Figure 4 - uploaded by Steven M. Smith
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
Abstract ,The first ideas to be considered during creative idea generation can have profoundly constraining effects on the scope of the ideas that are subsequently generated. Even if initial ideasare intended to serve as helpful examples, or they are given simply to get the creative process going, the constraints of initial ideas may,be inescapable...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... all experiments, students generated equal numbers of design ideas, regardless of their experimental treatment group assignments. However, in all experiments, the designs of students in the Fixation _______________________________________________________________ overflow device, but had none (see Figure 4), yet students who saw that example were likely to omit the overflow device. In Experiment 3 negative features of the sample spill-proof coffee cup (mouthpieces and leaky straws) were explicitly ________________________________________________________________ [insert Figure 5 about here] ________________________________________________________________ pointed out and forbidden. ...
Citations
... These are likely to be important in intergroup idea exchange as well . For example, exposure to the ideas of others can result in fixation on a limited range of idea categories rather than on a broader range of divergent thinking (Kohn & Smith, 2011;Larey & Paulus, 1999;Smith, 2003). Fixation is likely to be a problem primarily in short-term settings in which there is no motivation to build or go beyond what has already been suggested. ...
Intragroup and intergroup network creativity were assessed in an experiment varying the degree of access to ideas generated by other groups. In an open-access condition, all members of two concurrent groups had access to the other group’s ideas. In the brokered condition, one member of each group had access to the other group’s ideas. In the control condition, two groups performed independently. Following three phases of idea generation and elaboration, groups developed their final plan for surviving a zombie apocalypse. The brokered condition led to the highest level of intergroup activity, and the final product novelty across all conditions was influenced by the novelty of the ideas and elaborations in the prior session. The effect of experimental condition on the integrative complexity of the final product was mediated by the degree of lexical similarity between the two groups’ documents. Final product novelty was negatively predicted by lexical similarity. Theoretical advances, implications, and future directions are discussed.
... While human intuition might suggest that creative group work, such as brainstorming and design problem-solving, should be effective, research has shown that group members suffer productivity loss due to various inhibitory factors, such as social loafing [42], social matching [24,56], evaluation apprehension [27,63], production blocking [65], negative priming [89], and fixation [73], among ...
... However, negative priming can also occur. Shared ideas can affect members' divergent thinking and evoke memory blockers that hinder members from producing unique and relevant knowledge (i.e., memory-biased retrieval set) [89]. As collaborators interact more with a set of ideas, they increase the likelihood of failing in retrieving additional ideas. ...
... It might have increased individuals' focus on contextually salient information. Consequently, it might have increased the likelihood of failing in retrieving additional ideas that were not evoked by the context [89]. Our results show a moderating effect of initial ideas that we provided participants for stimulation. ...
Group work involves a myriad of complex processes encompassing social, perceptual, cognitive, and contextual factors. However, there is a lack of empirical research on computer-supported group work processes and their impact on outcomes at different stages of group work, especially when creativity and quality of outcomes are significant. Group work processes can interfere and hinder productivity, which we refer to as the "group folding effect. " We designed a three-stage process structuring to enhance group work productivity. In a field study, we examined how process structuring shapes productivity in two sub-studies: design and peer feedback, each with 40 participants (N = 40). The results revealed that process structuring significantly improved both the quantity and quality of productivity. Additionally, process structuring appeared to reduce inhibitory effects of group work, such as negative priming, fixation on familiar ideas, and social comparison. We discuss the implications of this research in supporting productive group work processes in collaborative tools and insights into a pattern of the group folding effect.
... This negative transfer effect was demonstrated and studied using orthographically similar words to subsequent test word fragments as red herrings [56]. Intuitively, the red herrings lead participants away from the memory retrieval (or down incorrect neurological pathways by Hebbian terminology) required for correct responses and fixate on wrong connections [53]. Fixation in creative problem-solving can be increased by making red herrings more retrievable. ...
The quest for human imitative AI has been an enduring topic in AI research since its inception. The technical evolution and emerging capabilities of the latest cohort of large language models (LLMs) have reinvigorated the subject beyond academia to the cultural zeitgeist. While recent NLP evaluation benchmark tasks test some aspects of human-imitative behaviour (e.g., BIG-bench's 'human-like behavior' tasks), few, if not none, examine creative problem solving abilities. Creative problem solving in humans is a well-studied topic in cognitive neuroscience with standardized tests that predominantly use the ability to associate (heterogeneous) connections among clue words as a metric for creativity. Exposure to misleading stimuli - distractors dubbed red herrings - impede human performance in such tasks via the fixation effect and Einstellung paradigm. In cognitive neuroscience studies, such fixations are experimentally induced by pre-exposing participants to orthographically similar incorrect words to subsequent word-fragments or clues. The popular British quiz show Only Connect's Connecting Wall segment essentially mimics Mednick's Remote Associates Test (RAT) formulation with built-in, deliberate red herrings, which makes it an ideal proxy dataset to explore and study fixation effect and Einstellung paradigm from cognitive neuroscience in LLMs. In addition to presenting the novel Only Connect Wall (OCW) dataset, we also report results from our evaluation of selected pre-trained language models and LLMs (including OpenAI's GPT series) on creative problem solving tasks like grouping clue words by heterogeneous connections, and identifying correct open knowledge domain connections in respective groups. The code and link to the dataset are available at https://github.com/TaatiTeam/OCW.
... The advantages of constraints come from spurring on creative efforts and focusing attention (Chua & Iyengar, 2008;Stokes, 2005) while negative effects arise due to fixating on narrower solutions (Bayus, 2013;Jansson & Smith, 1991;Smith, 2003) or decreasing motivation (Amabile, 1983;Smith, 2003). ...
... The advantages of constraints come from spurring on creative efforts and focusing attention (Chua & Iyengar, 2008;Stokes, 2005) while negative effects arise due to fixating on narrower solutions (Bayus, 2013;Jansson & Smith, 1991;Smith, 2003) or decreasing motivation (Amabile, 1983;Smith, 2003). ...
... In contrast, the introduction of constraints and narrowing of options can generatively focus attention (Stokes, 2005) and free oneself from being overwhelmed with choice (Chua & Iyengar, 2008). However, too many constraints can lead to fixation effects on narrower solutions (Bayus, 2013;Jansson & Smith, 1991;Smith, 2003) and decreased motivation (Amabile, 1983;Smith, 2003). ...
Online innovation communities allow for a search for novel solutions within a design space bounded by constraints. Past research has focused on the effect of creative constraints on individual projects, but less is known about how constraints affect learning from repeated design submissions and the effect of the technical constraints that are integral to online platforms. How do creative versus technical constraints affect individual learning in exploring a design space in online communities? We analyzed ten years of data from an online innovation community that crowdsourced 136,989 design submissions from 33,813 individuals. We leveraged data from two types of design contests-creatively constrained and unconstrained-running in parallel on the platform, and we evaluated a natural experiment where a platform change reduced technical constraints. We find that creative constraints lead to high rates of learning only if technical constraints are sufficiently relaxed. Our findings have implications for the management of creative design work and the downstream effects of the technical constraints of the information systems that support online innovation communities.
... Active procrastinators tend to regard the time spent procrastinating as an incubation period that is conducive to creative problem solving (Sio & Rudowicz, 2007). Moreover, according to the incubation theory (Smith, 2003), the incubation interval would allow individuals to ignore sustained attention to the target so as to come up with a better solution. Studies have also found that daily planning behavior, confidence in long-term planning, and a sense of time control are positively correlated with creative thinking (Zampetakis et al., 2010). ...
... Active procrastinators perform better in creative thinking. In line with the incubation theory (Smith, 1995(Smith, , 2003, the incubation interval caused by active procrastination can make individuals think deeply and reach a better solution. Wallas's four-stage model of creative problem solving also emphasizes the importance of brewing (Wallas, 1926). ...
Many studies have suggested that procrastination can result in negative effects, such as anxiety and decline in academic performance; however, procrastination can be either active or passive. This study explored the serial mediation effect of personal mastery and creative self- concept in the correlation between active procrastination and creative thinking. A sample of 536 participants was asked to complete a series of questionnaires. The results demonstrated that creative self-concept played a mediating role in the correlation between active procrastination and creative thinking. Moreover, personal mastery and creative self-concept serially mediated the association between active procrastination and creative thinking. This study identified the critical factors associated with creative thinking and provided a reference for educators’ interventions for improving students’ creativity.
... There is significant literature on the benefits of brief breaks for creativity (Gilhooly, 2016). Taking time away mentally from a task may have several benefits that have been examined under the rubric of incubation, such as the reduction of mental fatigue, allowing for mental rehearsal of shared ideas, or the reduction of cognitive fixation on a subset of ideas (Gilhooly, 2016;Paulus et al., 2006;Smith, 2003). For example, brief breaks in individual brainstorming may allow for reflection about previously shared ideas which can yield additional ideas (Paulus et al., 2006). ...
... The presence of stimulus as inspiration has potentially adverse effects as well: showing potential solutions that exist in the same problem space as the one being solved by the designers can induce fixation [29]. Conscious or unconscious pre-judging of the problem is another way in which fixation manifests [30]. The kind of stimulus, the association the designer makes between the stimulus and the problem, and even the recency of the stimulus have all been seen to influence the solution generated by designers [31]. ...
Creative conversation among designers and stakeholders in a design project enables new ideas to naturally originate and evolve. Language allows for the exchange of values, priorities, and past experience whilst keeping solution forms usefully ambiguous. Yet there is a danger that only the language of people directly involved in the design process gets to be heard, limiting how inclusively the problems are interpreted, which in turn can impede how complex design problems are addressed. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have shown the exclusionary spaces that are often inhabited by designers, engineers, and developers of new artefacts and technologies. On the other hand, text data used to train language models for machine learning applications have the potential to highlight societal biases in ways that designers can utilise. In this paper, we report the results of an exploratory study using AI text generation to synthesize and narrate opinions and experiences that may be unfamiliar to designers. Three pairs of designers were given a complex socio-technical problem to solve. Of these, two pairs interacted with an AI text generator during the task, while one pair acted as a baseline condition. Analysing the conversational exchanges between the designers and the designers & AI, we observe how the use of AI leads to prompting nuanced interpretations of problems and ideas, opening up the objective problem and design lenses and interpretations. Finally, we discuss how the designers (re)assign different roles to the AI to suit their creative purposes.
... Thus, it seems that differences in the AUT performance cannot be completely traced back to dissimilarities in cognitive and executive skills, nor in specific affective variables, but are possibly related to differences in specific abilities underlying creative potential. Besides personality and environmental factors, several processes may be relevant in this regard (Benedek & Fink, 2019;Del Missier et al., 2015;Sternberg, 2005;Sternberg & Lubart, 1995), including the ability to switch to qualitatively different ideas (Acar & Runco, 2015;Goel, 2010;Kenett et al., 2018;Klein & Wolf, 1998;Mastria et al., 2021), strategic modulation of memory search (Benedek et al., 2017;Gilhooly et al., 2007;Keeney, 1994;Keller & Ho, 1988), avoidance of blocking ideas (Camarda et al., 2018;Smith, 2003;Storm & Patel, 2014), analogical reasoning and perspective change (Keller & Ho, 1988;Ward, Suss, Eccles, Williams, & Harris, 2011). ...
Recent meta-analytic work has highlighted lower creativity in schizophrenic patients as compared to control participants, but the cognitive and affective underpinnings of this difference still need to be fully understood. To this purpose, we adopted a multi-measure approach and compared a group of schizophrenic outpatients and a group of demographically-matched controls (N = 34) on the Alternative Uses Test (AUT) and the Remote Association Test (RAT), assessing divergent and convergent thinking respectively. The participants’ cognitive status, affective status, and response inhibition skills were also appraised. The results showed a significantly worse performance in patients vs. control participants in both tests of creativity. Performance was also negatively correlated with patients’ symptoms, being lower in more severe clinical conditions. The difference between groups in the RAT was no more significant when controlling for individuals’ cognitive functioning, in line with previous studies in healthy populations. In contrast, the difference in AUT fluency remained significant even when controlling for cognitive and affective measures. Our findings suggest that creativity reduction in schizophrenic patients involves both convergent and divergent thinking, and that the latter aspect is not simply the consequence of a general cognitive or inhibitory impairment.
... As a result, they may mentally fixate on these items which subsequently impedes the generation of appropriate solutions. This is consistent with research finding that problem-solving relies on the ability to generate appropriate solutions whilst inhibiting inappropriate responses [69,70]. ...
This research investigates whether thinking about the consequences of a problem being resolved can improve social problem-solving in clinical depression. We also explore whether impaired social problem solving is related to inhibitory control. Thirty-six depressed and 43 non-depressed participants were presented with six social problems and were asked to generate consequences for the problems being resolved or remaining unresolved. Participants were then asked to solve the problems and recall all the consequences initially generated. Participants also completed the Emotional Stroop and Flanker tasks. We found that whilst depressed participants were impaired at social problem-solving after generating unresolved consequences, they were successful at generating solutions for problems for which they previously generated resolved consequences. Depressed participants were also impaired on the Stroop task, providing support for an impaired inhibitory control account of social problem-solving. These findings advance our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning social problem-solving in depression and may contribute to the development of new therapeutic interventions to improve social-problem solving in depression.
... As such innovation activities are not part of the formal innovation process, ideas developed through bootlegging also get less feedback from the organization. Feedback has also been shown to lead to thinking along conventional and well-known paths (Smith, 2003) whereas the generation of radically new ideas is more likely without feedback (George, 2007). Furthermore, bootlegging allows for experimentation and exploration in different directions without the psychological pressure from managers to deliver results (Augsdorfer, 2008;Masoudnia & Szwejczewski, 2012). ...
Literature on strategy, innovation, and portfolio management has recently shown increased interest in the concept of planned emergence. This builds on an understanding that organizations’ innovation is triggered both by deliberate top‐down management approaches as well as emergent bottom‐up processes. However, little is known on how to effectively plan emergence. In this context, bootlegging has been mentioned as a potential approach, describing instances in which employees choose to innovate without the knowledge and permission of top managers. Whereas past research has focused on the individual employee, we shift the perspective to the overall tendency of bootlegging in organizations. We investigate which organizational conditions facilitate the propensity of bootlegging becoming a widespread practice in an organization, and how this tendency is associated with the organization’s innovativeness. Drawing on the theory of creative deviance, we argue that organizations deploying management practices fostering emergent and induced innovation initiatives increase structural strain and thereby bootlegging tendency in such organizations. As more innovation initiatives are elaborated outside the formal process, the number and diversity of ideas outside the strategic scope should increase. Higher bootlegging tendency is thereby proposed to be associated with higher portfolio innovativeness. Empirical evidence from the study of 930 respondents in 124 firms supports the notion that management practices supporting emergent innovation initiatives, increase bootlegging tendency, which in turn increases newness of the organization’s innovation portfolio. Management practices inducing a particular innovation direction are, in contrast, less prone to trigger structural strain with lesser effects on bootlegging tendencies of the organization. In sum, we contribute to the literature by providing evidence on bootlegging as a promising approach to enable ‘planned emergence’. We illustrate how different types of management practices can be used to regulate deviance in the organization to achieve higher degrees of newness of the organization’s innovation outcomes.
