1970), Stein (1974), Taylor and Getzels (1975), and Barron and Harrington (1981).

Aesthetic preference : anomalous findings for Berlyne's psychobiological theory

Seven experiments were conducted to test predictions derived from Berlynes theory of aesthetic preference. According to this theory, preference is an inverted-U function of arousal potential; the determinants of arousal potential are summed, with the consequence that an increase in the amount of one determinant leads to a decrease in the maximally preferred level of other determinants; and collative properties, such as complexity, are the most important predictors of preference

EEG differences as a function of creativity, stage of the creative process, and effort to be original

Results of two experiments examining the relationship between creativity and EEG alpha wave presence are reported. In Experiment 1, it was found that more creative subjects exhibited higher alpha indices during an analogue of creative inspiration than during an analogue of creative elaboration. This pattern was not found in less creative subjects. In Experiment 2 a similar effect was found in a more controlled setting and shown to be specific to creative subjects when they are instructed to be original but not when they are given no such instructions. No consistent relationship between creativity and basal EEG alpha activity was found.

Creativity and cortical activation during creative, intellectual and eeg feedback tasks

Thirty-two male subjects were divided into four groups based on their performance on the remote associates test and alternate uses test, two measures of creativity. Right EEG alpha presence was monitored under basal conditions, while subjects took tests of creativity and intelligence, and while they attempted to enhance and suppress the amount of alpha in a feedback situation. High scorers on the alternate uses test operated at a high percentage of basal alpha during all tests while high scorers on the remote associates test showed differential amounts of alpha presence across tests, with the highest percentage of basal alpha during tests of creativity and the lowest percentage during an intellectual test. Both high creative groups tended to show increases in amount of alpha across trials when trying to suppress alpha as well as when trying to enhance it, but did not differ in overall control from the low creative groups.

Relationship of Preference Judgments to Typicality, Novelty, and Mere Exposure

Two theories of aesthetic preference are reviewed. According to Berlynes psychobiological theory, the main determinants of aesthetic preference are collative variables such as complexity and novelty, and preference is generally related to its determinants in an inverted-U manner. Recent findings contrary to these predictions are briefly reviewed. According to Martindales cognitive theory, the main determinant of aesthetic preference is prototypicality or meaningfulness, and preference is usually related to its determinants in a monotonic or U-shaped fashion. Three experiments concerning preference for semantic category exemplars are reported. Typicality accounted for eight or nine times more of explained variance in preference than did long-term novelty, short-term novelty, or mere exposure. Preference was related to both typicality and collative variables by monotonic or U-shaped functions.

Creativity, primary process cognition and personality

Abstract Potential creativity as measured by the Alternate Uses Test, remoteness of word associations, and rated creativity of fantasy stories was found to be related to primary process content in written fantasy stories. Psychoticism and openness to experience have been found to be related to creativity. There are theoretical reasons to think that they might also be related to use of primary process cognition. However, neither potential creativity nor primary process content were significantly correlated with either psychoticism or openness to experience. An exploratory factor analysis, though, suggests that creativity, primary process cognition, extraversion, and psychoticism are interrelated. The common train linking them together may be disinhibition.

EEG alpha asymmetry and creativity

Abstract Results of 3 experiments examining the relationship between creativity and left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere EEG activity are reported. Creativity has been hypothesized to involve the use of primary-process cognition, and such cognition is hypothetically accompanied by activation of the right cerebral hemisphere. In light of these hypotheses, we predicted that highly-creative people should exhibit greater right-hemisphere than left-hemisphere EEG activity during creative performance and that this pattern would not be found in less-creative people. All 3 experiments supported this prediction. This difference in asymmetry was specific to creative performance. It was not present during basal recordings or during a non-creative task.

The Differential Effect of Increased Arousal on Creative and Intellectual Performance

Abstract It was hypothesized that increases in level of arousal should lead to improvement in the performance of intellectual tasks and to decrements in the performance of creative tasks because of the effect of drive level on range of cue utilization and availability of remote associates. Subjects were given the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and a version of the WAIS Similarities subtest under low arousal (relaxed), medium arousal (stress), and high arousal (white noise) conditions. Trends were as predicted, but reached acceptable levels of significance only for the effects of high arousal on creative performance. Evidence for the validity of the RAT was provided by the finding that RAT and intellectual performance are affected in opposite ways by the same experimental manipulations. It is suggested that flexibility in changing level of arousal may be a determinant of both creativity and intelligence and that this common trait may explain the tendency of tests of the the two to correlate.

On the Utility of Content Analysis in Author Attribution: The Federalist

In studies of author attribution, measurement of differential use of function words is the most common procedure, though lexical statistics are often used. Content analysis has seldom been employed. We compare the success of lexical statistics, content analysis, and function words in classifying the 12 disputedFederalist papers. Of course, Mosteller and Wallace (1964) have presented overwhelming evidence that all 12 were by James Madison rather than by Alexander Hamilton. Our purpose is not to challenge these attributions but rather to useThe Federalist as a test case. We found lexical statistics to be of no use in classifying the disputed papers. Using both classical canonical discriminant analysis and a neural-network approach, content analytic measures — the Harvard III Psychosociological Dictionary and semantic differential indices — were found to be successful at attributing most of the disputed papers to Madison. However, a function-word approach is more successful. We argue that content analysis can be useful in cases where the function-word approach does not yield compelling conclusions and, perhaps, in preliminary screening in cases where there are a large number of possible authors.

The Relationship of Creativity to Cortical Activation and its Operant Control

Abstract On the basis of theories and research on cognitive and perceptual processes, several hypotheses concerning psychophysiological differences between high and low creative subjects were made. Thirty male undergraduates were divided into high and low creative groups on the basis of the Remote Associates Test and a version of the Uses Test. Basal alpha index, alpha blocking in response to stimulus onset, and performance on alpha enhancement and suppression in a feedback situation were measured. High creative subjects exhibited a lower alpha index and a greater decrement in alpha due to stimulus onset. High creatives showed immediate acquisition of control in alpha enhancement trials but no improvement across trials, while low creative subjects showed continual improvements and quickly reached the level of control of high creative subjects. High creatives were much better at alpha suppression than at alpha enhancement.