Creative Imagery

197 Pages·1990·42.15 MB·English

by  Discoveries and Inventions in Visualization, Ronald Finke

Creative Imagery
DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS IN VISUALIZATION
()
Ronald Finke
Creative Imagery
Discoveries and Inventions
in Visualization
Ronald Finke
Texas A & M University
m LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
1990 Hillsdale, New Jersey Hove and London
Copyright © 1990 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates , Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
365 Broadway
Hillsdale, New Jersey 07642
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Finke, Ronald A.
Creative imagery: discoveries and inventions in visualization!
by Ronald Finke.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index .
ISBN 0-8058-0772-1
I . Creative ability. 2. Visualization. 3. Imagery (Psychology)
4. Creative abiilty in science. I. Title .
BF408 .F45 1990
I 53 .3'2-dc20 90-3556
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Anecdotes of Creative Discoveries
in Imagery 1
A New Approach to Creative
Insight and Invention 2
. Components of Creativity 4
Scope of This Book 4
Reader Participation 5
Chapter 2 Visual Discoveries in Imagery 7
The Need for Experimental Verification 7
The Empirical Challenge 9
Imagined Combinations of Familiar Patterns 10
Emergent Patterns FollOwing
Imagined Transformations 12
Anticipating the Emergent Patterns 13
Emergent Patterns in Three-Dimensional Images 17
Summary 18
Theoretical Implications 18
v
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 3 Creative Mental Synthesis 21
Previous Studies on Mental Synthesis 21
A Paradigm for Creative Visualization 22
Experimenter Predictions
of the Imagined Patterns 24
Subject-Generated Predictions .
of the Patterns 27
Comparing Actual and Imagined Synthesis 31
Providing Creative Inspiration 33
Summary 36
Theoretical Implications 37
Chapter 4 Creative Inventions in Imagery 39
A Paradigm for Creative Invention
(Experiments 1-3) 39
Judging the Inventions 43
Intuitive Predictions 44
Comparing Results Among the Experiments 44
Examples of Creative Inventions 45
Aspects of Individual Performance 58
Reader Participation: Creative Inventions 58
Summary 59
Theoretical Implications 59
Chapter 5 Restricted Imagery Inventions 63
..,
Restricting Object Types (Experiment 4) 64 ;
Restricting Object Functions (Experiment 5) 65
Results of the Experiments 65
Examples of Creative Inventions 67
Reader Participation:
Specialized Inventions 80
Summary 80
Theoretical Implications 81
Chapter 6 Preinventive Object Forms 83
The Concept of "Preinventive Forms" 83
Pilot Experiment: Generating
Preinventive Forms 84
CONTENTS vi i
Interpreting the Preinventive Forms
(Experiments 6-7) 85
Results of the Experiments 87
Implications of the Results 89
Examples of Creative Inventions 89
Reader Participation: Preinventive Forms 103
Summary 103
Theoretical Implications 106
Chapter 7 Personal Inventions 109
",..
Informal Explorations 109
Examples of the Author's Inventions 110
Spontaneous Creative Inventions 129
Student Inventions 129
Spanning the Categories 134
Summary and Implications 140
Chapter 8 Creative Concepts 141
A Paradigm for Conceptual Discovery
(Experiments 8-9) 142
Experimental Procedures 142
Results of the Experiments 145
Examples of Creative Concepts 147
Reader Participation: Creative Concepts 157
Personal Conceptual Discoveries 157
Summary 162
Theoretical Implications 162
Chapter 9 Creative Implications 167
Review of Experimental Findings 167
A Reconceptualization of Creativity 168
Preinventive Forms and Problem Solving 169
Implications for Theories of Perception
and Cognition 170
Ecological Significance of the Research 172
Practical Implications in Everyday Life 172
Practical Implications for Experts 173
Further Issues and Directions 174
viii CONTENTS
References 177
Author Index 181
Subject Index 185
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my students and colleagues for their many contributions to
the ideas and experiments presented in this book: Janet Davidson, Martha Farah,
Jennifer Freyd, Howard Kurtzman, Laura Lekich, Marvin Levine, Donna Mc-
Keown, Steven Pinker, Larry Parsons, Linda Radin, Traci Ratliff, Jonathan
Schooler, Gary Shyi, Karen Slayton, Steven Smith, Linda Wagner, and Tom
Ward .
I would like to thank, in particular, Chad Neff, whose discussions on creativity,
art, and aesthetics stimulated many of the ideas on creative invention that I have
attempted to present here for the first time.
Portions of the author's research were supported by Grant 5ROIMH-3980903
from the National Institute of Mental Health.
ix
Chapter
1
Introduction
Every person has the potential to make creative discoveries in their imagery.
Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate this experimentally for many types of
creative discoveries. The experiments I report will show, in fact, that certain
techniques are remarkably effective in stimulating the discovery of unexpected
patterns, new inventions, and creative concepts-all within imagination. And
these are techniques that anyone can learn to use.
A unique feature of this book is that it combines the experimental method and
creative exploration. Most experimental studies on imagination constrain how
the images are to be formed (e.g., Finke, 1989; Kosslyn, 1980; Shepard &
Cooper, 1982). In contrast, previous books on how to engage in creative visualiza-
tion have not been extensively based on experimental techniques (e.g. , Adams,
1974; Arnheim, 1969; Edwards, 1986; McKim, 1980). This book attempts to do
both.
I begin by considering examples of famous anecdotes in which mental images
evidently led to creative insights and discoveries.
ANECDOTES OF CREATIVE DISCOVERIES
IN IMAGERY
Roger Shepard (1978, 1988) has compiled a remarkable collection of anecdotes,
mostly from eminent scientists and mathematicians, regarding the use of mental
imagery in scientific and conceptual discovery. The interesting feature of these
accounts is how the insights often arose spontaneously, as one considered the
implications of the visualized forms and structures. These insights were typically