Creative Cognition

Is creative thinking used only in art, music, poetry or drama? Or Is it also required to deal with enormous problems varying from day-to-day experiences to more complex problems, selling products; success in business; product designs; designing interactive and learning sessions for students, any workshop, or any event; planning and choosing one’s career; reducing crime rates or youth aggression; building trust and confidence in society; and so on and so forth. We are interested in understanding the interaction between creative thinking and problem-solving. Furthermore, we are interested in developing methods/ tools for inculcating creative thinking through adaptive problem-solving tasks. More specifically, we are focusing on reasoning ability used in solving ill-versus well-structured problems and its interaction with emotion; cognitive flexibility; motivation; perseverance; and individual differences. To answer related research issues we use modeling, eye-tracking, EEG, physiological monitoring devices from BioNomadix.

The project goals are as following:

1. Relation between attention, and creative thinking

2. Role of emotion and mental set in creative reasoning

3. Development of Adaptive Problem Solving System (AAPSS) and its influence on creative reasoning

4. Relation between abstract thinking and creative abilities

5. Role of modality in abstraction and creative production

Abstract: Ability to shift attention between two tasks has been associated with creative thinking. However, the reported relationship has been limited to divergent thinking tasks only, and majorly ignored the convergent thinking aspect of creativity. To best of our knowledge, the divergent and convergent thinking in such studies have been assessed separately. This led us to question whether attention shifting ability remains a predictor for creative thinking when a given task contains both components, and demands shifting between convergent and divergent component. How would this prediction differs by varying focus of attention. Employing association rule mining algorithm (ARM) shows a significant correlation between high CRT scores and low AB magnitude, and low CRT scores and low AB magnitude. However, high AB magnitude did not show any significant relation with CRT scores. The current results indicate that attention shifting ability could be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the creative thinking process. The focus of attention in a given task, i.e. AB, did not show any difference in the relationship between attention shifting ability and creative thinking ability. It can be suggested that low AB magnitude ensures creative thinking, however, the direction of the relationship may vary from low to high CRT.

Abstract: Differential neural correlates and eye-movement data to Raven’s advanced progressive matrices (RAPM) challenge the unidimensional general fluid intelligence (gF) assessment. These studies showed two types of reasoning: visuo-spatial/ perceptual and verbal-analytical/ propositional reasoning, indicating distinct cognitive processing. This becomes vital during intelligence and creative thinking prediction, as traditional problem solving test does not predict creative reasoning ability very well. This mismatch could be because of the unidimensional gF assessment as a precursor for creative thinking. The current study evaluates the effect of different RAPM on creating RPM. The result extends the previous finding favoring strategy specific creative thinking. The current results will be discussed in context of intelligence and creative thinking cognitive mechanism.