20-000000141: Examining the Cognitive Underpinnings of Creativity
Abstract
Many real-world problems call for creativity. For example, consider the issue of election security in the 21st century or maintaining military preparedness amid a global pandemic problems also require creativity or thinking outside of the box and, appropriately, researchers have reported that measures of creativity are predictive of achievements (e.g., patents, supervisor ratings) in anumber of fields, including the military (Kim, 2008; Mumford et al., 1998).Despite its importance, creativity is poorly understood in the scientific literature. For example, the definition of creativity bears some resemblance to the definition of fluid intelligence, which is ones ability to reason and problem solve in novel situations (Cattell, 1943). As such, one would expect a substantial correlation between creativity and fluid intelligence and, in fact some researchers do observe such relationships (Benedek et al., 2014) yet others do not (Kim, 2005). There are many other cognitive abilities that may or may not berelated to creativity, however, research is ether lacking or has not taken advantage of more rigorous methodological and statistical techniques.In order to gain a better understanding of creativity, we propose a large multivariate study incorporating individual differences, machine learning, and experimental research. The individual differences portion of the study will utilize latent variable analysis to investigate similarities and differences amongst a number of cognitive abilities, including abilities theorized as supporting creative thinking. Additionally, we will compare subjective human ratings to anewly proposed automated scoring system that uses natural language processing (Beaty & Johnson, 2020) and may improve validity and ease administrative burden. Finally, the experimental portion of the study will allow us to directly investigate one component of the creative process that may have a profound effect on theory and practice: incubation. Relevance to the DoD. Creativity is important to both individuals and organizations in a number of fields (Kim, 2008), including the military (Mumford et al., 1998). According to Vego(2013), it is inherent that military commanders and their staffs be highly creative in planning, preparing, and employing their forces to combat (p. 83). Indeed, Mumford et al. (1998) reported that creativity was related to military leaderships career progress (i.e., military rank) and other organizational achievements. A better understanding of the processes related to creativity in conjunction with well validated automated scoring systems may allow us to create tasks oraptitude batteries that are much easier to administer en masse and can be incorporated into existing batteries, such as the ASVAB. The results of the proposed study can also lead to the development and use of technologiesdesigned to improve problem solving and learning. If, as we believe, problem solving is facilitated by directing attention to other matters and forgetting or suppressing inappropriate information, then problem solving may be augmented by pairing humans with technologies capable of monitoring attentional engagement as well as emotional states. An adaptive trainingsystem that monitors time on task, attentional engagement, and frustration may be able to provide a new problem that is different enough from the problematic item to allow inappropriate information to be forgotten. Then, after attention has been directed elsewhere and frustration has subsided, the troublesome item can be re-presented by the adaptive training system. In this way,it may be possible to make training more efficient.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 06, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112220
Entities
People
- David Martinez
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Maryland