When the human mind is free to roam, its subjective experience is characterized by a continuously evolving stream of thought. Although there is a technique that captures people's streams of free thought-free association-its utility for scientific research is undermined by two open questions: (a) How can streams of thought be quantified? (b) Do such streams predict psychological phenomena? We resolve the first issue-quantification-by presenting a new metric, "forward flow," that uses latent semantic analysis to capture the semantic evolution of thoughts over time (i.e., how much present thoughts diverge from past thoughts). We resolve the second issue-prediction-by examining whether forward flow predicts creativity in the lab and the real world. Our studies reveal that forward flow predicts creativity in college students (Study 1) and a representative sample of Americans (Study 2), even when controlling for intelligence. Studies also reveal that membership in real-world creative groups-performance majors (Study 3), professional actors (Study 4) and entrepreneurs (Study 5)-is predicted by forward flow, even when controlling for performance on divergent thinking tasks. Study 6 reveals that forward flow in celebrities' social media posts (i.e., on Twitter) predicts their creative achievement. In addition to creativity, forward flow may also help predict mental illness, emotional experience, leadership ability, adaptability, neural dynamics, group productivity, and cultural success. We present open-access online tools for assessing and visualizing forward flow for both illustrative and large-scale data analytic purposes.
It is a common phenomenon to all who have observed the behavior of a rat, domestic or wild (other animals as well), when being "chased" or "disturbed" by molesting stimuli to see it seek a corner of a room, or some enclosure, and there "crouch" and "quiver" with fear until the way is opened for escape and then to "flee for its life" to another place of concealment; or perhaps to some "hole" which affords permanent escape. This means that when under the influence of disturbing stimuli the rat's behavior fluctuates between extremes-that of inhibited overt activity, with the exception of the "crouching" and other aspects of emotional behavior, and that of extreme hyper-activity as demonstrated by his "speediness in running way" from the molesting stimuli. While some psychologists (Dashiell for instance) now conceive of "drives" 1 or "tissue needs" as being the source of initiating activity which may or may not be directed toward a goal as in learning, others 2 in human behavior, at least, have intimated that "emotions" act as motives to set the organism going. The writer is not here concerned with that aspect of emotions which may or may not initiate random exploratory behavior which when initiated seems somehow to be directed toward a goal, as is the case in learning; nor is he here concerned with the effect of emotions on human behavior, directed or otherwise, in which elaborate thought processes may have been built up toward emotional situations which at times
1986) contended that preference was inadequately understood as a construct and that a more incisive conceptualization was needed to promote research and theoretical considerations. We contend that their offering adds to the terminological confusion. A brief critique of Grantham and Gordon's notions and an alternative conceptualization and schema are offered.
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