Reading Questions for Ward, Finke, & Smith's

Creativity and the Mind

Chapter 1

• Why do the authors say that "creativity is an intrinsic capability of ours"?
• What is "creative cognition"?
• What are the "four Ps" of creativity?
• Explain why the two criteria for creativity are important.
• Why is it important for a creative idea to resemble an older idea?
• What has Weisberg found out about the history of highly creative products?
• On what are individual differences in creativity based? Do you agree with the authors' argument for this?
• What is the role of "pressure" in the production of creative outcomes?
• Explain the "geneplore" model.
• Why is "structured imagination" dangerous?
• What is metacognition and how does it relate to reading?
• Why is it important to use both "real-world" and laboratory research to investigate creativity?

Chapter 2

• What is a concept? How many do we have?
• What are "central properties" of concepts? How do they relate to "structured imagination" and aliens with legs?
• How do we develop new ideas from old ones?
• How can knowing about central properties help us be more creative?
• Why is it important to be aware of our assumptions about correlations among properties?
• Why are some things more "typical" of a category than others? What effect does this have on our ability to recall them?
• What are the differences between the "fixed structure" and "active construction" views of our concepts?
• What is the "basic level" of a category?
• How can abstraction help us be more creative?
• How did the authors investigate the effects of abstraction on creativity?
• What are "essential properties"?
• How can conceptual combination increase creativity?
• What factors lead to more creative "conceptual combinations"?
• What are schemas? What are their advantages and dangers?
• How can analogy help in creative thinking?
• What are mental models? Are they different from schemas?

Chapter 3

• Why does making a mental image larger help us scan it for features? What does this tell us about how we use images?
• What is the "method of loci"? How is this related to image scanning?
• What is "mental rotation"? What does "image momentum" tells us about how images are used in the mind?
• Why is it better to simply "put images pieces together in interesting ways" (as opposed to "trying to make something)" in order to produce creative products?
• What are "preinventive forms"?
• Why is it sometime better "not to know what you are trying to invent"?
• What is the "illusion of intentionality"?
• What is creative realism and why is it important?
• Why are the illusions of "magical validity" and of "syncronicity" dangerous?

Chapter 4

• What are the two theoretical positions on how problem solving is done?
• When is "reproductive" problem solving useful? Is it creative?
• Why is is useful to know the four kinds of problems the authors outline?
• What is an algorithm? How does it differ from a heuristic? What are the dangers of using algorithms? Are the similar dangers for using heuristics?
• What is "fixation"? How does it relate to the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon?
• What is "functional fixedness" and why does it limit creativity?
• Why does "incubation" allow us to escape from fixation?
• Is the remote associates test a test of creativity? What else does it test?
• How does unconcious activation relate to incubation?
• What is the difference between insight and intuition?
• What are the two uses of computer modeling of the mind?

Disclaimer