Cargando…
Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement
There are at least two competing hypotheses of how attention interacts with creative cognition, although they are not mutually exclusive. The first hypothesis is that highly creative people are particularly flexible at switching their attention – that is, they adaptively shift focus among different...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2013
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3635848/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23630508 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00191 |
_version_ | 1782267223010705408 |
---|---|
author | Zabelina, Darya L. Beeman, Mark |
author_facet | Zabelina, Darya L. Beeman, Mark |
author_sort | Zabelina, Darya L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | There are at least two competing hypotheses of how attention interacts with creative cognition, although they are not mutually exclusive. The first hypothesis is that highly creative people are particularly flexible at switching their attention – that is, they adaptively shift focus among different attentional levels using cognitive control. The second, less common, view is that creative people exhibit attentional persistence, or an ability for sustained attention. We suggest these two views need not be competing, as they may both operate, but on different time scales or on different components of creativity. In the present study we examined the role of attention in real-world creative achievement and in divergent thinking. In Experiment 1 participants with high and low real-world creative achievements identified whether the stimulus contained letters S or H within hierarchically constructed letters (e.g., large S made of small Es – global level; large E made up of small Ss – local level), which were presented in blocks of eight trials per level. In Experiment 2 participants with high, medium, and low creative achievements identified the same stimulus letters, but in blocks of five, seven, and nine trials per level. Results from both experiments indicated that people with high creative achievements made significantly more errors on trials in which they had to switch the level of attention, even after controlling for general intelligence. In Experiment 2, divergent thinking was also assessed, but it was not related to switching cost. Results from both experiments demonstrate that real-world creative acts relate to increased levels of attentional persistence, even if it comes with the cost of perseveration in certain circumstances. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3635848 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-36358482013-04-29 Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement Zabelina, Darya L. Beeman, Mark Front Psychol Psychology There are at least two competing hypotheses of how attention interacts with creative cognition, although they are not mutually exclusive. The first hypothesis is that highly creative people are particularly flexible at switching their attention – that is, they adaptively shift focus among different attentional levels using cognitive control. The second, less common, view is that creative people exhibit attentional persistence, or an ability for sustained attention. We suggest these two views need not be competing, as they may both operate, but on different time scales or on different components of creativity. In the present study we examined the role of attention in real-world creative achievement and in divergent thinking. In Experiment 1 participants with high and low real-world creative achievements identified whether the stimulus contained letters S or H within hierarchically constructed letters (e.g., large S made of small Es – global level; large E made up of small Ss – local level), which were presented in blocks of eight trials per level. In Experiment 2 participants with high, medium, and low creative achievements identified the same stimulus letters, but in blocks of five, seven, and nine trials per level. Results from both experiments indicated that people with high creative achievements made significantly more errors on trials in which they had to switch the level of attention, even after controlling for general intelligence. In Experiment 2, divergent thinking was also assessed, but it was not related to switching cost. Results from both experiments demonstrate that real-world creative acts relate to increased levels of attentional persistence, even if it comes with the cost of perseveration in certain circumstances. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-04-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3635848/ /pubmed/23630508 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00191 Text en Copyright © 2013 Zabelina and Beeman. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Zabelina, Darya L. Beeman, Mark Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title | Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title_full | Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title_fullStr | Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title_full_unstemmed | Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title_short | Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement |
title_sort | short-term attentional perseveration associated with real-life creative achievement |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3635848/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23630508 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00191 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT zabelinadaryal shorttermattentionalperseverationassociatedwithreallifecreativeachievement AT beemanmark shorttermattentionalperseverationassociatedwithreallifecreativeachievement |