"Theories of Creativity" by Aaron Kozbelt, Ronald A. Beghetto, and Mark A. Runco

Summary

This chapter from "The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity" serves as an introduction to the diverse landscape of creativity theories. The authors advocate for moderation and pluralism, suggesting that no single perspective fully captures the complexity of creativity and that various theories, with their different assumptions and methods, offer valuable insights. The text then systematically reviews major contemporary theories, organising them into categories such as developmental, psychometric, cognitive, and systems-based approaches. By examining each category, the authors highlight key concepts, underlying assertions, and influential studies, ultimately aiming to provide a comprehensive "big picture" of how creativity has been conceptualised and researched.

"Managing Your Muse: Exploring Three Levels of Metacognitive Control in Creative Ideation" by Mathias Benedek & Izabela Lebuda

Summary

This academic paper, "Managing Your Muse: Exploring Three Levels of Metacognitive Control in Creative Ideation," published in the Creativity Research Journal, investigates how metacognitive control, our ability to manage our own thinking, influences creative thinking, specifically in idea generation tasks. The authors, Benedek and Lebuda, introduce a framework that distinguishes metacognitive control at three levels: task level (our engagement with the task), performance level (the strategies we employ), and response level (how we select and filter our ideas). Through an online study, they empirically demonstrate that higher metacognitive control at all three levels independently contributes to greater creativity in divergent thinking, suggesting that intentionally managing our cognitive processes is key to unlocking more creative outcomes.

"Disentangling the Impact of Artistic Creativity on Creative Thinking, Working Memory, Attention, and Intelligence: Evidence for Domain-Specific Relationships with a New Self-Report Questionnaire" by Katrin Lunke and Beat Meier

Summary

This research article introduces the Artistic Creativity Domains Compendium (ACDC), a novel self-report questionnaire designed to assess artistic creativity across distinct areas like visual arts, literature, music, and performing arts. The study's primary goal was to examine the relationships between artistic creativity and various cognitive functions, including creative thinking (both divergent and convergent), working memory, attention, and intelligence. By employing the ACDC with 270 adults, the researchers investigated whether these relationships were domain-specific, revealing that certain artistic domains showed unique associations with particular cognitive abilities. Ultimately, the paper argues for the ACDC as a valid tool for measuring artistic creativity and highlights the nuanced interplay between different forms of artistic expression and fundamental cognitive processes.

"Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity" by James C. Kaufman and Ronald A. Beghetto

Summary

This academic paper, "Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity," addresses the common dichotomy in creativity research between eminent "Big-C" creativity and everyday "little-c" creativity. The authors, Kaufman and Beghetto, argue that this binary view is insufficient and propose a more nuanced "Four C Model". This model introduces two additional levels: "mini-c" creativity, which encompasses the personal and novel interpretations inherent in the learning process, and "Pro-c" creativity, representing the developmental stage of professional-level expertise in a creative field, falling short of eminent status. The authors detail these four levels, discuss their implications for understanding and researching creativity across different domains and developmental stages, and suggest how this framework can better address enduring questions within the field.

"Variable Attention Facilitates Creative Problem Solving" by Oshin Vartanian

Summary

This research paper explores the relationship between attention and creativity, challenging the traditional view that creativity stems from a consistently defocused state of mind. Instead, the author argues, and presents experimental evidence to support, the idea that creative individuals possess a flexible attentional control. This means they can adjust their focus of attention according to the demands of the task, employing a broad focus for ill-defined, ambiguous problems and a narrow focus for well-defined ones. This adaptability in attentional strategy is proposed as a key factor facilitating successful creative problem solving, allowing individuals to effectively navigate the changing nature of complex problems.

"Working Memory Benefits Creative Insight, Musical Improvisation, and Original Ideation Through Maintained Task-Focused Attention" by Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Bernard A. Nijstad, Matthijs Baas, Inge Wolsink, and Marieke Roskes

Summary

This academic article investigates the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and creativity, specifically examining whether having a greater capacity to hold and manipulate information in mind benefits the generation of novel and appropriate ideas. The authors present four studies exploring this link across different creative tasks, including insight problems, musical improvisation, and original ideation. Their findings suggest that WMC positively influences creativity not just in terms of the quantity of ideas produced, but also their originality and novelty. Importantly, the research indicates that this benefit arises because higher WMC enables sustained, focused attention and persistence on the task, rather than simply enhancing cognitive flexibility.

"Creativity as Flexible Cognitive Control" by Darya L. Zabelina and Michael D. Robinson

Summary

This research article explores the relationship between creativity and cognitive control, arguing that creative individuals excel not in the overall capacity for control, but in their flexibility to modulate it according to the situation. The authors investigated this using the Stroop task, a measure of cognitive control, alongside assessments of creative originality and achievement. Their findings suggest that highly creative people demonstrate greater adjustments in cognitive control from one task to the next, indicating a dynamic interplay between automatic and controlled processing that supports creative thinking and behaviour. Ultimately, the study posits that this flexible cognitive control is a key characteristic differentiating more and less creative individuals.

"The Creative Process in Graphic Art" by Marion Botella

Summary

This chapter from "The Creative Process: Perspectives from Multiple Domains" delves into the intricacies of artistic creativity, exploring it through multiple lenses. Firstly, it examines the stages of the creative process as described by professional artists, identifying common phases like ideation, documentation, and materialisation. Secondly, it adopts a multivariate approach, analysing cognitive, conative, emotional, and environmental factors influencing artistic creation in both professionals and art students. Finally, the text investigates methods for enhancing artistic creativity through interventions focusing on flexibility and social interaction, highlighting the dynamic and multifaceted nature of creating art.

"Measuring creative imagery abilities" by Dorota M. Jankowska and Maciej Karwowski

Summary

This academic paper introduces the Test of Creative Imagery Abilities (TCIA), a new tool designed to specifically measure creative visual imagination by assessing three key components: vividness, originality, and transformativeness. The authors, Jankowska and Karwowski, argue that previous research has often blurred the lines between imagination and divergent thinking, leading to inadequate measurement of creative imagery. Through a series of nine studies involving over 1700 participants, the paper provides evidence for the TCIA's validity and reliability, demonstrating its distinctiveness from measures of intelligence and creative thinking, its consistent scoring by different raters, and its stability over time. Ultimately, the research aims to offer a theoretically grounded and psychometrically sound instrument that can better facilitate the study and understanding of creative imagination.

"Domain-Specificity of Creativity: A Study on the Relationship Between Visual Creativity and Visual Mental Imagery" by Massimiliano Palmiero, Raffaella Nori, Vincenzo Aloisi, Martina Ferrara and Laura Piccardi

Summary

This academic paper, titled "Domain-Specificity of Creativity: A Study on the Relationship Between Visual Creativity and Visual Mental Imagery," investigates how the capacity for visual creativity relates to different aspects of visual mental imagery. The researchers explored this connection by having university students complete tasks assessing their ability to generate creative objects and artistic drawings, alongside measures of their imagery vividness, cognitive style (visualiser vs. verbaliser), and the cognitive processes underlying imagery (generation, inspection, and transformation). The study's purpose was to determine if specific visual imagery abilities predict performance in visual creativity tasks, ultimately aiming to shed light on whether creativity in the visual domain is linked to specific visual cognitive skills.