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Creative Imagery PDF

197 Pages·1990·42.15 MB·English
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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

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