Cognitive Process Used in Creativity - Research Paper Example

Cognitive Process Used in Creativity Abstract The paper analyses creative acts in terms of cognitive processes involved in daily action. It explores the idea whether creative acts involve some special cognitive process or utilize the same cognitive process used in everyday problem solving. For the sake of argument, both sides are explored. This paper concludes that creative process may integrate everyday problem solving cognitive processes and may lead to some creative acts, but it does not account for the complete creative experience. Cognitive Process and Creativity There are two points of views that regard it as impossible to analyze creativity in terms of common action cognitive processes. First believe that creative acts are fundamentally un-analyzable. Others believe that in creative acts, there are special processes involved. These special processes are not involved in other common thought processes (Hayes and Carnegie, 1990).This paper explores whether creativity can be explained by the creative processes used in daily problem solving and concludes that creative process may integrate aspects of everyday problem solving cognitive process, but they are unable to account for the complete process of creation. 1. Un-analyzability Stance Karl Popper (1959, p.31) forcefully emphasized, there is no doubt that the process of scientific discovery is un-analyzable. He explains that neither there is logical way of producing new ideas nor there exist a logical reconstruction of creative process. Furthermore, attributing similarity to Bergson’s sense, he associates ‘an irrational element,’ or ‘a creative intuition,’ with every discovery or invention. Popper (1959, p.32) further stressed that, “The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it.” 2. Logical Heuristics Stance Langley, Simon, Bradshaw, and Zytkow (1987) argue for their position against Popper’s view. They argue that the idea does not hold ground, as scientific discovery can be explained and reasoned in the form of well defined heuristic procedures. Moreover, they stress that the scientific discoveries are made when a certain logical heuristic procedure is applied by scientists, such as, using heuristic procedure in getting inferences from the data or observations. In order to support their point of view, they argue by utilizing these heuristics in computer programming and demonstrating that they are capable to bring on already acknowledged laws from data (as cited in Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). For instance,  “look for variables (or combinations of variables) with constant values; look for linear relation among variables; if two variables increase together, consider their ratio; and if one variable increases while another decreases, consider their product,”(as cited in Hayes and Carnegie,1990) were integrated in a computer program called BACON. The program generated Boyle’s law, Galileo’s law, Kepler’s third law, and Ohm’s law when appropriate date is introduced (Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). Similarly, Lenat (1976) had already demonstrated that with a particular set of heuristics inducted his program called AM (Automated Mathematician), unique discoveries can be made in the field of mathematics. For instance, AM created Goldbach’s conjecture, de Morgan’s laws, and unique factorization of numbers into primes (as cited in Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). 3. Distinctive Creative Process In contemporary times, creativity as a special process has got a “straw man” status in scientific literature. Generally, the idea is opposed more than it is defended. Moreover, there are no candidates for “special creative process” with significant empirical support and approval. It is not appropriate to rule out such possibility in future. Healthy criticism and skepticism should continue for the ideas backed by popular press, such as, lateral thinking and right brain thinking (Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). 4. Nothing-Special Stance Owing its introduction to Herbert Simon and colleagues (1966, 1964), nothing-special position establishes that creative act is a variation of problem solving which incorporate similar cognitive processes used in daily problem solving processes. It implies that creative acts are no more than a special form of problem solving acts. This particular kind of problem solving meets the specifications. Significantly, these acts are considered to be novel and depict cognitive abilities of the creative person. Moreover, these problems were unclear. Problem solver or creative person makes decision and adds information in order to sort it out (as cited in Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). A specific example of ill-defined problem can be observed in architectural practice. Generally, client specifies limited features of building, however, architect provides many design before the final solution to the problem. Creation or creative activities don’t need to be defined as problem solving, but it is frequently suggested that the process of creation triggers when creative person is in a particular problem. This assumption is valid to some extent. Necessity certainly has led to some inventions. However, there are other situations that direct humans towards creation. It is evident that creators are not always trying to come out of troubles. They may be utilizing opportunity in order to improve a situation that is considered to be satisfactory at that particular time. In both cases, creative activities do involve goal setting and initiating action in order to achieve those goals (Hayes and Carnegie, 1990). 5. Conclusion Despite the clear evidence, these programs and their results does not imply that human creative process can be explained in terms of computer search heuristics. In case, human discovers something interesting by implementing particular heuristics to the date, the question of the source of motivation for analyzing that particular date remains. However, heuristic experiment results demonstrate the apparent validity of identifying a significant part of creative process through logical search heuristics (Hayes and Carnegie, 1990).Consequently, we can identify that creative process may involve cognitive process which are used in daily problem solving. However, they are unable to explain and account for other aspects of human creative process. References Hayes,R.J.,& Carnegie,M.(1990, January). Cognitive Processes in Creativity. Retrieved from http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/courses/ModDis/Internal/HayesCreativity.pdf Popper, K.R. (1959).The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson. Read More