A6BakerHoehlMeyers

A6BakerHoehlMeyers

To Do

• please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• read Fischer, G., Giaccardi, E., Eden, H., Sugimoto, M., & Ye, Y. (2005) "Beyond Binary Choices: Integrating Individual and Social Creativity," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS) Special Issue on Computer Support for Creativity (E.A. Edmonds & L. Candy, Eds.), 63(4-5), pp. 482-512.

Task 1

Critically evaluate the following two claims based on the arguments in the reading assignment (the claims are from: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY):

• "An idea or product that deserves the label 'creative' arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person."
  • to do: comment whether this argument is valid? can you think of exceptions?
  • to do: reflect on your own creativity (or major achievements)- does the argument apply to them?
• "It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively."
  • to do: provide examples and analyze features/requirements of systems which "change the environment" to enhance creativity.

Task 2

Section 4 of the Paper lists four "Examples of Environments That Support Creativity"; for each four examples, say in one sentence

• what you found interesting and
• uninteresting or missing

Group response

Task 1

"An idea or product that deserves the label 'creative' arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person."

This argument, taken out of context, is a bit difficult to decipher. From the phrase "not only from the mind of a single person", it can be inferred that the "sources" mentioned earlier are the minds of other people. The argument seems to say that some ideas or products do not deserve the label creative solely because they were derived from the mind of a single person rather than many. We could see no reason why this should be the case. However, we felt that this is a moot point because we could not come up with any example of an idea or product arising solely from the mind of a single person. No man is an island, and any person who believes they have created something in isolation without (perhaps subconsciously) synergising ideas from countless other minds is fooling himself. We are all products of our environment and especially our education.Whether we realize it or not, we are standing on the shoulders of giants in literally every action we do, from reading a book to writing with a pencil to solving a complex problem in a novel way.

Creativity and originality often depend and build upon the work of others. One learns and understands what others have done and then builds upon that work in new and interesting ways, hence the proverb "standing on the shoulders of giants". This applies to the arts as well as the hard sciences and is especially prevalent for those pursuing Ph.D. degrees. The process of attaining a Ph.D. degree highlights how new ideas are formed not only through individual work but also through interactions with others. In other words, a Ph.D. program tends to #bubblec('signify', 'How does it signify it? Does it not rather require it?') work in both individual creativity and social creativity.

Douglas Comer does a fair job of summarizing a Ph.D. as a process wherein "one must master a specific subject completely. Second, one must extend the body of knowledge about that subject" (Comer). The process to accomplish this deserves further study. To master a subject, one must research the history, trends, and predictions about the subject he or she is interested in. One must comprehend the contributions of those that have come before them by reading journals, essays, books, and other writings of earlier researchers. To "extend the body of knowledge," one must build his or her own body of ideas and thoughts and contribute it to the research community through the same forms of literature. A Ph.D. student will usually write journal articles, essays, or portions of books. More importantly, these contributions are in collaboration with advisors, colleagues, and peers. By collaborating with others in the field, one can build a more creative and thorough contribution. Advisor, colleague, committee, and peer reviews are a form of social creativity. By working with others, a Ph.D. student, and his or her collaborators, can produce more than any of the individuals could alone. Attending conferences, reading journal articles, and even casual discussions can provide ideas and inspiration to complement an individual's own experience and creativity. This matches well with Csikszentmihalyi's claim that creative work "arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person." In fact, when looked at from a social creativity perspective, much of the research field currently relies on the claim being true. Research and advancement in nearly all fields is done as synergistic steps forward in progress. The process of collaboration adds to a product that is greater than an individual's own work.


"It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively."

We agree that it is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment, including but not limited to purely physical modifications. Alice Isen and her colleagues have pursued research indicating the importance of affect in increasing creativity and facilitating problem solving (Isen). Their research is focused on the effects of inducing mild positive affect to the extent it would normally be encountered in daily activities rather than atypical scenarios such as winning the lottery.

Isen and her colleagues tested their theories using Karl Duncker's candle task, demonstrated in earlier research as a reliable measure of problem solving innovation and creativity(1sen, 1987). During this task, participants are led to a table covered by three items: a box of tacks, a candle, and a book of matches. The goal of this exercise is to attach the candle to the wall in such a way that it will burn without dripping wax on the floor or table. Unlike open-ended problem spaces, the correct solution to this puzzle requires dumping the tacks from the box, tacking the box to the wall, and placing the lit candle inside the box, such that the box catches the melted wax.

Sixty five undergraduate psychology students participated in this experiment. Each was randomly assigned to one of three conditions, two in which affect was attempted to be manipulated prior to the candle task and a control condition. The positive affect condition was induced by having participants watch five minutes of comedy footage from blooper reels. And the neutral affect condition was induced by showing participants a five minute clip from a math movie. All participants were given a total of ten minutes to complete the puzzle task.

#bubblec("Sixty five undergraduate psychology students participated in this experiment. Each was randomly assigned to one of three conditions, two in which affect was attempted to be manipulated prior to the candle task and a control condition. The positive affect condition was induced by having participants watch five minutes of comedy footage from blooper reels. And the neutral affect condition was induced by showing participants a five minute clip from a math movie. All participants were given a total of ten minutes to complete the puzzle task.", "Once is enough")

On average, her studies show positively affected individuals succeed at the required task 75% of the time, where as non-manipulated individuals have an average success rate ranging between 11-16% (Isen, 1987). Although unproven, Isen believes that positive feelings naturally cue and facilitate access to a larger and more diverse set of positive material in memory (Isen, 2007). She feels that this access naturally increases the number of relationships, associations, and integrations that can be made between a diverse range of objects or ideas in memory ultimately resulting in creativity. This being said, how can we change our environments to help us be and think more positively?

More traditional environmental manipulations that can induce social creativity include providing participants access to a diverse set of tangible materials (see the picture below describing "communication online", #bubblec("Do you see the similarity to Schneiderman's circles of relationships?", "to whom is this question?")). Forcing people to develop, visualize, and explain their ideas through universally unfamiliar media puts everyone on the same playing field and can encourage interesting metaphors and unpredictable conversations.

Task 2

Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC)

• The EDC was very interesting in its integration of physical and digital elements in facilitating across-the-table conversations although it seemed severely limited by having to be completely integrated at use-time, offering participants little room for meta-design applications such as integrating their own tools.

• Caretta's concept of providing both an individual and a group space could help foster both types of creativity, but could also lead to some difficult social situations trying to negotiate when to do individual work and when to participate with the group.

• The Renga project was an interesting progression of art from a "monologue" to an interactive "dialogue" to create new artwork, however, it seems prone to kludgy and patchy artwork rather than truly cohesive artwork.

• The CodeBroker system seems incredibly useful as it provides immediately usable and relevant code as a developer is solving problems allowing him or her to focus on the larger problem rather than the details, but could be enhanced by providing an integrated process to improve selected functions and have those changes automatically uploaded back to the OSS community.

References

Comer, D. Notes On the PhD Degree. Retrieved October 6, 2008 from Purdue: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/essay.phd.html.

Isen, A. M., Daubman, K.A., & Nowicki, G.P. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2, 1122-1131.

Isen, A.M. (2007) Positive Affect, Cognitive Flexibility, and Self-control. Persons in Context, Chapter 8, 130-147.

Isen, A. M. (1999). On the relationship between affect and creative problem solving. In S.W. Russ (Ed.), Affect, creative experience and psychological adjustment (pp. 3-17). Philadelphia, PA: Brunnner/Mazel.