The Mechanism of Associative Abilities in Creative Problem Solving

Abstract

Abstract: For a long time, researchers have always believed that there is a close relationship between the associative abilities and creativity, but relevant empirical studies do not support this assertion well. This may be due to the unclear definition of associative abilities. This review clarifies the relationship between ability of association and creativity in previous studies, and on the basis of which, it analyzes the essence reflected in the associative abilities tests and further proposes a mechanism model of association ability in creative problem solving: 1) the associative abilities mainly plays a role in the restructuring stage of creative problem solving; 2) there are three relatively independent associative abilities, which have different effects on the verbal insight problems and space insight problems; 3) the associative ability tests which emphasize the empirical relationship among the association contents is most closely related to the general creativity.

Key words: creative problem solving, insight, associative ability, reconstructive, memory

摘要： 长期以来，研究者一直认为联想能力与创造力之间存在着紧密的联系，但相关的实证研究并不能很好地支持这一论断，这可能是由于联想能力的界定不清所造成的。本研究梳理了以往研究中联想能力与创造力的关系，在此基础上辨析了联想能力测验所反映的实质，进一步提出了一个创造性问题解决中联想能力的作用模型：（1）联想能力主要作用于创造性问题解决中的重构阶段；（2）存在三种相对独立的联想能力，它们对空间类顿悟问题和言语类顿悟问题的影响不同；（3）联想内容中经验关系的联想能力与领域一般创造力关联最密切。

关键词: 创造性问题解决, 顿悟, 联想能力, 重构, 记忆

CLC Number:

B842

WANG Shuoyang, LIN Chongde, SUN Hanyin. The Mechanism of Associative Abilities in Creative Problem Solving[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(1): 8-16.

王硕阳, 林崇德, 孙汉银. 创造性问题解决中的联想能力及其作用[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2020, 18(1): 8-16.

References

贡喆, 刘昌, 沈汪兵. (2016). 有关创造力测量的一些思考. 心理科学进展, 24(1), 31-45
王建平. (2013). 变态心理学. 北京: 开明文教音像出版社.
温晓亮. (2011). 语义联想和语义相似是具体概念表征的两个维度(硕士学位论文). 北京师范大学.
赵庆柏, 李松清, 陈石, 周治金, 成良. (2015). 创造性问题解决的动态神经加工模式. 心理科学进展, 23(3), 375-384
Acar, S., & Runco, M. A. (2014). Assessing associative distance among ideas elicited by tests of divergent thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 26(2), 229-238, doi: 10.1080/10400419.2014.901095.
Andrews, M., Vigliocco, G., & Vinson, D. (2009). Integrating experiential and distributional data to learn semantic representations. Psychological Review, 116(3), 463-498, doi: 10.1037/a0016261.
Ash, I. K., Cushen, P. J., & Wiley, J. (2009). Obstacles in investigating the role of restructuring in insightful problem solving. Journal of Problem Solving, 2(2), Article 3.
Ash, I. K., & Wiley, J. (2006). The nature of restructuring in insight: An individual-differences approach. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(1), 66-73.
Avitia, M. J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2014). Beyond g and c: The relationship of rated creativity to long-term storage and retrieval (Glr). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8(3), 293-302.
Beaty, R. E., Silvia, P. J., Nusbaum, E. C., Jauk, E., & Benedek, M. (2014). The roles of associative and executive processes in creative cognition. Memory & Cognition, 42(7), 1186-1197.
Benedek, M., & Jauk, E. (2017). Spontaneous and controlled processes in creative cognition. In K. C. R. Fox & K. Christoff (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of spontaneous thought: Mind-wandering, creativity, dreaming, and clinical conditions (pp. 285-298). New York: Oxford University Press.
Benedek, M., Kenett, Y. N., Umdasch, K., Anaki, D., Faust, M., & Neubauer, A. C. (2017). How semantic memory structure and intelligence contribute to creative thought: A network science approach. Thinking & Reasoning, 23(2), 158-183.
Benedek, M., Könen, T., & Neubauer, A. C. (2012). Associative abilities underlying creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(3), 273-281.
Borge-Holthoefer, J., & Arenas, A. (2010). Semantic networks: Structure and dynamics. Entropy, 12(5), 1264-1302, doi: 10.3390/e12051264.
Bowden, E. M., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2003). Normative data for 144 compound remote associate problems. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35(4), 634-639.
Cai, D. J., Mednick, S. A., Harrison, E. M., Kanady, J. C., & Mednick, S. C. (2009). REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(25), 10130-10134, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900271106.
Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DeYoung, C. G., Flanders, J. L., & Peterson, J. B. (2008). Cognitive abilities involved in insight problem solving: An individual differences model. Creativity Research Journal, 20(3), 278-290, doi: 10.1080/10400410802278719.
Dietrich, A. (2007). Who’s afraid of a cognitive neuroscience of creativity? Methods, 42(1), 22-27, doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2006.12.009.
Ferrand, L., & New, B. (2003). Semantic and associative priming in the mental lexicon. In P. Bonin (Ed.), Mental lexicon: Some words to talk about words (pp. 25-43). Hauppage, NY: Nova Science.
Flanagan, D. P., Ortiz, S. O., & Alfonso, V. C. (2007). Essentials of cross-battery assessment (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Gabora, L. (2010). Revenge of the “Neurds”: Characterizing creative thought in terms of the structure and dynamics of memory. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), 1-13, doi: 10.1080/10400410903579494.
Gilhooly, K. J. (2016). Incubation and intuition in creative problem solving. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1076.
Gilhooly, K. J., & Murphy, P. (2005). Differentiating insight from non-insight problems. Thinking & Reasoning, 11(3), 279-302.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464-1480.
Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444-454, doi: 10.1037/h0063487.
Hennessey, B. A., & Amabile, T. M. (2010). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology, 61(1), 569-598, doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100416.
Jones, G. (2003). Testing two cognitive theories of insight. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 29(5), 1017-1027.
Jones, M. N., Kintsch, W., & Mewhort, D. J. K. (2006). High-dimensional semantic space accounts of priming. Journal of Memory & Language, 55(4), 534-552.
Kenett, Y. N. (2019). What can quantitative measures of semantic distance tell us about creativity? Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 27, 11-16, doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.08.010.
Kenett, Y. N., Anaki, D., & Faust, M. (2014). Investigating the structure of semantic networks in low and high creative persons. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 407.
Kenett, Y. N., Beaty, R. E., Silvia, P. J., Anaki, D., & Faust, M. (2016). Structure and flexibility: Investigating the relation between the structure of the mental lexicon, fluid intelligence, and creative achievement. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10(4), 377-389, doi: 10.1037/aca0000056.
Kenett, Y. N., Kenett, D. Y., Ben-Jacob, E., & Faust, M. (2011). Global and local features of semantic networks: Evidence from the hebrew mental lexicon. PLoS ONE, 6(8), e23912, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023912.
Klein, S. B. (2011). Learning: Principles and Applications. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
Knoblich, G., Ohlsson, S., Haider, H., & Rhenius, D. (1999). Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 25(6), 1534-1555.
Kounios, J., & Beeman, M. (2014). The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 71-93, doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115154.
Lee, C. S., & Therriault, D. J. (2013). The cognitive underpinnings of creative thought: A latent variable analysis exploring the roles of intelligence and working memory in three creative thinking processes. Intelligence, 41(5), 306-320, doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2013.04.008.
Lee, C. S., Huggins, A. C., & Therriault, D. J. (2014). A measure of creativity or intelligence? Examining internal and external structure validity evidence of the Remote Associates Test. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8(4), 446-460.
Lubart, T. I. (2001). Models of the creative process: Past, present and future. Creativity Research Journal, 13(3-4), 295-308, doi: 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_07.
Lv, K. (2015). The involvement of working memory and inhibition functions in the different phases of insight problem solving. Memory & Cognition, 43(5), 709-722.
MacGregor, J. N., Ormerod, T. C., & Chronicle, E. P. (2001). Information processing and insight: A process model of performance on the nine-dot and related problems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 27(1), 176-201.
McClelland, J. L. (1987). The case for interactionism in language processing (No. TR-87-1-ONR). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie-Mellon University.
McGrew, K. S. (2005). The Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities: Past, present, and future. In D. P. Flanagan & P. L. Harrison (Eds.), Contemporary intellectual assessment: Theories, tests, and issues (2nd ed., pp. 136-181). New York: The Guilford Press.
Mednick, S. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69(3), 220-232, doi: 10.1037/h0048850.
Mednick, S. A., & Mednick, M. T. (1967). Examiner’s manual: Remote Associates Test-College and Adult forms 1 and 2. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
Merten, T., & Fischer, I. (1999). Creativity, personality and word association responses: Associative behaviour in forty supposedly creative persons. Personality & Individual Differences, 27(5), 933-942.
Ochse, R., & van Lill, B. (1990). A critical appraisal of the theoretical validity of the mednick remote association test. South African Journal of Psychology, 20(3), 195-199, doi: 10.1177/008124639002000309.
Ohlsson, S. (1992). Information-processing explanations of insight and related phenomena. In M. T. Keane & K. J. Gilhooly (Eds.), Advances in the psychology of thinking (Vol. 1, pp. 1-44). New York, NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Ohlsson, S. (2011). Deep learning: How the mind overrides experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Öllinger, M., Fedor, A., Brodt, S., & Szathmáry, E. (2017). Insight into the ten-penny problem: Guiding search by constraints and maximization. Psychological Research, 81(5), 925-938, doi: 10.1007/s00426-016-0800-3.
Öllinger, M., Jones, G., & Knoblich, G. (2014). The dynamics of search, impasse, and representational change provide a coherent explanation of difficulty in the nine-dot problem. Psychological Research, 78(2), 266-275, doi: 10.1007/s00426-013-0494-8.
Plucker, J. A., Esping, A., Kaufman, J. C., & Avitia, M. J. (2015). Creativity and intelligence. In Handbook of intelligence (pp. 283-291). New York: Springer.
Prabhakaran, R., Green, A. E., & Gray, J. R. (2014). Thin slices of creativity: Using single-word utterances to assess creative cognition. Behavior Research Methods, 46(3), 641-659, doi: 10.3758/s13428-013-0401-7.
Raaijmakers, J. G., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1981). Search of associative memory. Psychological Review, 88(2), 93-134, doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.88.2.93.
Silvia, P. J., Beaty, R. E., & Nusbaum, E. C. (2013). Verbal fluency and creativity: General and specific contributions of broad retrieval ability (Gr) factors to divergent thinking. Intelligence, 41(5), 328-340, doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2013.05.004.
Stadler, M., Becker, N., Gödker, M., Leutner, D., & Greiff, S. (2015). Complex problem solving and intelligence: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 53, 92-101, doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2015.09.005.
Stolz, J. A., & Besner, D. (1996). Role of set in visual word recognition: Activation and activation blocking as nonautomatic processes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performan, 22(5), 1166-1177.
Underwood, B. J. (1975). Individual differences as a crucible in theory construction. American Psychologist, 30(2), 128-134, doi: 10.1037/h0076759.
Vladimirov, I. Y., Chistopolskaya, A. V., & Korovkin, S. Y. (2015). The Role of the Central Executive and Slave Systems of Working Memory in the Insight Problem Solving. Paper presented at the EuroAsianPacific Joint Conference on Cognitive Science, Torino, Italy.
Vogel, E. K., & Awh, E. (2008). How to exploit diversity for scientific gain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(2), 171-176, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00569.x.
Volle, E. (2017). Associative and controlled cognition in divergent thinking: Theoretical, experimental, neuroimaging evidence, and new directions. In The Cambridge handbook of the neuroscience of creativity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Wang, X., Wu, W., Ling, Z., Xu, Y., Fang, Y., Wang, X., … Bi, Y. (2018). Organizational principles of abstract words in the human brain. Cerebral Cortex, 28, 4305-4318, doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx283.
Webb, M. E., Little, D. R., Cropper, S. J., & Roze, K. (2017). The contributions of convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and schizotypy to solving insight and non-insight problems. Thinking & Reasoning, 23(3), 235-258.
Weisberg, R. W. (2006). Creativity: Understanding innovation in problem solving, science, invention, and the arts. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Weisberg, R. W. (2015). Toward an integrated theory of insight in problem solving. Thinking & Reasoning, 21(1), 5-39.
Worthen, B. R., & Clark, P. M. (1971). Toward an improved measure of remote associational ability. Journal of Educational Measurement, 8(2), 113-123, doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1971.tb00914.x.

[1]	LI Wenfu, ZHAI Jicun, LI Qingqing, CHEN Jingting. The Effect of Ego Depletion on the Prototype Elicitation Effects of Scientific Innovation Problems Solving [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(5): 677-683.
[2]	LI Shiyi, XIE Yanfeng, ZHAO Guang, BAI Xuejun. The Influence of Media Multitasking Experience on Implicit Memory in Different Attention Patterns [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(4): 433-440.
[3]	CHEN Xianglin, ZHANG Junheng, YAN Bihua. Decoding Effect of Objects of Typical Spatial Position Relations in Real-World Scenes [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(4): 441-449.
[4]	JIN Ming, ZENG Lianping, ZENG Xiaoye, HUANG Yafu. Mindfulness and Learning Burnout in High School Students: A Perspective Based on Self-Regulated Learning Model [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(4): 494-500.
[5]	ZHOU Aibao, ZHAO Haiyan, XIA Ruixue, YUAN Yue, JIA Tingting, XIE Pei. The Impact of Reference Styles, Emotional Valence, and Personality-Trait Assessment at Different Semantic Levels on Memory [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(2): 145-152.
[6]	LIU Xu, CAI Jia, CUI Zhe, SONG Meihan, WANG Li. Effects of Item Competitive Intensity on Retrieval-Induced Forgetting in College Students with Internet Addiction [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(1): 8-14.
[7]	WANG Jiawei, XIAN Meijun, XING Qiang. The Impact of Task Number and Working Memory Capacity on Interleaving Learning [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2022, 20(1): 15-21.
[8]	LIU Tuanli, HAO Xingfeng, XING Min, BAI Xuejun. The Influence of Internet Addiction on Reasoning Ability of College Students: The Mediating Role of Working Memory Capacity [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2021, 19(5): 642-649.
[9]	JIANG Daitai, DUAN Yajie, YAN Shuai, FU Siwen, LIU Wei. The Self-Reference Effect on Event-Based Prospective Memory [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2021, 19(3): 312-318.
[10]	WANG Song, LI Su. The Development of Children’s Story Retelling Skills and Their Relationship with Verbal Working Memory [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(5): 596-602.
[11]	LIU Hong, CHU Zheng, LI Huanhuan, ZHAO Xiaomei. The Effect of Ego-Depletion on Time-Based Prospective Memory [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(4): 446-451,459.
[12]	CHE Xiaowei, WANG Kaixuan, SHANGGUAN Mengqi, LI Shouxin. The Representation of Attention Template in Visual Working Memory: An EROS Study [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(3): 297-303.
[13]	QU Xiaolan, ZENG Ping, WANG Sifei. False Memories of Sentences Based on Synonymous Relevance: The Developmental Reversal and the Effect of Chinese Sentence Patterns [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(3): 332-338.
[14]	ZHAO Minfang, FU Xiaolan, LI Kaiyun, Hubert D. ZIMMER. The Effects of Enactment and Bizarreness on Associative Recognition [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(2): 145-152.
[15]	WU Huifen, LI Xiaona, ZHANG Qiong, TANG Yichun, LIU Huashan. You Own Something Because of Paying Attention to Them: Exploring the Internal Mechanism of Mere Ownership Effect [J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(2): 161-167,175.