When faced with the need to transform an object, idea, or situation, people have a tendency to favor adding new components rather than removing existing ones. This is called the "additive bias." Previous research, along with historical and anecdotal examples, shows that this bias may significantly reduce problem-solving abilities and…

Empathy emerges as a pivotal skill in creative writing, yet previous studies lack an understanding of empathy's multidimensionality and specific impact of its facets on the capacity to generate narrative stories. This cross-sectional study delved into the various cognitive and affective empathy facets --that is, perspective-taking, online…

The process of creative problem-solving (CPS) commonly demands that individuals consciously or unconsciously integrate creative ideas from a vast array of diverse information. Using a masked priming paradigm and the Chinese remote associates test (RAT), this study provides innovative behavioral evidence for the integration of multiple unconscious…

Creativity involves generating novel and valuable ideas. While the importance of creative thinking is widely acknowledged, its cognitive basis is poorly understood, particularly in older adults. This study aimed to develop and test an explanatory model of creative thinking to elucidate its underlying cognitive functions in an elderly sample. The…

Creativity is a fundamental human accomplishment from scientific advances to composing music. The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are important metacontrol hubs in flexibility and persistence brain states, respectively. Those hubs are related to divergent thinking, insight problem-solving, and…

S.A. Mednick (1962) proposed a theory of creativity suggesting that highly creative individuals can produce more word associations to a stimulus than less creative individuals. Numerous studies have supported this theory using the Remote Associates Test (RAT) as the measure of creativity. Additionally, some studies have suggested that…

Fifty years ago, Mednick ["Psychological Review", 69 (1962) 220] proposed an elaborate model that aimed to explain how creative ideas are generated and why creative people are more likely to have creative ideas. The model assumes that creative people have flatter associative hierarchies and as a consequence can more fluently retrieve…

The present experiment examined whether or not the type of associations (close (e.g. apple-pear) and distant (e.g. apple-fish) word associations) and memory instruction (paying attention to the ideas of others) had effects on the idea generation performances in the brainwriting paradigm in which all participants shared their ideas by using paper…

Through randomness we create structure, and through structure we accommodate randomness. The structures we create have basic premises shared by all life forms and forces. These patterns are repeated and shared. Creative thinking has similar characteristics. (MSE)

A study investigated the usefulness of the Fisher Association Lists, a computerized system of word associations, in accessing memories and forming new associations with them. It is concluded that the lists are a general aid to creativity by providing access to all the common associations in our culture. (MSE)

To evaluate Mednick's theory of the creative thinking process, an associative priming paradigm was used to measure latencies to lexical decisions primed by associations of low, medium, or high strength with 20 high-creative and 20 low-creative high school students. Mednick's theory that creative individuals show a flatter associative hierarchy…