arXiv subjects

Liane Gabora

Publications and source records attributed to Liane Gabora.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

The Neural Basis and Evolution of Divergent and Convergent Thought

This chapter takes as its departure point a neural level theory of insight that arose from studies of the sparse, distributed, content-addressable architecture of associative memory. It is argued that convergent thought is most fruitfully characterized in terms of, not the generation of a single correct solution (as it is conventionally construed), but using concepts in their most compact form by activating neural cell assemblies that respond to their most typical properties. This allows them to be deployed in a conventional manner such that effort is reserved for exploring causal relationships. Conversely, it is argued that divergent thought is most fruitfully characterized in terms of, not the generation of multiple solutions (as it is conventionally construed), but using concepts in a form that is, albeit expanded, constrained by the situation, by activating neural cell assemblies that respond to context-specific atypical properties. This allows them to be deployed in a manner that is conducive to exploring unconventional yet potentially relevant associations, and unearthing potentially useful relationships of correlation. Thus, divergent thought can involve as few as one idea. This proposal is compatible with widespread beliefs that (1) most creative tasks require not many solutions but one, yet entail both divergent and convergent thinking, and (2) not all problems with multiple solutions require creative thinking, and conversely, some problems with single solution do require creative thought. The chapter discusses how the ability to shift between convergent and divergent modes of thought may have evolved, and it concludes with educational and vocational implications.

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arXiv2018

The Making of a Creative Worldview

Research at the interface between cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the science of complex, dynamical systems, is piecing together an understanding of the creative process, including how it works, how it can be fostered, and the developmental antecedents and personality traits of particularly creative people. This chapter examines the workings of creative minds, those with the potential to significantly impact the evolution of human culture.

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arXiv2018

Identity, Kinship, and the Evolution of Cooperation

Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human and much current research attempts to explain this fact. We draw upon social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness to present an integrated theory of human cooperation that explains aspects of human cooperation that are problematic for other theories (e.g., defector invasion avoidance, preferential assortment to exclude free riders, and the second order free rider problem). We propose that the evolution of human cooperative behavior required (1) a capacity for self-sustained, self-referential thought manifested as an integrated worldview, including a sense of identity and point of view, and (2) the cultural formation of kinship-based social organizational systems within which social identities can be established and transmitted through enculturation. Human cooperative behavior arose, we argue, through the acquisition of a culturally grounded social identity that included the expectation of cooperation among kin. This identity is linked to basic survival instincts by emotions that are mentally experienced as culture laden feelings. As a consequence, individuals are motivated to cooperate with those perceived culturally as kin, while deviations from expected social behavior are experienced as threatening to one's social identity, leading to punishment of those seen as violating cultural expectations regarding socially proper behavior.

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arXiv2017

Autocatalytic networks in cognition and the origin of culture

It has been proposed that cultural evolution was made possible by a cognitive transition brought about by onset of the capacity for self-triggered recall and rehearsal. Here we develop a novel idea that models of collectively autocatalytic networks, developed for understanding the origin and organization of life, may also help explain the origin of the kind of cognitive structure that makes cultural evolution possible. In our setting, mental representations (for example, memories, concepts, ideas) play the role of 'molecules', and 'reactions' involve the evoking of one representation by another through remindings, associations, and stimuli. In the 'episodic mind', representations are so coarse-grained (encode too few properties) that such reactions are catalyzed only by external stimuli. As cranial capacity increased, representations became more fine-grained (encoded more features), allowing them to act as catalysts, leading to streams of thought. At this point, the mind could combine representations and adapt them to specific needs and situations, and thereby contribute to cultural evolution. In this paper, we propose and study a simple and explicit cognitive model that gives rise naturally to autocatylatic networks, and thereby provides a possible mechanism for the transition from a pre-cultural episodic mind to a mimetic mind.

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arXiv2017

The Social Benefits of Balancing Creativity and Imitation: Evidence from an Agent-based Model

Although creativity is encouraged in the abstract it is often discouraged in educational and workplace settings. Using an agent-based model of cultural evolution, we investigated the idea that tempering the novelty-generating effects of creativity with the novelty-preserving effects of imitation is beneficial for society. In Experiment One we systematically introduced individual differences in creativity, and observed a trade-off between the ratio of creators to imitators, and how creative the creators were. Excess creativity was detrimental because creators invested in unproven ideas at the expense of propagating proven ones. Experiment Two tested the hypothesis that society as a whole benefits if individuals adjust how creative they are in accordance with their creative success. When effective creators created more, and ineffective creators created less (social regulation), the agents segregated into creators and imitators, and the mean fitness of outputs was temporarily higher. We hypothesized that the temporary nature of the effect was due to a ceiling on output fitness. In Experiment Three we made the space of possible outputs open-ended by giving agents the capacity to chain simple outputs into arbitrarily complex ones such that fitter outputs were always possible. With the capacity for chained outputs, the effect of social regulation could indeed be maintained indefinitely. The results are discussed in light of empirical data.

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arXiv2017

Toward a Quantum Theory of Humor

This paper proposes that cognitive humor can be modeled using the mathematical framework of quantum theory. We begin with brief overviews of both research on humor, and the generalized quantum framework. We show how the bisociation of incongruous frames or word meanings in jokes can be modeled as a linear superposition of a set of basis states, or possible interpretations, in a complex Hilbert space. The choice of possible interpretations depends on the context provided by the set-up vs. the punchline of a joke. We apply the approach to a verbal pun, and consider how it might be extended to frame blending. An initial study of that made use of the Law of Total Probability, involving 85 participant responses to 35 jokes (as well as variants), suggests that the Quantum Theory of Humor (QTH) proposed here provides a viable new approach to modeling humor.

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arXiv2016

A Possible Role for Entropy in Creative Cognition

This paper states the case for applying the conceptual and analytic tools associated with the study of entropy in physical systems to cognition, focusing on creative cognition. It is proposed that minds modify their contents and adapt to their environments to minimize psychological entropy: arousal-provoking uncertainty, which can be experienced negatively as anxiety, or positively as a wellspring for creativity (or both). Thus, intrinsically motivated creativity begins with detection of high psychological entropy material (e.g., a question or inconsistency), which provokes uncertainty and is arousal-inducing. This material is recursively considering from new contexts until it is sufficiently restructured that arousal dissipates and entropy reaches an acceptable level. Restructuring involves neural synchrony and dynamic binding, and may be facilitated by temporarily shifting to a more associative mode of thought. The creative outcome may similarly induce restructuring in others, and thereby contribute to the cultural evolution of more nuanced understandings. Thus, the concept of entropy could play a unifying role in cognitive science as a driver of thought and action, and in cultural studies as the driver of the creative innovations that fuel cultural evolution. The paper concludes with an invitation for cross-disciplinary exploration of this potential new arena of entropy studies.

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arXiv2016

The Creative Process in Musical Composition: An Introspective Account

This chapter charts the creative process in the composition of a piece of music titled 'Stream not gone dry' that unfolded, while I was primarily occupied with other matters, over the course of nearly two decades. It avoids discussion of the technical aspects of musical composition, and it can be read by someone with no formal knowledge of music. The focus here is on what the process of composing this particular piece of music says about how the creative process works. My interpretation of the music-making process may be biased by my academic view of creativity, but I believe that the influence works primarily in the other direction, my understanding of how the creative process works is derived from experiences creating. This intuitive understanding is shaped over time by the process of reading scholarly papers on creativity and working them into my own evolving theory of creativity, but the papers that I resonate with and incorporate are those that are in line with my experience. This chapter just makes the influence of personal experience more explicit than in other more scholarly writings on creativity.

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arXiv2016

Toward an Evolutionary-Predictive Foundation for Creativity

Dietrich and Haider (2014) justify their integrative framework for creativity founded on evolutionary theory and prediction research on the grounds that "theories and approaches guiding empirical research on creativity have not been supported by the neuroimaging evidence". Although this justification is controversial, the general direction holds promise. This commentary clarifies points of disagreement and unresolved issues, and addresses mis-applications of evolutionary theory that lead the authors to adopt a Darwinian (versus Lamarckian) approach. To say that creativity is Darwinian is not to say that it consists of variation plus selection---in the everyday sense of the term---as the authors imply; it is to say that evolution is occurring because selection is affecting the distribution of randomly generated heritable variation across generations. In creative thought the distribution of variants is not key, i.e., one is not inclined toward idea A because 60% of one's candidate ideas are variants of A while only 40% are variants of B; one is inclined toward whichever seems best. The authors concede that creative variation is partly directed; however, the greater the extent to which variants are generated non-randomly, the greater the extent to which the distribution of variants can reflect not selection but the initial generation bias. Since each thought in a creative process can alter the selective criteria against which the next is evaluated, there is no demarcation into generations as assumed in a Darwinian model. We address the authors' claim that reduced variability and individuality are more characteristic of Lamarckism than Darwinian evolution, and note that a Lamarckian approach to creativity has addressed the challenge of modeling the emergent features associated with insight.

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arXiv2016

Creativity Training for Future Engineers: Preliminary Results from an Educative Experience

Due in part to the increased pace of cultural and environmental change, as well as increased competition due to globalization, innovation is become one of the primary concerns of the 21st century. We present an academic course designed to develop cognitive abilities related to creativity within an engineering education context, based on a conceptual framework rooted in cognitive sciences. The course was held at École Polytechnique de Montréal (ÉPM), a world renowned engineering school and a pillar in Canada's engineering community. The course was offered twice in the 2014-2015 academic year and more than 30 students from the graduate and undergraduate programs participated. The course incorporated ten pedagogical strategies, including serious games, an observation book, individual and group projects, etc., that were expected to facilitate the development of cognitive abilities related to creativity such as encoding, and associative analytical thinking. The CEDA (Creative Engineering Design Assessment) test was used to measure the students' creativity at the beginning and at the end of the course. Field notes were taken after each of the 15 three-hour sessions to qualitatively document the educative intervention along the semester and students gave anonymous written feedback after completing the last session. Quantitative and qualitative results suggest that an increase in creativity is possible to obtain with a course designed to development cognitive abilities related to creativity. Also, students appreciated the course, found it relevant, and made important, meaningful learnings regarding the creative process, its cognitive mechanism and the approaches available to increase it.

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arXiv2016

Generalizing Prototype Theory: A Formal Quantum Framework

Theories of natural language and concepts have been unable to model the flexibility, creativity, context-dependence, and emergence, exhibited by words, concepts and their combinations. The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has instead been successful in capturing these phenomena such as graded membership, situational meaning, composition of categories, and also more complex decision making situations, which cannot be modeled in traditional probabilistic approaches. We show how a formal quantum approach to concepts and their combinations can provide a powerful extension of prototype theory. We explain how prototypes can interfere in conceptual combinations as a consequence of their contextual interactions, and provide an illustration of this using an intuitive wave-like diagram. This quantum-conceptual approach gives new life to original prototype theory, without however making it a privileged concept theory, as we explain at the end of our paper.

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arXiv2015

LIVEIA: A Light-based Immersive Visualization Environment for Imaginative Actualization

This paper describes an immersive and interactive visualization environment that uses light as a metaphor for psychological phenomena. Creative life force is portrayed as ambient light, and peoples' psyches are represented by spheres that amplify and transform light. Personality characteristics, situations, and relationships are systematically depicted using a systematic visual language based on the properties of light and how it interacts with physical objects. The technology enables users to visualize and creatively experiment with light-based representations of themselves and others, including patterns of interaction and how they have come about, and how they could change and unfold in the future.

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arXiv2015

Probing the Mind Behind the (Literal and Figurative) Lightbulb

After doing away with the evolutionary scaffold for BVSR, what remains is a notion of "blindness" that does not distinguish BVSR from other theories of creativity, and an assumption that creativity can be understood by treating ideas as discrete, countable entities, as opposed to different external manifestations of a singular gradually solidifying internal conception. Uprooted from Darwinian theory, BVSR lacks a scientific framework that can be called upon to generate hypotheses and test them. In lieu of such a framework, hypotheses appear to be generated on the basis of previous data--they are not theory-driven. The paper does not explain how the hypothesis that creativity is enhanced by engagement in a "network of enterprises" is derived from BVSR; this hypothesis is more compatible with competing conceptions of creativity. The notion that creativity involves backtracking conflates evidence for backtracking with respect to the external output with evidence for backtracking of the conception of the invention. The first does not imply the second; a creator can set aside a creative output but cannot go back to the conception of the task he/she had prior to generating that output. The notion that creativity entails superfluity (i.e., many ideas have "zero usefulness") is misguided; usefulness is context-dependent, moreover, the usefulness of an idea may reside in its being a critical stepping-stone to a subsequent idea.

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arXiv2015

The Silver Lining Around Fearful Living

This paper discusses in layperson's terms human and computational studies of the impact of threat and fear on exploration and creativity. A first study showed that both killifish from a lake with predators and from a lake without predators explore a new environment to the same degree and plotting number of new spaces covered over time generates a hump-shaped curve. However, for the fish from the lake with predators the curve is shifted to the right; they take longer. This pattern was replicated by a computer model of exploratory behavior varying only one parameter, the fear parameter. A second study showed that stories inspired by threatening photographs were rated as more creative than stories inspired by non-threatening photographs. Various explanations for the findings are discussed.

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arXiv2015

Are Effective Leaders Creative?

This paper explains in layperson's terms how an agent-based model was used to investigate the widely held belief that creativity is an important component of effective leadership. Creative leadership was found to increase the mean fitness of cultural outputs across an artificial society, but the more creative the followers were, the greater the extent to which the beneficial effect of creative leadership was washed out. Early in a run when the fitness of ideas was low, a form of leadership that entails the highest possible degree of creativity was best for the mean fitness of outputs across the society. As the mean fitness of outputs increased a transition inevitably occurs after which point a less creative style of leadership proved most effective. Implications of these findings are discussed.

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arXiv2015

Can Other People Make You Less Creative?

This paper explains in layperson's terms how an agent-based model was used to investigate the hypothesis that culture evolves more effectively when novelty-generating creative processes are tempered by imitation processes that preserve proven successful ideas. Using EVOC, an agent-based model of cultural evolution we found that (1) the optimal ratio of inventing to imitating ranged from 1:1 to 2:1 depending on the fitness function, (2) there was a trade-off between the proportion of creators to conformers and how creative the creators were, and (3) when agents in increased or decreased their creativity depending on the success of their latest creative efforts, they segregated into creators and conformers, and the mean fitness of ideas across the society was higher. It is tentatively suggested that through the unconscious use of social cues, members of a society self-organizes to achieve a balanced mix of creators and conformers.

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arXiv2015

Physical Light as a Metaphor for Inner Light

The metaphor between physical light and inner light has a long history that permeates diverse languages and cultures. This paper outlines a system for using basic principles from optics to visually represent psychological states and processes such as ideation, enlightenment, mindfulness, and fragmentation versus integrity, as well as situations that occur between people involving phenomena such as honest versus deceptive communication, and understanding versus misunderstanding. The paper summarizes two ongoing projects based on this system: The Light and Enlightenment art installation project, and the Soultracker virtual reality project. These projects enable people to depict their inner lives and external worlds including situations and relationships with others, both as they are and as they could be, and explore alternative paths for navigating challenges and living to their fullest potential. The projects aim to be of clinical value as therapeutic tools, as well as of pedagogical value by providing a concrete language for depicting aspects of human nature that can otherwise seem elusive and intangible.

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arXiv2015

The 'Power of Then': The Uniquely Human Capacity to Imagine Beyond the Present

Humans appear to be uniquely in their ability to transcend the present and reflect on current ideas in terms of what was experienced in the past, or fantasize about the future. This paper presents an account, in layperson terms, of how this ability came about, its importance in modern life, and why it defines our human-ness.

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