Investigating the relationship between creativity and working memory capacity
Abstract
The recognition of creativity as a fundamental competence in society current situation, given its applications in thefields of education, innovation and business, arts and sciences, places educational institutions in charge of stimulating and development, from which, of course, higher education does not escape. In the face of complexity inherent to the evaluation of this construct, as well as the scarcity of instruments existing in our country. This study presents findings on the investigation of the relationship between Creativity and Working Memory Capacity (WMC). The study expounds on two parameters that were used to guide the research. The study hypothesizes that there is a significant influence of Working Memory Capacity on creativity.
Introduction
Each Man creates. Indeed, whether for practical or aesthetic reasons, human beings constantly intervene in the environment in order to transform it. This transformation activity takes place consciously or not. For example, a simple decoration idea, a personal touch in a cooking recipe, a solution to solve a problem, the production of a dance choreography, so many situations allowing the human being to enter a creative activity. There are many reasons every day for humans to interact with their environment, transform matter and produce something new. The specificity of the artist, known for his creativity, in comparison to the common man, comes from the fact that he has the will to create and that he is conscious of producing novelty. Present everywhere, creativity has always been an object of curiosity, fascination and questioning. In recent years, however, interest in creativity has further increased in our society (Runco, 1991). Indeed, this concept has recently aroused the interest of many researchers with various scientific approaches (sociology, history, psychology etc.). Despite this increased interest, the cognitive processes underlying creativity remain relatively unknown. Several questions remain unanswered, however. What are the optimal conditions that can stimulate creativity in humans? How do creative ideas emerge in the human mind? Is it possible to increase the creativity of an individual? Do the most creative people have a certain personality profile? Is creativity underpinned by better-known cognitive capacities and processes such as executive functions?
This work is part of a cognitive approach to the creativity process. Its purpose is to examine the relationships between creativity and a cognitive process – working memory capacity, – an executive functionswhich we call on daily. Working Memory Capacity refers to the part of memory that stores short-term memory. The memory is referred to as working memory since it is stored in the ‘quick access tab’ of the brain. The information stored here is available to an individual (Haswell, 2017). The working memory allows one to enhance coordination. Without the working memory, one would be required to think about what they are saying/repeatedly doing. The memory facilitates a smooth operation.
According to Magalakaki, Craft & Cremin (2012), many paradigms coexist for the understanding of creativity and, over time, there has been a transition in approaches, these being less and less linear, moving towards integrative approaches, where several elements are taken into account simultaneously. Alencar (2007) believes that creativity results from a network of interactions between individual factors and variables social, cultural and historical context, which will interfere in creative production. According to Bahia (2008) creativity implies overcoming what already exists and creating something new, being these variables considered as a constant for individuals.
The interest in the study of creativity and its development has been accentuated due to the progress and complexity that society has achieved in the socio-economic, arts, technologies and sciences. Thus, the need to develop creativity is reinforced by the intense and demanding changes resulting from globalization, which increasingly demand the preparation of human potential to meet the new reality. Mumford (2003) and Russ (2003) argue that there have been many advances in the area of creativity, in theoretical and methodological terms, but our knowledge remains limited, and there are still many issues open problems, which also results from its low consensus definition, being this complex, multifaceted and multi-determined concept.
In general terms, there is a consensus on the need for school institutions promote the creative potential and, more specifically about Teaching Higher education, creativity emerges as a transversal competence to develop, particularly in the course of the Bologna Process. However, the assessment of creativity is not an easy task, to which is added the scarcity of instruments duly validated in our country for that purpose. The object of this study is therefore to highlight, on the one hand, that the tasks of creativity and memory tasks of visuospatial work share a common variance.
According to Hyun and Luck (2007), the manipulation of mental images calls on visual-spatial working memory. Thus, the visuospatial working memory capacities, which are important in the tasks of manipulating mental images, could be related to the capacities of creativity. Indeed, when a person performs a creative task, he must request and organize all the information he has, for this he perpetually needs to maintain important information in working memory. For example, during a creativity task, the guiding idea of the creator must temporarily be integrated and kept in working memory. This allows him to generate a mental representation of what he wants to create. As the working memory is of limited capacity, in order not to saturate it, it is therefore very important to make the best use of it.
Working memory is stored temporality in the brain. It is stored in multiple locations within the brain. There are small bits of working memory for every activity. Nevertheless, working memory can only hold information for a limited time. Usually, working memory is active for only ten to twenty minutes. It is, therefore, essential that critical information in the working memory be transferred into long-term memory.
Still in the context of a creative task, in addition to keeping information in working memory, to create something new, the human being must inhibit certain ideas already used and known so as not to reproduce them. Human beings must therefore use relevant information and eliminate certain irrelevant information in order to be able to make appropriate choices and produce novelty. Inhibition is an executive function that corresponds to the ability to voluntarily decide to ignore dominant or automatic responses when it is necessary, for example, for the specific needs of a task.
The growth of studies on creativity is evident, given its applications in the field of education, innovation and business, the arts and sciences, and society as a whole (Runco & Albert, 2010). Creativity is an important topic, both at personal and individual, as well as with regard to society due to its wide range of capabilities. At the individual level, creativity is important in problem solving, for example. In relation to society, creativity can be relevant in science, in the discovery new scientific facts, new inventions or new social programs. Economically, the Creativity helps create new jobs by creating new products. There is still much to be learned about creativity, much to be done through new research and theories and, looking back, answering questions still open to the that has already been explored. The history of creativity research suggests that many ideas and issues have been debated literally for hundreds of years.
The history of the study of creativity being divided into “two ages”, before 1950 and after that date, marking the increase in interest in the study of this area, the same proposed by Guilford. Several authors have written about creativity, as Freud, Vyogtsky and Jung but none of them studied creativity. Most of the pioneers in creativity research were focused on other themes, for example Francis Galton was focused on heredity and human ability, Charles Spearman and Alfred Binet intended to measure intelligence, William James was interested in high-level cognition, and Cesare Lombroso studied genius and madness.
Until the seventies, the objective of the study of creativity was to outline the profile of creative person and the development of techniques that stimulate creative production. After that date, the researchers were interested in studying the environmental variables, the influence of social, cultural and historical factors in the development of creativity. It is now known that creative production goes beyond the personality and ability of the creator, being influenced by elements of the environment where the individual is inserted. Subsequently, the flow of research underwent changes, with a decrease. This can be explained by the weakening of the liberating and critical movements, characteristic of the 60s and 70s. However, a new interest in the area of the 1980s that remained until the end of the century. In 1990, at the International Creativity Conference, where researchers from various parts of the world, creativity has been declared a scientific discipline due to the studies already carried out, where it was also possible to discuss the state of the art and consensus that creativity is a multidimensional phenomenon, involving processes cognitive, affective, social and unconscious processes.
In the definition of creativity, two constructions emerge: the act of making or producing and, more specifically, the act of doing something new. Mental activity without a product is not creativity. True creativity goes through a process of invention or doing something new. Thus, creativity is the ability to produce new (unexpected and original) and appropriate (useful and adapted) works. The term should be reserved for products that are original, open new paths resulting from these new formulations that represent a discontinuity of those who preceded it. There is an inherent difficulty in trying to define creativity, because its essence is to go beyond the limits. According to Bahia (2008), creativity can be seen as the ability to overcoming what already exists, and thus must contemplate the creation of something new. These perspectives are both considered by the author as a constant of the human being, referring to the inevitably creative construction and reconstruction of the past, to the interpretation of the present and reflection on the personal, cultural and social future. So, it is considered that the ability to produce ideas, the ability to relate concepts, the ability to find different, unusual or even new and innovative solutions, the ability to detail, to express feelings, as well as the ability to surprise others, contribute to a possible definition of creativity that will allow a correct assessment of creativity, allowing an easier process of promotion.
In an attempt to systematize the multiple forms of creativity investigation carried out over time Simonton (Santos, 2010) says that the different approaches can be summed up to four P’s: person / personality ‘P’, product ‘P’, ‘P’ of process and ‘P’ of persuasion: The first P, for personality, concerns the analysis of the characteristics of personality of the creative subject. Through the development of a longitudinal study concluded that in traces of general personality, creative subjects try to be more socially reserved, more introspective, nonconformist, with low levels of self-concept, but extremely imaginative, self-reliant and with a passion for new experiences. Product OP is distinguished for analyzing creative products of different natures.
According to Amabile, a series of judges should be used, with experience in the assessed domain, independent in their way of assessing but taking into account o defines the creative response and establish comparisons with the most produced in the area. In evaluating the product, Torrance proposes four criteria: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. Later, the author presents the need to consider, also, criteria such as the emotional expression, the expressiveness of the title, the articulation of the plot, the break with borders, fantasy, humor, among others. The third P, the process, aims to lead to a reflection between creativity with “c” small, so everyday creativity, and creativity with a big “C” that suggests high creativity, which also leads to the reflection of divergent thinking in individuals that helps to predict creative performance in adulthood. In studies of Torrance concluded that the results of divergent thinking can predict creative performance in adulthood.
Finally, the P of persuasion appears as a dimension in acceptance and recognition of the creative product by other individuals. Context acceptance is essential for investment in the creative product. To understand creativity, it is necessary to consider internal variables and external. In this sense, four models and perspectives of creativity were elaborated in a systemic perspective: Sternberg’s investment theory, the component model of Amabile’s creativity, the perspective of Csikszentmihalyi systems and the Gardner’s interactive perspective.
Sternberg, initially restricted itself to internal attributes that contribute to the creative process highlighting intelligence, cognitive style, personality and motivation. Later, Sternberg and Lubart in order to understand the nature of the creativity expanded the initial model, in which they argue that the creative individual is the one willing and able to produce ideas in disuse or unknown and that they have growth potential, often facing resistance to acceptance by other individuals and society. The creative individual must persist with resistance and go against “Crowd”. According to this model, creative behaviour is considered as the result of six interrelated factors related: intellectual capacities, cognitive styles, prior knowledge, personality, motivation and context. This model included aspects already present on previously proposed approaches.
Sternberg and Lubart highlight that not all the elements the six factors are relevant to the creative process, but that they must be viewed interactively with the rest and not in isolation. Although these levels of resources are sources of individual differences, the decision to use a resource is the source most important (Sternberg, 2006). With regard to intellectual capacities, the authors argue that these are recognized as necessary but not sufficient for the creativity process, although three are particularly important: the synthetic ability to solve problems, exceeding the limits of conventional thinking; the analytical ability to recognize whether the ideas themselves are worth advancing or not; and finally, the practical-contextual capacity so that there can be knowledge about persuading others to sell their own ideas. The most important is the convergence between these capacities, none alone is capable of producing ideas that are considered to be creative.
These characteristics are related to not being limited, willingness to overcome obstacles, predisposition to take sensible risks, tolerance to ambiguity and perspective of self-efficacy, as well as, the individual must be willing to defend his idea to others and have the ability to communicate. Intrinsic motivation is essential for creativity. Second the motivation proved to be important in creative work, and these studies obtained results that suggest that creative work occurs when individuals love the task. The motivation it is not something that is inherent to the individual. Finally, in what regarding the context, it is necessary that it be favourable to creative ideas. Even having the necessary internal resources, without a favourable environment, creativity is never exhibited. The individual must decide how to respond to obstacles in the environment in which it is inserted. Some people leave their unfavourable forces in the environment to block their creative production, others not (Sternberg, 2006).
The Amabile Component Model Amabile’s compositional model of creativity seeks to explain how cognitive, motivational, social and personality factors influence the cognitive process. The author highlights the originality, the adequacy of the response and the variability of problem solving in the your definition of creativity. The great emphasis of this model is given to motivation and factors. This theory includes the context in which the individual is inserted and three intra-individual. The intra-individual components are: competencies for the domain (expertise, technical skill and innate talent in the field); relevant skills for creativity (flexible cognitive style, openness to experience, ability to use creative heuristics and a persistent work style); and finally, intrinsic motivation. These components must be interconnected, and none should be absent.
The external component, therefore the social environment, can influence the components given that the skills needed for creativity can be trained, shaped and acquired through experience taken through context, but the influence most immediate and relevant transmitted by the context is the motivational component. Based on existing models, the component theory specifies the components that are most likely to influence each stage of the creative process. Thus, the model is divided into five stages. The first step is the identification of the problem, it is the starting point, when the person becomes aware that there is an opportunity or need to solve a problem or to perform a new task. At this stage, motivation plays a crucial role, since which determines how the individual gets involved with the. The second stage refers to preparation, it is when the subject builds a range of information for solving the problem in which the relevant domain skills play a role important role.
The third phase is the generation of the response, in which the creative skills and motivation partly determine the outcome of this phase, solutions being produced candidates and possibilities of responses to the problem. The fourth stage is the validation of response, where the individual relies on the relevant domain skills to assess the novelty and usefulness of the answers and solutions found. Finally, in the fifth and final stage, the result, the decision is made through the evaluation made in the previous step and is communicated the answer. After the five phases of process if total success or failure is achieved the process ends, but if on the other On the other hand, if progress is made towards the final goal, the individual is likely to return to first phase.
Gardner, like Csikszentmihalyi, emphasized the systemic perspective in his creative thinking jobs. In 1983 he considered the creative individual, when proposing his theory of multiple intelligences and, more recently, proposed an integrating model of different levels of analysis to cover the phenomenon. So, the perspective the integrative approach comprises four levels of analysis. The first is the sub personal level, at which biological, neurological, genetic influences and the structure of the functioning of the nervous, metabolic and hormonal systems of the creative individual, and recognizes the lack of research on these variables in the area, but same. The second level is the personal level, where your previous theory is integrated (Gardner, 1983 cited in Morais, 2001) and this concerns the cognitive, emotional and relationships of the subjects. It considers that there are seven independent intelligences (Theory of Multiple Intelligences): linguistic or verbal, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, corporal- kinaesthetic, intrapersonal and interpersonal (Azevedo, 2007; Morais, 2001). From a non- cognitive, the author considers the importance of affective variables as characteristics of personality, interpersonal relationships, motivation and emotions.
The extra personal level is proposed as the structure of an area of knowledge, with each of these areas corresponding to a language and a set of specific skills. In addition to the languages used in the areas, it is also important to the status of knowledge, as well as the interaction between dominant knowledge and knowledge that the individual possesses is fundamental for creative realization to occur (Morais, 2001). Finally, the multi-personal level refers to environmental influence, norms, roles, behaviours and values associated with the social and historical context in which the individual is inserts. This level depends on the amplitude of the area, being that it can correspond to a group restricted to experts and specialists or to millions of subjects (Morais, 2001).
Convergent and divergent thinking are two different types of operations, considered as mental bases in intelligence and in the creativity process, respectively, although the divergent thinking is not synonymous with creative thinking, research shows that this is an essential component of the creative process. Convergent thinking involves only one solution, while divergent thinking includes an extensive search for information and the generation of countless responses to problems. The research on divergent thinking is very broad, having been produced at the over six decades from Guilford’s SOI model (1950 cited in Runco, 2010), although there have been innovations in the theme over time. The importance attached to divergent thinking is also implied by the amount of research devoted to the theme, as well as the large number of practical applications, and this theme is applies in the context of education, organizational and even everyday life and the field of creativity studies.
The SOI model identifies four factors of divergent thinking: fluency, elaboration, originality and flexibility. The first refers to the number of responses generated; flexibility concerns the number of categories included; The originality is rarity, with low statistical frequency; finally, the elaboration refers to the details that the subject adds (Bahia, 2007). Carr and Borkowski argue that divergent thinking is a basic fundamental element in metacognition, foreseeing the development and cognitive processes that make it possible to obtain intellectual behaviours, such as strategies for analysis, discriminating the synthesis and integration of information and making adjustments. Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, and Bernstein (1981 cited in Russo, 2004) maintain that problem solving and verbal ease are fundamental elements of functioning of intelligence. Furthermore, in the thematic of divergent thinking, knowledge assumes flexible and transferable perspective of previously learned schemes, which should be applied to a new and different task, allowing individuals to use skills strategic in a creative way (Carr & Borkowski, 1987 cited in Russo, 2004). Within defends Guilford’s multidimensional psychological construct, that is, concepts such as creative intelligence, creative problem solving, and divergent thinking are all part of a total conceptual system of creativity.
Imagery are mental representations of real objects, scenes, events or symbols, which may be short or long term, may be spontaneous or deliberate, being manipulated and generated through conscious effort. This term is usually described as schematic representations of thought, generated from internal suggestions or motivations, as opposed to external sensations and perceptions. Imagery is the “non- verbal ”. This term can be distinguished from sensation and perception, but, is naturally related to these, and should be considered as more than “visual”, it can be auditory, olfactory, gustatory, by images, imagination of sensations, pressure, pain and others associated with touch. In relation to the imagery process in creativity, research can be divided into three categories. The first concerns studies on the creative individual, where he describes their experiences during the construction of creative products, but although have shown an interesting method with a heuristic value, may be limited in their application.
The second type of study focuses on the attempt to demonstrate the correlation between the ability of individuals to have mental representations, with the scores to measures of creativity and creative potential. The results of these surveys indicate that there is a significant correlation between the liveliness of mental representations and the acceptance of authority, sensitivity, initiative, intellectuality, individuality and art. Finally, the third type of studies aims to demonstrate that the use of images / mental representations affect creative productivity. These are experimental studies and provide the training of methods and techniques of imagery in the resolution of problems in experimental groups, and control groups do not receive training. The results of these researches suggest that the training of mental representations improves the performance of individuals who already have the capacity of imagery developed, but to individuals where capacity is not noticeable, training only had a small impact. This process is an important topic, revealing its importance in the creation, interaction, response and manipulation of images as if they were royal objects, mental processes used contain the same psychophysical properties of perception sensorial.
“Memory collects the countless phenomena of our existence in a unitary whole; were it not for the unifying force of memory, our consciousness would shatter into as many fragments as the seconds already lived” Ewald Hering (1920). Roughly speaking, we call memory the capacity that living beings have to acquire, store and evoke information. Despite this apparently simplistic definition, we will see, in the course of the text, that when talking about memory, we are definitely not talking about something simple. Memory is one of the most important psychological processes, because in addition to being responsible for our personal identity and for guiding our daily lives to a greater or lesser degree, it is related to other cortical functions equally important, such as executive function and learning. Even without realizing it, we are making use of this important cognitive resource at all times. If we get in the car to go to college, we necessarily have to remember where we are going.
Remembering directly involves memory. Otherwise, we would be unable to reach our destination. Were it not for memory, we would not even know we attended college, we would not even know our name, nor the name of our parents, friends etc.
Regarding the way in which memories are stored, little is known about this. Despite the countless advances made by neuroscience in recent years, it is still a mystery to understand how electrical potentials and biochemical phenomena are linked to the mental representations we make, even if some neuroscientists dare to make conceptual leaps, closing premises that science is unable to substantiate. . What is currently known is that the information that reaches our brain forms a neural circuit, that is, the information received activates a network of neurons, which, if reinforced, will result in the retention of that information (for information, we understand any event that can be processed by the nervous system: a fact, an object, a personal experience, a feeling or an emotion). Therefore, repetition is considered a necessary strategy for memory. We do not forget, for example, the telephone number of our home because, throughout our lives, we have repeated this information countless times. This process interferes with memorizing the number exactly because every time we repeat the stimuli, we activate the same neural circuit. Continuous activation reinforces this circuit and makes it easier to recall the stored information later.
Regarding the storage process, we can divide it into three sub-processes, namely: acquisition, consolidation and evocation. The acquisition concerns the moment when the information reaches our nervous system and takes place through the sensory structures, which transport the received information to the brain. The stimulus reaches the receiving organs, which, through the sensitive nerves, reaches the central nervous system. Subsequently, we have the consolidation process, which concerns the moment of storing the information. This storage – which represents memory – can take place in two different ways: (a) through biochemical changes or (b) through electrophysiological phenomena. In electrophysiological phenomena, when we try to memorize a new situation, certain sets of neurons continue to fire for a few seconds, temporarily retaining the information only for as long as it is needed, extinguishing it shortly thereafter. This type of phenomenon has an extremely short-lived duration and does not form biochemical features. This is what happens in sensory memory and in working memory (or working memory) that we will discuss later.
On the other hand, biochemical phenomena (also called memory traces) include two types of changes: structural (morphological) and functional ones, which both occur in the neural circuitry. Structural changes include the formation of new dendritic spines (which allow a given neuron to receive more afferences from other neurons) or the formation of new axonal extensions (which allow a given neuron to transmit more signals to the neurons with which it connects). Morphological changes can also occur that create new circuits that previously did not exist. Finally, in the case of functional changes, new ion channels or new signalling proteins are formed, which optimize synaptic transmission. It is interesting to note that, both morphological and functional changes, have the same phenomenon as protein substrate, as biological substrate. Thus, the information (when repeated several times), in some way still unknown, produces factors that act on the neuron DNA, causing it to command the synthesis of new proteins, which can be, for example, ion channels (producing functional changes ), or dendritic spines and axonal extensions (producing morphological changes).
Finally, after the retention process, we will be able to start, if we so wish, the process of evoking memories, which concerns the spontaneous or voluntary return of the stored information. Evocation (or recovery) involves the organization of memory traces in a coherent sequence over time (a phenomenon called temporal integration) and occurs mainly in the prefrontal cortex, through a process called working memory, which will be detailed later. Some authors point out that there are two types of recovery frequently distinguished: recognition and remembering. The difference is quite simple: in recognition, we are faced with a stimulus previously known and stored, which implies a certain feeling of familiarity. That’s what happens when we meet people we know, for example. The contact with a previously stored stimulus brings the sensation of recognition. On the other hand, in remembering, there is nothing familiar momentarily present in our conscious awareness. In this case, we are not facing the previously known stimulus (which will be recovered).
There is a type of memory that, contrary to common sense, is not only used to store information. It serves, above all, to contextualize the individual and to manage the information that is passing through the brain. It is what we call working memory. The term working memory started to be used recently, appearing in the literature only in the 1960s, which indicates that its study is also recent. Perhaps that is why there is no convergence among researchers in the field regarding the definition of this term. However, there are some consensual points regarding the characteristics of working memory, namely: its ultra-fast duration (of just a few seconds) and its limited capacity (it retains only 5 to 9 items).
The duration of working memory is ultra-fast because it allows us to store information only while we are using that same information, that is, only while a certain work is being carried out or while we need to elaborate a certain behavior. When we want to order a pizza, for example, we look at the number on the fridge magnet and are able to store it long enough for us to reach the phone and dial the number. When temporarily stored information is no longer useful, it is discarded and usually forgotten. So we’re likely to forget the pizzeria’s phone number a few minutes after we’ve dialed. The working memory also comes into play when we are talking to someone and, in order for us to link the ideas so that the conversation makes sense, we have to remember (temporarily) the last and the penultimate word that were said so that the sentence and, afterwards, the conversation makes sense. At the end of the dialogue, we usually forget most words and remember only their content. Of course, it can happen that we do not forget the information. This will depend on our motivation to store that information. Therefore, if it is in our interest, we can turn it into a lasting memory.
A known model of working memory is the multicomponent model by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). According to these authors, working memory can be divided into 4 main components: (a) central executive (which represents the attentional system of the brain); (b) visuospatial sketch (which manages and temporarily stores information from images, as if we were seeing something mentally); (c) phonological loop (which manages and temporarily stores information from sounds, as if we were repeating sounds mentally); (d) episodic retainer (which manages information already stored in our brain, comparing it with the new information that arrives through the senses). Therefore, working memory is much more than a system of memories, it is fundamental in evoking memories and in the logical processing of information.
In this study, individuals were required to demonstrate creativity in terms of providing closely related words. Here, an individual uses the stored memory to explore related entities. For example, the word honey goes hand in hand with two entities. Honey may relate to bee or in romantic relationships relate to couples sweet-talking each other (Unsworth, 2018).
Information in the short-term memory requires rehearsing to stick in mind. Creativity is an innovative way of conducting operations (Westbrook et. al. 2018). A creative mind is one that is original and does not necessarily rely on reference. Working memory is easily accessible and effective during its entire active span. McLeod (1970) posits that data in working memory is stored in multiple locations. It is effective for about five seconds unless rehearsed. Creativity is an original framework. Therefore, it is insignificantly affected by working memory. The working memory process operates in four distinct stages. First, the phrenological loop receives auditory information. Secondly, the Central nervous system executes the command set by the received information. Next, the optical system inputs visual information. Lastly, the episodic buffer converges all the received commands into the working memory. According to Miller (1994), there is a limit for information that can be contained in the working memory.
Researchers have shown that working memory does not have a significant impact on creativity. Creativity is spontaneous. It can be advanced to expertise as time goes by. In this study, some participants found relating words with ease as compared to others. Findings show that participants with high working memory did not differ significantly from those with a low short memory.
Methodology
Participants were subjected to two tests. The first test involved subjecting participants to Operation Span and Symmetry Span (OPSS). In the second test, participants undertook the Compound Remote Associate Test (CRAT). The sample consisted of 40 participants. The participants were widely sparse in terms of age, gender working memory capacity; all participants fell between eighteen and fifty years old. The study used the SONA recruitment criterion. The participants used English as their first language. Additionally, all participants conformed to have normal or corrected to normal hearing and visual capacity. As such, the study ruled out bias in terms of disability (Campbell et. al, 2018). Furthermore, the study received ethical approval by the University of Central Lancashire to conduct the research.
Materials and Procedure
Participants were asked to complete two tasks. For the first task, working memory capacity was measured by symmetry and operation span tasks. When completing symmetry span tasks, there was to-be-remembered items which were locations of red squares in a 4×4 grid of potential locations while the distraction task was for the participants to see whether a displayed shape is symmetrical along its vertical axis. For the operation span task, the to-be-remembered items were letters, and the distractor was simple math problems that participants will have to solve between letters.
For the second task, the compound remote associate task, participants were instructed to wear headphones throughout. This test is known to relate to creativity. In this task, participants were presented with different groups of three words, and had to think of a fourth word that can relate to the previous three words in order to form compound words or well-known phrases (e.g. dew, comb, bee: honey-dew, honey-comb, honey-bee). Participants had to perform the task while ignoring speech presented over their headphones. Sometimes that to-be-ignored speech consisted of a sequence of words that was completely unrelated to any of the solution words, sometimes the speech was related to the solution word and sometimes the speech stream comprised a sequence of words that misleads or distracts from the solution word.
Results
The age range of the participants was 18 to 50. The ANOVA test indicated that
Correct results indicate a significant effect of SOS test on creativity
Statistically, F (21, 17) = 0.733, p= 0.753
Values on incorrect results show that there was a significant effect of SOS test on creativity statistically, F (21, 17) = 0.833, p=0.612
Irrelevant results indicate a statistically significant effect of SOS test on creativity
Statistically, F (21, 17) =0.771, p=0.717.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Discussion
Working memory capacity is a significant parameter to measure creativity is important because it serves as a simple way to measure short- term memory. Therefore, studies that focus on how people’s working memory capacity can be improved can help a lot in the field of creativity. Individuals with high WMC tend to be more creative compared to those with low WMC. The study did not study for the differences in the level of creativity across gender. Furthermore, the study used the participants at the same time. Exposing samples to the same conditions during the study, is an effective way of assessing the effect of given variables on an independent variable? It was hypothesized that participants would be more creative if their WMC is high or otherwise. Distractors like mathematic problems and music were used to measure the concentration ability of participants.
It is argued that creativity does not necessarily require earnest concentration. However, most experts have claimed that they invested a significant amount of time in perfecting their art. It was also hypothesized that participants would show more creativity by giving correct results when distractors were presented than when there were no distractors. Generally, both hypotheses were supported. The p-value for the first hypothesis was 0.0.753, which meant that the p-value was significant. Therefore, the two means were significantly different. The significant difference between the values indicated that participants got correct results when they were subjected to the CRAT test.
The results of the study indicate that individuals performed worse on a creative task when they were subjected to distractors. Individuals with high working memory capacity portray high creativity.
Therefore, distractors affect the creativity of an individual. A person tends to hold a limited amount of information in their memory at any given time. (Agarwal et. al., 2017). Some behaviours are functions of consistency and persistence. When a person gets used to doing one activity, their mind adapts to executing the command even when there are distractors (Campbell et. al, 2018).
It is possible to measure the flexibility of the mind by using constrained tests. Researchers are able to indicate the extent to which the brain can be stretched to accommodate the information. Creativity is measured beyond one’s capacity to comprehend familiar ideas. Linking three related words indicates the simplest form of creativity. One is just required to provide a word that can be used together with another word. The above reason necessitated the inclusion of ‘irrelevant’ as a possible response for the tests. Data from the finding showed that approximately all participants were giving relevant responses.
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