Thin slices of creativity: Using single-word utterances to assess creative cognition

Abstract

We investigated the hypothesis that individual differences in creative cognition can be manifest even in brief responses, such as single-word utterances. Participants (n = 193) were instructed to say a verb upon seeing a noun displayed on a computer screen and were cued to respond creatively to half of the nouns. For every noun–verb pair (72 pairs per subject), we assessed the semantic distance between the noun and the verb, using latent semantic analysis (LSA). Semantic distance was higher in the cued ("creative") condition than the uncued condition, within subjects. Critically, between subjects, semantic distance in the cued condition had a strong relationship to a creativity factor derived from a battery of verbal, nonverbal, and achievement-based creativity measures (β= .50), and this relation remained when controlling for intelligence and personality. The data show that creative cognition can be assessed reliably and validly from such thin slices of behavior.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13428-013-0401-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Remotely Close Associations: Openness to Experience and Semantic Memory Structure

“…Indeed, the high openness group had significantly more unique responses than the moderate and low openness groups, which did not differ. This finding is consistent with previous research, which demonstrated that people high in openness provide a greater number of unique associations (Prabhakaran et al, 2014).…”

“…LSA has also been used on other semantic creativity tasks to measure the remoteness of associations (Beaty, Christensen, Benedek, Silvia, & Schacter, 2017;Green, 2016;Prabhakaran, Green, & Gray, 2014). For instance, Prabhakaran et al (2014) examined the semantic distance of verbs from nouns that were produced during a verb generation task.…”

“…For instance, Prabhakaran et al (2014) examined the semantic distance of verbs from nouns that were produced during a verb generation task. Participants were cued to be creative or not when coming up with verb responses.…”

Analysis of Factors Influencing Creative Personality of Elementary School Students

“…For example, career experience among elementary students helped enhance their creativity (Jyung et al, 2012). Short cues stimulated student creativity in making activities (Prabhakaran, Green, & Gray, 2014). Long-term writings were shown to enhance student creativity (Cho, 2006) as did science programs with space recognition (Kim, Kwon, & Lee, 2011).…”

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