Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts

Measurements, causes, and effects of creativity.
In this article, I express my appreciation for the Korean teacher who recognized my potential and my American mentors who helped me identify the creative energy in myself. I discuss how living a “wonderful” Korean life smothered the essence of my being. Next, the overview of my research in creativity is discussed in 3 categories: measurement of creativity, causes of creativity, and effects of creativity. One effect of creativity summarizes how creativity can manifest itself as either a gift or a curse. The article ends with affirming that individualism promotes creativity and a discussion of the direction of my future research, which centers on helping students and adults identify the creative energy in themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Creativity as flexible cognitive control.
Creative individuals have been described in terms suggestive of greater automatic processing (e.g., defocused attention, looser associations) and greater controlled processing (e.g., greater abilities to focus while working on a creative task). Both views cannot be correct from a static ability-related perspective. On the other hand, both views could be correct if creative individuals are better able to modulate the functioning of their cognitive control system in a context-sensitive manner. The present study (N = 50) assessed individual differences in creativity in terms of original responses on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974) and also in terms of creative behavior on the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005). The same participants performed a color–word Stroop task. Creative individuals were neither more nor less capable of overriding cognitive conflicts on incongruent (relative to congruent) Stroop trials. On the other hand, creative individuals displayed more flexible cognitive control, as defined by greater cognitive control modulation from trial to trial. Implications for theories of creativity and its underlying processing basis are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Do tests of divergent thinking have an experiential bias?
Divergent thinking (DT) tests are widely used as an estimate of creativity. However, tests of DT may be biased by experience. Scores from these tests may depend on the amount and types of experiences of examinees. This investigation was designed to determine the degree to which personal and social experiences influence DT scores. Two different tasks were administered: Uses task and Problem Generation (PG). Fluency and originality scores were calculated for each. Analyses indicated that the impact of experience was similar in the PG and Uses tasks. Personal and social experience explained 44% and 30% of fluency scores for PG and Uses tasks, respectively, and 65% of originality scores for both PG and Uses. The differences between uncorrected scores (all ideas, including those reflecting experience) and corrected scores (where ideas tied to personal or social experiences were eliminated) were statistically significant, with the largest discrepancy in Uses fluency and lowest in Uses originality. Findings supported the claim that divergent thinking tests may depend heavily on experience. Alternatives for using DT tests without an experiential bias are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Personality and thinking style in different creative domains.
The crucial aspect of creativity in both personality and thinking style may be the ability or tendency to change within personality traits, such as, for example, moving between extraversion and introversion, and within thinking styles, such as moving between heuristic and algorithmic thinking. Such mobility is characteristic of the “complex” personality. On personality and thinking style tests, complexity would be expected to manifest itself in greater variability of responses to items measuring the same overall trait. This issue was investigated with 158 visual art, 136 music, and 309 psychology students. Art students (visual art and music students) showed greater complexity in conscientiousness than psychology and music students, respectively. Visual art students further showed a greater overall complexity (mean complexities across personality and thinking style) than psychology students did. A more traditional analysis revealed that visual art students were more neurotic, more open to experience and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students do, whereas music students were more extraverted and more agreeable than visual art students were, and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students were. Thus, it was possible to distinguish visual art students from music and psychology students by their personality and thinking style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
When viewing variations in paintings by Mondrian, aesthetic preferences correlate with pupil size.
Observers consciously prefer Mondrian's paintings in their original orientation compared with a rotated position—the “oblique effect” (Latto, Brain, & Kelly, 2000). However, this finding's premise, that all vertical–horizontal orientations of the thick black lines in Mondrian's oeuvre are preferred, overlooks the fact that the overall balance of these images is also altered when they are reoriented. Thus, balance may regulate the oblique effect, which might influence conscious aesthetic preferences. To address this issue, we explore Hess's (1965, 1972) claim that observers will unconsciously increase their pupil diameter to pleasing images and constrict it to unpleasant images. We overcame Hess's methodological limitation of not keeping his images' luminances and contrast constant across conditions by presenting eight Mondrian paintings (1921–1944) to 30 observers on a CRT for 20 s each in either their original or seven rotated positions. Simultaneously, we measured their pupil size while asking them to report how (dis)pleasing they found each image. We found both evidence for the oblique effect (where image rotation hampers preference) and a correlation between this consciously reported aesthetic preference and unconsciously derived pupil size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Inverting an image does not improve drawing accuracy.
It has been suggested that inverting an image will increase drawing accuracy. However, perceptual evidence suggests that inverting an image inhibits processing of spatial information. D. J. Cohen and S. Bennett (1997) theorized that perceptual distortions will lead to drawing errors. In the present experiment, the authors test whether inverting an image improves drawing accuracy, as suggested by art educators, or results in distorted drawings, as predicted by Cohen and Bennett. The present data reveal that inverting an image inhibits the drawing accuracy of spatial relations thus supporting Cohen and Bennett's (1997) theory of drawing accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Exploring the theatrical experience: Results from an empirical investigation.
The article aims at explaining visitors' overall judgment of a theatrical event. A questionnaire was constructed including the 4 dimensions of the theatrical experience identified by Eversmann (2004): perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and communicative. The authors investigated 125 visitors of a production in a German community theater and confirmed that both the emotional and cognitive dimensions were determinants of visitors' overall judgment of a theatrical event. Implications for further research on the theatrical experience are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Creative vision and inspiration of Shona stone sculptors.
Whereas existing conceptions of giftedness and creativity, assessment tools, and models espoused in contemporary psychology are all grounded in the West, there are different ways to look at talent development. This study investigated Shona artists' talent attributions with a view to generate theoretical ideas that inform talent development from an African perspective. Using a grounded theory study approach informed by 20 Shona stone sculptors of Zimbabwe, the study endeavored to generate a mid-range theory of how Shona artists conceptualized the origins and development of talent in their art domain. Grounded theory suggested a dynamic and interactive process model (DIPM) from an indigenous cultural perspective that explains how Shona artists' talent attributions help to propel a field of art. The DIPM posits that creativity emerges from dynamic and interactive processes activated or reactivated in interactions evoking one's unique experiences, cultural consciousness, and domain specific consciousness and realized through practice and experience. The DIPM is based on the artists' belief systems; these belief systems are recommended as the focus of interest in future research to understand creativity in art. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Review of Psyche and the literary muses: The contribution of literary content to scientific psychology (Linguistic approaches to literature 7).
Reviews the book, Psyche and the literary muses: The contribution of literary content to scientific psychology (Linguistic approaches to literature 7) by Martin S. Lindauer (see record 2009-03997-000). Lindauer has examined an area that is seldom researched; he found a gap in the psychology of the arts and explored it. He is at his best describing the arts, psychology, and the relation between the two. He is also in his element describing different methods of analyzing the arts. In the first two parts of the book, Lindauer writes compellingly about the important role the arts play in people’s lives, outlines the affinities between psychology and the arts, and affirms the necessity of studying the arts. He also positions the psychology of the arts within psychology and illustrates what the arts have to offer psychology, namely highlighting new topics of research, exposing neglected areas of study, and challenging existing conclusions. Lindauer describes the scientific approach to literature in the third and fourth parts of the book. He first posits that generalization is a goal in psychology, but that it is also important to capture people’s subjective experiences. In the final part of the book, Lindauer summarizes the issues and states that a scientific approach to literature would “open the eyes of scholars” in the humanities and help them escape “provincialism, parochialism, and isolation.” The reviewer notes a number of criticisms about the book, including its readability (e.g., confusing structure, repetition), Lindauer's use of brief literary forms (e.g., quotations), and his failure to provide the larger picture in some of his studies. Despite excellent ideas and intentions, to study quotations instead of literature is ultimately missing the point. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts - Vol 4, Iss 3