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Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model

Creativity is commonly defined as a process that leads to a novel and useful outcome (an idea, product, or expression). However, two dilemmas about this definition remain unresolved: (1) A strict application of usefulness is difficult to apply to artistic works: who decides what artwork is useful, a...

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Autor principal: Schubert, Emery
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8185022/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34113228
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.612379
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author Schubert, Emery
author_facet Schubert, Emery
author_sort Schubert, Emery
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description Creativity is commonly defined as a process that leads to a novel and useful outcome (an idea, product, or expression). However, two dilemmas about this definition remain unresolved: (1) A strict application of usefulness is difficult to apply to artistic works: who decides what artwork is useful, and how it is useful? (2) The implied boundary conditions of novelty are problematic: The default perspective is that novelty has a monotonic increasing relationship with creativity, or it is categorical—i.e., novel or not. To address these dilemmas, this paper proposes a spreading activation model of creativity (SAMOC), a model built on a brain-architecture-inspired vast interconnected network of nodes, each node representing information, and assigned meanings through interaction with the environment. Nodes are linked to each other according to principles of temporal contiguity (linking objects/events in time) and similarity (linking objects/events by shared features). A node activated by attention spreads through the network through previously linked nodes. Nodes that are well connected activate each other easily, while those that are weakly connected do not. Net total activation corresponds to positive affect (e.g., pleasure), and this is proposed as an essential criteria for a creative work of art, instead of usefulness. SAMOC also predicts that creativity will be optimized at an intermediate, not extreme, level of novelty. Too much activation will occur with the activation of preexisting ideas (hence reproduction rather than creativity), and too much novelty will not produce spread of activation. The two functions (spreading activation and the novelty curve) are superposed to demonstrate this optimal novelty hypothesis. Early evidence of the hypothesis comes from the data that some great works of art were critically rejected at premiers (suggesting excessive novelty), but after sufficient repetition (and therefore linking) became suitably associated and commenced generating activation. The hypothesis has important implications for future empirical research programs on creativity, and for the definition of creativity itself.
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spelling pubmed-81850222021-06-09 Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model Schubert, Emery Front Neurosci Neuroscience Creativity is commonly defined as a process that leads to a novel and useful outcome (an idea, product, or expression). However, two dilemmas about this definition remain unresolved: (1) A strict application of usefulness is difficult to apply to artistic works: who decides what artwork is useful, and how it is useful? (2) The implied boundary conditions of novelty are problematic: The default perspective is that novelty has a monotonic increasing relationship with creativity, or it is categorical—i.e., novel or not. To address these dilemmas, this paper proposes a spreading activation model of creativity (SAMOC), a model built on a brain-architecture-inspired vast interconnected network of nodes, each node representing information, and assigned meanings through interaction with the environment. Nodes are linked to each other according to principles of temporal contiguity (linking objects/events in time) and similarity (linking objects/events by shared features). A node activated by attention spreads through the network through previously linked nodes. Nodes that are well connected activate each other easily, while those that are weakly connected do not. Net total activation corresponds to positive affect (e.g., pleasure), and this is proposed as an essential criteria for a creative work of art, instead of usefulness. SAMOC also predicts that creativity will be optimized at an intermediate, not extreme, level of novelty. Too much activation will occur with the activation of preexisting ideas (hence reproduction rather than creativity), and too much novelty will not produce spread of activation. The two functions (spreading activation and the novelty curve) are superposed to demonstrate this optimal novelty hypothesis. Early evidence of the hypothesis comes from the data that some great works of art were critically rejected at premiers (suggesting excessive novelty), but after sufficient repetition (and therefore linking) became suitably associated and commenced generating activation. The hypothesis has important implications for future empirical research programs on creativity, and for the definition of creativity itself. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8185022/ /pubmed/34113228 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.612379 Text en Copyright © 2021 Schubert. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Schubert, Emery
Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title_full Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title_fullStr Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title_full_unstemmed Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title_short Creativity Is Optimal Novelty and Maximal Positive Affect: A New Definition Based on the Spreading Activation Model
title_sort creativity is optimal novelty and maximal positive affect: a new definition based on the spreading activation model
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8185022/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34113228
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.612379
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