The present study investigates how emerging/young and established/expert artists create artwork, paying special attention to modifications in the art-making process. Here, "process modification" is the means by which artists generate new artistic concepts by modifying elements of their previous artwork. To examine whether emerging…

This study of 60 Swedish university students examined whether or not acute alcohol intoxication inhibits or facilitates the incubation phase of the creative process. Results found that the participants in the alcohol group produced significantly more incubations in their diaries and significantly higher levels of originality. (Author/CR)

Reviews the perspective of Donald Campbell on creative thought and argues that the role of blind variation and selective retention in Darwinian evaluation and human invention is different. Proposes that a contrast can be drawn between "smart" and "not so smart" blind variation. (CR)

Argues that while blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) may not be involved in all forms of human behavior and thought, Donald Campbell has made a compelling case that human creativity and invention involve BVSR. The complementary nature of prior and current BVSR in creative human endeavor is discussed. (Author/CR)

Reports the results of a study of active ingredients of creativity techniques, devices that promote idea generation, through an analysis of 172 idea-generation methods which identified three types of idea-generation devices--strategies, tactics, and enablers. These devices were organized into meaningful categories comprising a formulary of active…

This introductory article discusses a blind-variation and selective-retention model of the creative process developed by Donald Campbell. According to Campbell, creativity contains three conditions: a mechanism for introducing variation, a consistent selection process, and a mechanism for preserving and reproducing selected variations. (Author/CR)

Argues that the cognitive mechanisms in human creativity are, for the most part, sighted rather than blind. Reviews attempts to apply evolutionary ideas to psychology and argues that these ideas do not apply to the psychology of human creativity. An alternative sighted-variation framework is then proposed. (Author/CR)