209 research outputs found
Why Blind-Variation Selective-Retention is an Inappropriate Explanatory Framework for Creativity
Simonton is attempting to salvage the Blind Variation Selective Retention
theory of creativity (often referred to as the Darwinian theory of creativity)
by dissociating it from Darwinism. This is a necessary move for complex reasons
outlined in detail elsewhere. However, whether or not one calls BVSR a
Darwinian theory, it is still a variation-and-selection theory.
Variation-and-selection was put forward to solve a certain kind of paradox,
that of how biological change accumulates (that is, over generations, species
become more adapted to their environment) despite being discarded at the end of
each generation (that is, parents don't transmit to offspring knowledge or
bodily changes acquired during their lifetimes, e.g., you don't inherit your
mother's ear piercings). This paradox does not exist with respect to creative
thought. There is no discarding of acquired change when ideas are transmitted
amongst individuals; we share with others modified versions of the ideas we
were exposed to on a regular basis.Comment: 6 page
Contextual Focus: A Cognitive Explanation for the Cultural Revolution of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic
Many elements of culture made their first appearance in the Upper
Paleolithic. Previous hypotheses put forth to explain this unprecedented burst
of creativity are found wanting. Examination of the psychological basis of
creativity leads to the suggestion that it resulted from the onset of
contextual focus: the capacity to focus or defocus attention in response to the
situation, thereby shifting between analytic and associative modes of thought.
New ideas germinate in a defocused state in which one is receptive to the
possible relevance of many dimensions of a situation. They are refined in a
focused state, conducive to filtering out irrelevant dimensions and condensing
relevant ones.Comment: 6 page
Toward a Theory of Creative Inklings
It is perhaps not so baffling that we have the ability to develop, refine,
and manifest a creative idea, once it has been conceived. But what sort of a
system could spawn the initial seed of creativity from which an idea grows?
This paper looks at how the mind is structured in such a way that we can
experience a glimmer of insight or inkling of artistic inspiration.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1309.741
Why Cognitive Science is Needed for a Viable Theoretical Framework for Cultural Evolution
Although Darwinian models are rampant in the social sciences, social
scientists do not face the problem that motivated Darwin's theory of natural
selection: the problem of explaining how lineages evolve despite that any
traits they acquire are regularly discarded at the end of the lifetime of the
individuals that acquired them. While the rationale for framing culture as an
evolutionary process is correct, it does not follow that culture is a Darwinian
or selectionist process, or that population genetics provides viable starting
points for modeling cultural change. This paper lays out step-by-step arguments
as to why a selectionist approach to cultural evolution is inappropriate,
focusing on the lack of randomness, and lack of a self-assembly code. It
summarizes an alternative evolutionary approach to culture: self-other
reorganization via context-driven actualization of potential.Comment: 7 pages (10 point font); 1 table
Conceptual Closure: How Memories are Woven into an Interconnected Worldview
This paper describes a tentative model for how discrete memories transform
into an interconnected conceptual network, or worldview, wherein relationships
between memories are forged by way of abstractions. The model draws on
Kauffman's theory of how an information-evolving system could emerge through
the formation and closure of an autocatalytic network. Here, the information
units are not catalytic molecules, but memories and abstractions, and the
process that connects them is not catalysis but reminding events (i.e. one
memory evokes another). The result is a worldview that both structures, and is
structured by, self-triggered streams of thought.Comment: 11 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:adap-org/990100
Modeling Cultural Dynamics
EVOC (for EVOlution of Culture) is a computer model of culture that enables
us to investigate how various factors such as barriers to cultural diffusion,
the presence and choice of leaders, or changes in the ratio of innovation to
imitation affect the diversity and effectiveness of ideas. It consists of
neural network based agents that invent ideas for actions, and imitate
neighbors' actions. The model is based on a theory of culture according to
which what evolves through culture is not memes or artifacts, but the internal
models of the world that give rise to them, and they evolve not through a
Darwinian process of competitive exclusion but a Lamarckian process involving
exchange of innovation protocols. EVOC shows an increase in mean fitness of
actions over time, and an increase and then decrease in the diversity of
actions. Diversity of actions is positively correlated with population size and
density, and with barriers between populations. Slowly eroding borders increase
fitness without sacrificing diversity by fostering specialization followed by
sharing of fit actions. Introducing a leader that broadcasts its actions
throughout the population increases the fitness of actions but reduces
diversity of actions. Increasing the number of leaders reduces this effect.
Efforts are underway to simulate the conditions under which an agent
immigrating from one culture to another contributes new ideas while still
fitting in.Comment: 8 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1005.151
How Creative Ideas Take Shape
According to the honing theory of creativity, creative thought works not on
individually considered, discrete, predefined representations but on a
contextually-elicited amalgam of items which exist in a state of potentiality
and may not be readily separable. This leads to the prediction that analogy
making proceeds not by mapping correspondences from candidate sources to
target, as predicted by the structure mapping theory of analogy, but by weeding
out non-correspondences, thereby whittling away at potentiality. Participants
were given an analogy problem, interrupted before they had time to solve it,
and asked to write down what they had by way of a solution. Na\"ive judges
categorized responses as significantly more supportive of the predictions of
honing theory than those of structure mapping.Comment: Psychology Today (online). (2011)
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindbloggling/201109/how-creative-ideas-take-shape.
arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1308.424
Are Effective Leaders Creative?
This paper explains in layperson's terms how an agent-based model was used to
investigate the widely held belief that creativity is an important component of
effective leadership. Creative leadership was found to increase the mean
fitness of cultural outputs across an artificial society, but the more creative
the followers were, the greater the extent to which the beneficial effect of
creative leadership was washed out. Early in a run when the fitness of ideas
was low, a form of leadership that entails the highest possible degree of
creativity was best for the mean fitness of outputs across the society. As the
mean fitness of outputs increased a transition inevitably occurs after which
point a less creative style of leadership proved most effective. Implications
of these findings are discussed.Comment: 5 pages in Psychology Today (online). (2010).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindbloggling/201102/are-effective-leaders-creativ
The Silver Lining Around Fearful Living
This paper discusses in layperson's terms human and computational studies of
the impact of threat and fear on exploration and creativity. A first study
showed that both killifish from a lake with predators and from a lake without
predators explore a new environment to the same degree and plotting number of
new spaces covered over time generates a hump-shaped curve. However, for the
fish from the lake with predators the curve is shifted to the right; they take
longer. This pattern was replicated by a computer model of exploratory behavior
varying only one parameter, the fear parameter. A second study showed that
stories inspired by threatening photographs were rated as more creative than
stories inspired by non-threatening photographs. Various explanations for the
findings are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, Psychology Today (online).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindbloggling/201502/the-silver-lining-around-fearful-living-0
(2015
Reframing Convergent and Divergent Thought for the 21st Century
Convergent thought is defined and measured in terms of the ability to perform
on tasks where there is a single correct solution, and divergent thought is
defined and measured in terms of the ability to generate multiple different
solutions. However, this characterization of them presents inconsistencies, and
despite that they are promoted as key constructs of creativity, they do not
capture the capacity to reiteratively modify an idea in light of new
perspectives arising out of an overarching conceptual framework. Research on
formal models of concepts and their interactions suggests that different
creative outputs may be projections of the same underlying idea at different
phases of this kind of 'honing' process. This leads us to redefine convergent
thought as thought in which the relevant concepts are considered from
conventional contexts, and divergent thought as thought in which they are
considered from unconventional contexts. Implications for the assessment of
creativity are discussed.Comment: 7 pages; 2 figures
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