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The dynamic cognitive processes underlying creativity
Get PDFDespite the growing importance of creativity and innovation at work, the abilities that allow people to develop new and useful ideas in the workplace remain unclear. Advances in research suggest that several core cognitive processes underlie creative thought, such as problem finding, information gathering, incubation, idea generation, evaluation, and implementation. Although multiple studies have investigated these processes individually, few researchers have observed the joint impact of these processes on creativity or its dynamism. Current process models suggest that we go through these processes in a linear and logical sequence, from finding a problem to the implementation of an idea. However, some scholars have posited that multiple iterations or feedback loops may exist throughout the creative problem-solving effort. To the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate the feedback loops or transitions between processes and how they are related to creative output. The first study employed a mixed-method approach to investigate the core cognitive processes underlying creativity by presenting 24 participants with an ill-defined problem to solve by thinking out loud. The frequencies of and time spent engaging in each cognitive process, as well as the transitions from one process to another, were investigated quantitatively. A deductive thematic analysis was then conducted on the high and low creative output individuals to further explore these cognitive processes and to understand whether there was a difference in how the participants engaged in them. Results revealed that the frequencies, time spent, and number of transitions between idea generation, evaluation and implementation were positively correlated with creative output. The total number of transitions was also found to be positively related to creativity scores. These findings were also supported by the qualitative analysis conducted. Following the findings from the first study, Study 2 involved the same 24 participants in an online experiment designed to capture the dynamic cognitive processes underlying creativity in an objective and automated manner. The results from this study cross-validated adequately with the results obtained in Study 1, and the frequencies and time spent engaging in idea generation and implementation were found to be positively related to creative output. No significant correlations were found between the transitions between processes and creative output; however, this outcome might have been due to the small sample size. Nevertheless, the total number of transitions engaged was significantly positively related to creative output. The online experiment was then tested on a larger sample size (N = 146). A series of correlational and regression analyses confirmed the findings from Studies 1 and 2. The frequencies of idea generation, evaluation and implementation and time spent engaging in evaluation and implementation were found to be positively related to creative output, supporting the previous findings. Two subsequent multiple regression analyses revealed that the frequencies and time spent engaging in the processes had a combined effect on creative output, but only implementation was found to have a significant independent effect on creativity in both models. Additionally, significant differences were found between high and low creative output individuals when exploring the percentage of time spent engaging in certain processes compared to the other processes. Furthermore, an inverted-U relationship was also observed between information gathering and creative output as well as between overall time taken and creativity. The number of transitions made during the task were also predictive of creative output, regardless of time spent engaging in the task. Mediation analyses were then conducted to test the causal relationship between idea generation and creative output. The results revealed a full mediation effect of idea generation on creative output through the transitions from idea generation to implementation. The results were largely consistent across all three studies. The frequency and time spent in idea generation, evaluation and implementation were more or less found to be positively correlated with creative output in all three studies, including the frequent shifts between them. The creative process appears to consist of multiple feedback loops up to the point where a solution to an ill-defined problem is fully formed. Indeed, the total number of transitions engaged were positively correlated with creativity output across all three studies. Investigating these loops revealed that certain transitions from one process to another were predictive of creative output in Study 3. The process of generating a solution through a form of a generate-and-refine method appeared to be the most effective thought sequence or strategy in predicting creativity. This thesis provides new insights into the cognitive processes underlying creativity, how they function independently and holistically and, most importantly, how frequent shifts between the processes can predict creative output. This research also addresses the need to develop an instrument that captures the creative process and its dynamism in an objective, valid and cost-effective manner. Furthermore, the research findings also have several implications for creativity research and practice, such as creativity interventions. Lastly, this research puts forward alternative strategies that could be useful in both organisational and educational settings
Artist ethics and art's audience: Mus Musculus and a dry-roasted peanut
Get PDFThe museum’s instrumentalisation of contemporary art as a visitor attraction has come to mean that any use of live animals in art now must participate in and acknowledge the politics of spectacle, which for other animals means the optics of the zoo or the circus. At the same time, established social media can now deliver mass criticism of an artwork, requiring artists to learn how to manage reputation as a matter of professional art practice. In this article, I examine art’s changing ethics by working from a dilemma I faced recently as an artist over a simple 30-s video I had made featuring a wild house mouse that I had trained between COVID-19 lockdowns to take food from my shoe. Subsequently, I decided not to exhibit, publish or broadcast that video. I argue that it is the digital—its exposure of the micro-issue, its close focus on the individual case, its onus on linguistic precision and its diligent proofing and testing of arguments large or small—that now transforms the work the artwork does. This may now push artists into a much wider range of ethical decision-making about artworks to arrive at the artist’s regular mode of reflection and evaluation via a level of hyper detail and super nuance that, historically, artists of no particular celebrity have had little or no reason to engage with before
Protea / Extraction
No full textDigital artwork / installation; commissioned by Liliesleaf Trust and the Anti-Apartheid Centre of Memory and Learning.
Protea / Extraction reimagines a fragment of an early twentieth-century colonial interior somewhere in Europe or South Africa. On display are the projected self-image of wealthy colonists of that time (the adventurer, the amateur of sciences, such as botany, the collector), the penchant for classifying and exhibiting, and idyllic images of botanic gardens that conceal the labour behind their making.
Central to the installation is a trophy-like bronze relief of the outline of Protea Village, an area adjacent to Kirstenbosch, the National Botanical Garden of South Africa, located in Western Cape. In the early-twentieth century, enslaved black South African and other African workers were brought there to work in the garden
Methods or methodology: terms that are too often confused
Get PDFThere is a distinct difference between methodology and methods in research. However, too many students, researchers, and authors of academic papers do not seem to pay attention to the crucial difference. This is true not only in education research but also in many other academic disciplines. In simple terms, the term methods refers to the research tools and techniques; for example, in the qualitative field, interviews are a tool to collect data, and in the quantitative field, a questionnaire-based survey is an example of a data collection tool. Methodology is a broader concept as it refers to the overall approach to the research, includes a justification for this approach, and links to research philosophy, i.e., how we produce knowledge. This methodological note aims to explain the confusion, drawing on examples from the published literature in education research and beyond. It also considers the complexities and crossovers. The final section ends with key advice to researchers and authors on key mistakes to avoid regarding the difference between methods and methodology, including covering this in early supervision discussions
Auditing, revealing and promoting industry in the London Borough of Southwark
Get PDFRenewed enthusiasm surrounds the potential for urban industry and its contribution to the socioeconomic diversity of cities, despite concerns about the loss of industrial uses, land, and buildings in high‐value, post‐industrial cities. Yet, industry is often hidden and undervalued, and methodologies to change the culture around nurturing industry in cities have not been well explored. As a first step in moving this agenda forward, this article proposes effective ways to reveal industrial uses and to advocate for policy protections of the land they occupy. It examines how London Metropolitan University’s School of Art, Architecture and Design (AAD) Cities action researchers applied their Audit, Reveal and Promote method‐ ology to Southwark, a London borough with a high concentration of urban industry. There are key aspects to revealing industrial economies: collecting accurate data on the ground, showcasing local businesses, building stakeholder networks through mutual trust, and creating a space of possibilities between vertical hierarchical and grassroots power networks to enable stakeholders to participate in urban change. This article presents a methodology for cultural change towards valuing a mix of uses, including industry, to transform land development towards retention and densification of industry
Dealing, music and youth violence: neighbourhood relational change, isolation and youth criminality
No full textThe text discusses how youth violence and attempts to tackle it have changed over the past decade, through an 11 year ethnographic study of a South London housing estate.
The study considers the emergence of drill music, county lines and the lowering of the threshold of when weapons are used to explore the isolated social environments so many young people find themselves in.
The book tracks how authorities have transitioned from an enforcement led to a public health approachh to tacking violence. However, considers why despite this development, youth violence remains a serious concern
A day in the life: what the learning developer does (Chapter 6)
No full textA chapter focused on the praxis of learning development as enacted daily by Learning Developers that aims to help new Learning Developers understand the diverse ways of enacting the role and explore how to work with students and staff, not to mention taking their own practice forward
Patterns that connect
No full textA projection of my first choreography “a still point in the turning world” (1990/92) recorded at The Place Theatre London https://vimeo.com/user105415988 performed by my dance company Turning Worlds serves as the audiovisual backdrop to this live event involving LondonMet students and performer Tim Taylor who delivers the text with author Jane Turner.
A labyrinth is drawn on the floor in salt, the performers enter it, and build patterns following simple rules. Additional instructions are solicited/gathered from the audience, and responded to by the performers.
A tribute to Loïe Fuller (1862-1928), early modern dance pioneer, follows in (her) signature voluminous light catching silk dress; her work a hybrid of high art dance, vaudeville allure, technical innovation is followed by a play on swarming bees. Turner is long involved with thebeefriendlytrust, bee behaviour resonating emergent behaviour, the science of self-organising systems that her work embodies.
Patterns that Connect, performance event as part of the Making Matters exhibition opening, The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, 5th May 202
Cognitive reserve and emotion recognition in the context of normal aging
Get PDFThe Cognitive Reserve (CR) hypothesis accounts for individual differences in vulnerability to age- or pathological-related brain changes. It suggests lifetime influences (e.g., education) increase the effectiveness of cognitive processing in later life. While evidence suggests CR proxies predict cognitive performance in older age, it is less clear whether CR proxies attenuate age-related decline on social cognitive tasks. This study investigated the effect of CR proxies on unimodal and cross-modal emotion identification. Sixty-six older adults aged 60-78 years were assessed on CR proxies (Cognitive Reserve Index Questionnaire, NART), unimodal(faces only, voices only), and cross-modal (faces and voices combined) emotion recognition and executive function (Stroop Test). No CR proxy predicted performance on emotion recognition. However, NART IQ predicted performance on the Stroop test; higher NART IQ was associated with better performance. The current study suggests CR proxies do not predict performance on social cognition tests but do predict performance on cognitive tasks
Mindfulness-based therapies for men and women with sexual dysfunction: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Get PDFMindfulness based interventions (MBI) may be an effective treatment for sexual dysfunction among men and women. A literature review identified seven trials for sexual dysfunction and MBI. Of these, four trials were Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) including a control-group wait list and three studies used within-subjects design. A meta-analysis synthesized the results across these trials which demonstrated an overall low to moderate effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.55). Moderate heterogeneity between studies was evident with possible publication bias. Sub-group analysis revealed differences between study weights, where overall higher effect sizes were found among RCTs (d = 0.65) than within subject design studies (d = 0.27). However, within subject design studies tended to include pre and post-physiological measurements (e.g. vaginal photoplethysmography), which may provide a more precise evaluation of the benefits of MBI, rather than studies based on self-report measures only. This review identified a gender inequality in which clinical trials predominated among women compared to men with a 6:1 ratio. Whilst MBI looks promising, significantly more research is needed, particularly among men, so that science, practice and policy can develop an understanding of the potential benefits of non-prescription intervention alternatives, or as a biopsychosocial adjunct, such as MBI, in support of those experiencing sexual dysfunction