From planning dinner to envisioning an upcoming vacation, we routinely rely on our imaginations to picture what the future might look like.
But without mental control, we wouldn’t be able to push thinking in new directions and avoid getting stuck on what we already know.Ĭreative thinking is supported in part by our ability to imagine the future-our capacity to envision experiences that have not yet occurred. Without memory, our minds would be a blank slate-not conducive to creativity, which requires knowledge and expertise.
In light of these findings, we can consider general creative thinking as a dynamic interplay between the brain’s memory and control systems. Many new tests are being developed that tap into other creative skills, from visuospatial abilities essential for design (like drawing) to scientific abilities important for innovation and discovery.īut where do creative ideas come from, and what makes some people more creative than others? Contrary to romantic notions of a purely spontaneous process, increasing evidence from psychology and neuroscience experiments indicates that creativity requires cognitive effort-in part, to overcome the distraction and “stickiness” of prior knowledge (remember how people think of common uses when asked to devise of creative ones). Such innovation tasks assess just one aspect of creativity. The same happens in other tests that demand ideas that go beyond what we already know (i.e., “thinking outside the box”). Surprisingly, many people struggle with this seemingly simple task, only suggesting uses that closely resemble the typical uses for the object. Their responses can be analyzed on different dimensions, such as fluency (the total number of ideas) and originality. One way psychologists measure creative thinking is by asking people to think of uncommon uses for common objects, such as a cup or a cardboard box. But what about creativity on a smaller scale? This is what researchers refer to as little-c creativity, and it is something that we all possess and express in our daily lives, from inventing new recipes to performing a do-it-yourself project to thinking of clever jokes to entertain the kids.
This is what psychologists who study the subject refer to as Big-C creativity: publicly-recognizable, professional-level performance. Most people would agree that writers, painters, and actors are all creative. When we think about creativity, the arts often come to mind.
0 kommentar(er)
