Another half brick of creativity

Here are the last two papers for the creativity symposium, and links to key papers referenced in all the presentations. First of all, here are other papers by the creative Rex Jung:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZellMRWNYTkRMNUE/view?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZTmNvcTQ1T25Wb0E/view?usp=sharingusp=sharing

 

Presenting on “Intelligence and Creativity: Bridges, Gaps and Overlaps” Emanuel Jauk (emanuel.jauk@uni-graz.at) said:  In a sample of 297 participants, we studied three different aspects of the intelligence-creativity relationship.
In a first study, we investigated the threshold hypothesis - one of the most prominent notions concerning the interplay between intelligence and creativity. The threshold hypothesis posits that above-average intelligence (usually in terms of an IQ of at least 120) represents a necessary but not sufficient condition for high creative potential. We used segmented regression analyses in order to empirically detect possible thresholds in the intelligence-creativity relationship. Our results confirm the threshold hypothesis in the way that intelligence increases creative potential (in terms of divergent thinking ability) only up to an above-average IQ and loses its impact thereafter.
Moving further from creative potential to indicators of real-life creative behavior, we established a structural equation model for the prediction of creative accomplishments by means of creative potential, intelligence, and openness to
experience. We found that personal accomplishments in terms of everyday creative activities depend on openness and creative potential, but not on intelligence. Socially acknowledged creative achievement, in contrast, was found to depend upon intelligence.
Finally, we investigated brain structural correlates of creative potential, intelligence, and openness in a subsample of 135 individuals using voxel-based morphometry. The study integrated and extended previous findings indicating that the ability to produce original ideas (ideational originality) is tied to default-mode as well as dopaminergic brain structures. This result was apparent throughout groups of lower and higher intelligent individuals. In contrast, the ability to produce a large number of ideas (ideational fluency) is correlated with brain structure only in lower
intelligent individuals, which might indicate a threshold effect on the neurostructural level.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZa0pWeWpjQ2RxNWM/view?usp=sharing

The paper is slightly unusual, in that it seeks to model creative processes using IQ120 as a cut-off, and so runs contrary to the general findings of the Lubinski and Benbow work that there is no cut-off point, and that the brighter you are the more creative you are in real life. I think the difference lies in the fact that Jauk et al. are looking at the normal population rather than a select group of high achievers and even more importantly their volunteers were assessed on creativity tests, rather than real life achievements.

Now we turn to a great money spinner: training people how to be creative. You know the sort of thing: imagine you are travelling at the speed of light, and tell me what you would see? That was a made up example, to show the inherent absurdity of the project, because imagining you are travelling at the speed of light will produce little of interest unless you are Einstein. More usually the purveyors of these techniques suggest that by doing some simple and not so simple memory exercises you will “train your brain”. By the way, if you ever find an instance of a brain being trained without an attached person being involved, please let me know.

Oshin Vartanian has cast a critical eye on brain training.

The Prospects and Perils of Cognitive (Brain) Training for Improving Cognition: The Case for Creativity
Oshin Vartanian (oshin.vartanian@drdc-rddc.gc.ca)
Recently, there has been great theoretical and applied interest in the prospects of cognitive (brain) training for improving cognition. Primarily, researchers have employed working memory (WM) tasks for training purposes, and examined their effects on other tasks that draw on WM capacity. The available data suggest that whereas WM training can improve performance on the trained and other structurally similar tasks (i.e., near transfer), far transfer to structurally dissimilar untrained tasks or general cognitive function is not always observed. To increase the utility of cognitive training as an aid for improving cognition in real-world settings, we need a better understanding of the conditions under which transfers of different types—both far and near—occur. Toward that end, I will present a selective review of the studies in the area, with a particular focus on findings that have a bearing on training creativity.

I do not have links to his talk yet, but in essence Vartanian finds that training on working memory tasks brings some gains to similar memory tasks, but not usually to g loaded tasks. I do not know how long the effect lasts, but the training takes 10 sessions, so you might be better off investing your intelligence in learning some more useful skills. For example, learning more about statistics or genetics or even perfecting your spread sheet skills. Not Powerpoint. That will reduce even the sharpest of intellects.

In summary, it looks as if intelligence is a large part of real creativity, that is, suggestions which have merit in the real world, generating ideas with interesting and testable corollaries rather than the verbal diarrhoea of endless silly uses for a brick.

Have a creative 2015.