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Reference: Gabora, L. (2010). Recognizability of creative style within and across domains: Preliminary studies. Proceedings of the Annual
Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. August 11-14, 2010, Portland, Oregon.
Recognizability of Individual Creative Style Within and Across Domains:
Preliminary Studies
Liane Gabora ([email protected])
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
Okanagan campus, 3333 University Way
Kelowna BC, V1V 1V7, CANADA
Abstract
It is hypothesized that creativity arises from the self-mending
capacity of an internal model of the world, or worldview. The
uniquely honed worldview of a creative individual results in a
distinctive style that is recognizable within and across
domains. It is further hypothesized that creativity is domain-
general in the sense that there exist multiple avenues by
which the distinctiveness of one’s worldview can be
expressed. These hypotheses were tested using art students
and creative writing students. Art students guessed
significantly above chance both which painting was done by
which of five famous artists, and which artwork was done by
which of their peers. Similarly, creative writing students
guessed significantly above chance both which passage was
written by which of five famous writers, and which passage
was written by which of their peers. These findings support
the hypothesis that creative style is recognizable. Moreover,
creative writing students guessed significantly above chance
which of their peers produced particular works of art,
supporting the hypothesis that creative style is recognizable
not just within but across domains.
Keywords: art; creative writing; creativity; Darwinian
theory; expertise; heuristic search; honing; style; voice.
Introduction
The therapeutic nature of the creative process is well
known. Eminent creators and laypeople alike often claim
that through engagement in creative activities they gain a
clearer sense of themselves as unique individuals. By
making artistic choices, and observing how these choices
guide subsequent thoughts about the work, eventually
culminating in original, creative form, they acquire self-
knowledge, and often, are left with a sense of completeness.
The transformation that occurs on canvas or on the written
page is said to be mirrored by a sense of personal
transformation and self-discovery that occurs within.
Artists often find a style that feels as if it is ‘theirs’ only
after periods of exploration with different media and
established styles and art forms. Similarly, writers speak of
transitioning from a stage in which they were merely
imitating the styles of authors they admired to a stage in
which they discovered their own authentic ‘voice’. This
sense of self-discovery may seem to the creator as real as
anything he or she has ever experienced, and the transition
from merely imitating others to finding one’s own
identifiable style is often evident to anyone exposed to an
individual’s creative works. But although the phenomenon
of recognizable creative style seems obvious to artists
themselves, and to those who appreciate what they do, it is
not predicted by well-known theories of creativity.
This paper presents the results of preliminary experiments
designed to test the hypothesis that creative individuals
possess a distinctly recognizable creative style, and that this
creative style is recognizable not just within a domain but
across domains. We begin by discussing by well-known
theories of creativity, and how the phenomena of individual
style and ‘voice’ are not predicted by them. Three studies
are then presented. The first two studies test the hypothesis
that the phenomenon of creative style is real; that is, that
creative individuals such as artists and writers genuinely
exhibit a creative style that others come to associate with
them. The third study tests the hypothesis that an
individual’s creative style is recognizable not just in one
domain, but across different domains. Finally, we discuss
how the findings are compatible with a new theory of
creativity.
Theories of Creativity
This section very briefly summarizes some leading theories
of how the creative process works, and then presents a new
theory of creativity referred to as honing theory.
Creativity as Heuristic Search
Inspired by the metaphor of the mind as a computer (or
computer program), it was proposed that creativity involves
a process of heuristic search, in which rules of thumb guide
the inspection of different states within a particular state
space (set of possible solutions) until a satisfactory solution
is found (Eysenck, 1993; Newell, Shaw & Simon 1957;
Newell & Simon 1972). In heuristic search, the relevant
variables are defined up front; thus the state space is
generally fixed. Examples of heuristics include breaking the
problem into sub-problems, hill-climbing (reiteratively
modifying the current state to look more like the goal state),
and working backward from the goal state to the initial state.
A variation on this is the view that creativity involves
heuristics that guide the search for, not a possibility within a
given state space, but a new state space itself (e.g., Boden,
1990; Kaplan & Simon, 1990, Ohlsson, 1992). That is, it
involves switching from one representation of the problem
to another, sometimes referred to as restructuring
(Weisberg, 1995).
The Expertise View of Creativity
Some posit that creativity involves everyday thought
processes such as remembering, planning, reasoning, and
restructuring; no special or unconscious thought processes