A Cognitive Systems Framework for Creative Problem Solving

This thesis provides a theoretical framework for a wide variety of types of cognitively-inspired creative problem solving. The framework (CreaCogs) is formalized and its various creative processes detailed. The framework is put to the test in a few computational implementations: a solver to the Remote Associates Test - comRAT-C, its adaptation to the visual domain - comRAT-V, and an object replacement and object composition system in a household domain - OROC. The performance and process of these implementations are then (i) compared to human answers and performance in creativity tests or (ii) assessed with the same toolkit that would be used to assess human answers. A set of practical insight problems with objects are given to human participants in a think aloud protocol, which is then encoded and compared to the framework. The experiments and data analysis show that the framework is successful in computationally modeling creative problem solving across a wide variety of tasks

A Visual Remote Associates Test and Its Validation

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a widely used test for measuring creativity, specifically the ability to make associations. The Remote Associates Test normally takes a linguistic form: given three words, the participant is asked to come up with a fourth word associated with all three of them. While visual creativity tests do exist, no creativity test to date can be given in both a visual and linguistic form. Such a test would allow the study of differences between various modalities, in the context of the same creative process. In this paper, a visual version of the well-known Remote Associates Test is constructed. This visual RAT is validated in relation to its linguistic counterpart

An overview of the Remote Associates Test in different languages

The Remote Associates Test (RAT, CRA) is a classical creativity test used to measure creativity as a function of associative ability. The RAT has been administered in different languages. Nonetheless, because of how embedded in the language the test is, only a few items are directly translatable, and most of the time the RAT is created anew in each language. This process of manual (and in two cases computational) creation of RAT items is guided by the researchers’ understanding of the task. However, are the RAT items in different languages comparable? In this paper, different RAT stimuli datasets are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Significant differences are observed between certain datasets in terms of solver performance. The potential sources of these differences are discussed, together with what this means for creativity psychometrics and computational vs. manual creation of stimuli

Examining Validity of Aha! Ratings as a Construct of Insight

Currently, there are two main views on insightful problem solving. Results of the studies supporting “business-as-usual” theory suggest that the processes involved in solving insight problems are the same as in analytical problem solving—slow, controlled, and effortful, while findings of the studies supporting the restructuring theory of insight suggest involvement of fast and automatic, one-trial-learning type of processes. The goal of the current study was to investigate the construct validity of the Aha! ratings, used in many studies as the measure of insight, by isolating its three components, effort, confidence, and suddenness, and examining their correlation with working memory span. Ninety-eight undergraduate students from a Southeastern university completed reading and operational span tasks, as well as the compound remote associates task. Self-reported ratings of Effort, Confidence, and Suddenness were collected individually for each compound remote associates set. Correlations between the three ratings were low to moderate; Cohen’s kappa used to measure pair-wise agreement between the ratings was below .80 for each pair; Cronbach’s alpha demonstrated low internal consistency. Of the three components, only Suddenness correlated with working memory capacity. Suddenness also correlated with the difficulty of the problem

Remotely close associations: openness to experience and semantic memory structure

Openness to experience—the enjoyment of novel experiences, ideas, and unconventional perspectives—has shown several connections to cognition that suggest open people might have different cognitive processes than those low in openness. People high in openness are more creative, have broader general knowledge, and show greater cognitive flexibility. The associative structure of semantic memory might be one such cognitive process that people in openness differ in. In this study, 497 people completed a measure of openness to experience and verbal fluency. Three groups of high (n = 115), moderate (n = 121), and low (n = 118) openness were created to construct semantic networks—graphical models of semantic associations that provide quantifiable representations of how these associations are organized—from their verbal fluency responses. The groups were compared on graph theory measures of their respective semantic networks. The semantic network analysis revealed that as openness increased, the rigidity of the semantic structure decreased and the interconnectivity increased, suggesting greater flexibility of associations. Semantic structure also became more condensed and had better integration, which facilitates open people’s ability to reach more unique associations. These results were supported by open people coming up with more individual and unique responses, starting with less conventional responses, and having a flatter frequency proportion slope than less open people. In summary, the semantic network structure of people high in openness to experience supports the retrieval of remote concepts via short associative pathways, which promotes unique combinations of disparate concepts that are key for creative cognition

Problem solving and suicide: A first look

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, with rates increasing over the past several decades. This study examined whether problem-solving performance differs in those with no suicide ideation or attempts compared to those with only suicide ideation and with those with a history of attempts. Results demonstrated that when accounting for depression, problem-solving accuracy was positively predictive for the suicidal ideation group. Furthermore, the suicidal ideation group solved more problems on average than both those with no history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and the suicide attempt group. The current study was somewhat underpowered and therefore should be interpreted with caution. Additionally, this is the first study to use the problem-solving task when investigating suicide and the first to use the task in an online manner. The findings suggest some meaningful differences that will lay the groundwork for future investigations

Creativity and the Brain

Neurocognitive approach to higher cognitive functions that bridges the gap between psychological and neural level of description is introduced. Relevant facts about the brain, working memory and representation of symbols in the brain are summarized. Putative brain processes responsible for problem solving, intuition, skill learning and automatization are described. The role of non-dominant brain hemisphere in solving problems requiring insight is conjectured. Two factors seem to be essential for creativity: imagination constrained by experience, and filtering that selects most interesting solutions. Experiments with paired words association are analyzed in details and evidence for stochastic resonance effects is found. Brain activity in the process of invention of novel words is proposed as the simplest way to understand creativity using experimental and computational means. Perspectives on computational models of creativity are discussed

Individual Differences in the Neurophysiology of Creativity

Theories dating back to the 1800\u27s have suggested neurophysiological specialization as a key factor in creative production. A common theme in these theories is that greater flexibility in neurophysiological response to stimuli allows more creative individuals to customize their response to the task at hand (Martindale, 1999). In particular, more creative individuals are able to enter a more relaxed, free associative cognitive state when it is necessary for them to produce a creative solution (e.g., Kris, 1952; Mednick, 1962; Mendelsohn, 1976). There is empirical support for individual differences in neurophysiological state between more and less creative participants performing creative tasks (e.g., Martindale, 1999). This research showed that more creative participants had more variable patterns of activation in response to creative tasks, as well as greater activation in the right hemisphere during creative tasks. This previous research was used as a model for this investigation, as well as a guide in finding new methods to investigate neurophysiological differences between more and less creative individuals. Three experiments were conducted: (a) an investigation of differences in spectral density and cross-spectral density for six frequency bands (delta, theta, low alpha, high alpha, low beta, and high beta) during the imagination and writing of a creative story; (b) an investigation of NlOO and P300 responses to stimuli presented using the classic oddball paradigm; (c) an investigation of NLFOO responses to congruous and incongruous sentence endings. The first experiment expanded upon previous work by increasing the number of recording sites and by investigating a wider range of frequency bands than previous research. The second and third experiment introduced new methods to creativity research, with a focus on the initial response to novel or unexpected stimuli. Results across all three experiments were that more creative participants showed greater variability in recorded response, and that more creative participants showed generally greater activation in the right hemisphere. This is consistent with many theories of creativity, as well as the hypotheses of this investigation

The promises and perils of the neuroscience of creativity.

Our ability to think creatively is one of the factors that generates excitement in our lives as it introduces novelty and opens up new possibilities to our awareness which in turn lead to developments in a variety of fields from science and technology to art and culture. While research on the influence of biologically-based variables on creativity has a long history, the advent of modern techniques for investigating brain structure and function in the past two decades have resulted in an exponential increase in the number of neuroscientific studies that have explored creativity. The field of creative neurocognition is a rapidly growing area of research that can appear chaotic and inaccessible because of the heterogeneity associated with the creativity construct and the many approaches through which it can be examined. There are also significant methodological and conceptual problems that are specific to the neuroscientific study of creativity that pose considerable limitations on our capacity to make true advances in understanding the brain basis of creativity. This article explores three key issues that need to be addressed so that barriers in the way of relevant progress being made within the field can be avoided. Are creativity neuroimaging paradigms optimal enough?What makes creative cognition different from normative cognition?Do we need to distinguish between types of creativity