Imitation, Inspiration, and Creation: Cognitive Process of Creative Drawing by Copying Others' Artworks

Abstract

To investigate the cognitive processes underlying creative inspiration, we tested the extent to which viewing or copying prior examples impacted creative output in art. In Experiment 1, undergraduates made drawings under three conditions: (a) copying an artist's drawing, then producing an original drawing; (b) producing an original drawing without having seen another's work; and (c) copying another artist's work, then reproducing that artist's style independently. We discovered that through copying unfamiliar abstract drawings, participants were able to produce creative drawings qualitatively different from the model drawings. Process analyses suggested that participants' cognitive constraints became relaxed, and new perspectives were formed from copying another's artwork. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to styles of artwork considered unfamiliar facilitated creativity in drawing, while styles considered familiar did not do so. Experiment 3 showed that both copying and thoroughly viewing artwork executed using an unfamiliar style facilitated creativity in drawing, whereas merely thinking about alternative styles of artistic representation did not do so. These experiments revealed that deep encounters with unfamiliar artworks-whether through copying or prolonged observation-change people's cognitive representations of the act of drawing to produce novel artwork.

Editors’ Introduction and Review: Visual Narrative Research: An Emerging Field in Cognitive Science

“…While understanding these iconic images, in a range of styles (Kendall, Raffaelli, Kingstone, & Todd, ), may seem simple to people surrounded by graphic images, understanding and producing graphic representations is fairly complex. First, with regard to production, increasing evidence points to drawing development being guided by the imitation of graphic schemas (Huntsinger, Jose, Krieg, & Luo, ; Okada & Ishibashi, ; Wilson, ). If learners seek to acquire a visual vocabulary of graphic schemas, it would explain why learners in many cultures appear to reach the apex of a critical learning period for drawing around puberty, while no such apex is apparent in cultures with exposure and practice with rich visual vocabularies (Cohn, ; Wilson, ).…”

Curriculum conceptions of technology: Theoretical insights from National Education Policies in Brazil, Korea, and the United States

“…Previous research on the cognitive processes underlying creative inspiration can shed some additional light on possible implications of the above finding. Research in this area emphasizes how imitation of others' creative design allows students to experience cognitive relaxation (Okada & Ishibashi, 2017). Students' cognitive constraints become more relaxed overtime, eventually enabling them to transition from simply copying (reproducing) to incorporating prior design in creative and original ways.…”

The Statistical Creative Framework in Descriptive Statistics Activities

“…Zmyj et al (2010) state that children are more likely to imitate a reliable model than an unreliable one. Meanwhile, Okada & Ishibashi (2016) state that imitation is the core of the learning process, one imitates the attitudes of others not only on its surface but also at a deep cognitive process level.…”