Creativity and Perception

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology Psychology, Department of 1989 Creativity and Perception John H. Flowers University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Calvin P. Garbin University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/psychfacpub Part of the Psychiatry and Psychology Commons Flowers, John H. and Garbin, Calvin P., "Creativity and Perception" (1989). Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology. 453. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/psychfacpub/453 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Psychology, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published (as Chapter 8) in Handbook of Creativity, edited by John A. Glover, Royce R. Ronning, and Cecil R. Reynolds (New York & London: Plenum Press, 1989), pp. 147-162. Copyright © 1989 Plenum Press (Springer). Used by permission. Creativity and Perception John H. Flowers and Calvin P. Garbin Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588. Informal thought about the nature of mental oper- dealing with the topic of creativity, most of these refer- ations important to creative human behavior suggests ences refer to research related to specific theories about that perceptual processes are of considerable impor- individual differences in perceptual styles or process- tance. The ability to “see relationships among ele- ing modes, as opposed to broader contemporary is- ments” is an attribution commonly made toward au- sues of perceptual processing. Clearly, most research- thors of major scientific discoveries or of noteworthy ers in the field of perception have not touched upon artistic achievements. For example, Shepard (1978, the topic of creativity, and relatively few researchers 1981) documented self-reports from several creative in creativity have chosen to integrate their work with scientists and authors that strongly emphasize the perceptual issues. role of visual imagery and the manipulation of visual codes in the creative process. Given the anecdotal and self-report evidence for a Why Have Perceptual Psychologists Had Little to relationship between creative behavior and aspects of Say about Creativity? perceptual processing, it initially may seem surprising that there is a notable void in either research or theoret- One reason that may have inhibited psychologists ical articles specifically focused on these issues. In pre- who were studying aspects of perception from be- paring this chapter, for example, we noted that, during coming involved in research on creativity is the fact the last six volumes of the Journal of Creative Behav- that the term itself is not viewed as a scientifically ior, there was only one title that included the word per- “tight”‘ concept of the variety preferred by relatively ception, and that paper (Goodman & Marquart, 1978) “operationalistic” behavioral scientists. As has been was limited to a one-page abstract. In addition, we noted in earlier research (e.g., Stein, 1956; Taylor, noted that among seven current textbooks in percep- 1960), as well as the contributors to this volume, pro- tion that presently reside on our bookshelves, none viding an easily agreed upon operational definition contain the term creativity in their indexes, nor is the of creativity that can be related to specific aspects of term creative ability addressed at any point in the texts. observable behavior or specific information-process- Although references to the term perception occasionally ing operations is problematic. Although there is gen- can be found in indexes of monographs specifically eral agreement among researchers in human thinking 147 148 F LOWERS & G ARBIN IN H ANDBOOK OF C REATIVITY (1989) that a key component of creativity is the process of review), most theories approach perception as an in- generating novel mental representations, assessment formation reduction process whereby noisy, variable, of creativity by society is generally done on the basis and impoverished patterns of environmental energy of product; that is, does a particular solution, inven- become resolved into stable and consistent inter- tion, discovery, or artistic contribution meet the joint nal representations optimal for human performance. criteria of novelty and worthwhileness? Obviously, Terms such as perceptual organization and perceptual a wide variety of mental operations and processes constancy reflect emphasis on the information reduc- could contribute to the characteristics of a product tion processes. The latter term, in particular, empha- that elicit those subjective evaluations. sizes the role of perception in providing an individ- The lack of existing literature explicitly relating is- ual with similar or identical mental representations of sues in perception to the study of human creativity events that may have widely varying physical repre- may also be attributable, in part, to fundamental dif- sentations in the environment. ferences in the “level of approach” among behavioral If a major function of “efficient” perceptual pro- scientists who study fundamental characteristics of cessing is to provide perceptual constancy, as well as mental and behavioral processes common across in- to encourage different observers to obtain similar or dividuals, as opposed to those having primary in- identical representations from common environmen- terest in differences among individuals. Both histor- tal stimuli, then it does indeed seem that this organi- ically and at present, the majority of research efforts zational aspect of perception works against the gen- directed at understanding perceptual processes has eration of novel representations. One might therefore been directed at theories, models, and descriptions predict that some measures of perceptual performance of behavior that apply to perception in general, as that tap perceptual organizational processes would be opposed to individuals. The very term creativity, on negatively related to measures of creative ability. A the other hand, denotes an attribute that individuals potential consequence of such a relationship would be presumably possess (or at least exhibit) in different a positive association between perceptual deficiencies amounts, hence, its study generally assumes an indi- or handicaps and creative ability. Case study instances vidual differences approach. supportive of a relationship between perceptual hand- In our view, however, neither the fuzziness attrib- icaps and creative behavior can, in fact, be found in uted to the definition of creativity nor its degree of discussions of artistic and musical achievement. For association with ideographic rather than nomothetic instance, some of the innovative stylistic changes in approaches is as responsible for the lack of an exist- Beethoven’s later works are commonly attributed to ing body of literature relating creativity and percep- the increasing severity of his hearing impairment. tion as is the fact that perception traditionally has However, there are many reasons to believe that been studied as a process of organizing information some aspects of perceptual performance should be within the nervous system, whereas studies of mental positively correlated with creative ability—or at least processes associated with creative behavior usually with the output of creative products. Many prod- imply the generation of novel representations of in- ucts of creative activity are not simple spontaneous formation within the nervous system. At first inspec- generations, but result from effortful production, in- tion, these two classes of mental activity seem to have terspersed with the evaluation of feedback. Thus, little to do with each other—or worse yet, they may handicapping the senses at a peripheral level (e.g., even be viewed as incompatible operations. blindness or deafness) would certainly disrupt the ability to evaluate visual and auditory productions as they are being created. Despite what has been said Is Perceptual Organization Incompatible with about Beethoven’s deafness, it seems absurd to pre- Creative Thought? dict that there would be a general negative relationship between basic measures of auditory sensitiv- Although individual theories of perception may ity and frequency discrimination ability and creative differ substantially in their emphasis upon the im- output of music among composers, or a negative rela- portance of stimulus structure versus mental orga- tionship between visual acuity measures and creative nizational processes (see, e.g., Hochberg, 1981, for a output of painters. C REATIVITY AND P ER C E P TION 149 The Importance of Executively Controlled Processing In our view, however, there are other aspects of perception for which performance measures ought to re- late positively to creativity—in particular, processes under the conscious control of the perceiver. These in- clude the ability to control various aspects of selective attention, to control figural organization when ambig- uous sensory data are presented, to perform manip- ulations of internal visual and/or auditory representations of perceptual information, and the ability to equate perceptual experiences obtained from different sense modalities (cross-modal abilities). Although the earlier

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