Attention deployment and nonverbal fluency.

Abstract

Thirl}' anagram problems were given lo 91 undergraduate subjects, drawn from the upper and lower 25%, on verbal and nonverbal fluency tests, of a first-year psychology population. Following the experimental procedure described by Mendelsohn and Griswold, immediately before the anagram task, subjects learned a 25word list, while another list was played on a tape recorder. Ten of the anagram solutions appeared in the memorized list (focal incidental cues) and 10 in the interference list (peripheral incidental cues). High scorers on the nonverbal fluency tests made significantly more use of the focal cues than low scorers. High scorers on the verbal tests also utilized more focal incidental cues than low scorers, but the difference between groups was not significant. Neither high nor low scorers utilized the peripheral cues. There was no difference between high and low groups in rote recall of the memorized list. The results provide at least partial support for a relationship between attention deployment and one important aspect of creativity, and indicate that the Mendelsohn findings of greater use of incidental verbal cues by high Remote Associates Test scorers was not a result of their higher vocabulary level.

Associative and attentional processes in creative performance1

“…Thus, three supportive studies take on special significance. Dewing and Battye (1971), using the Mendelsohn and Griswold (1964) procedure, found performance on fluency tests to be positively related to cue utilization. Interestingly, the results are dependent primarily upon the nonverbal fluency measures (from Torrance, 1962).…”

Individual differences in problem solving via insight

“…Although originally intended to measure creativity, the RAT appears to be better suited to measure verbal fluency (Dewing and Battye, 1971). Items on this measure take the following form: "Find a fourth word that is related to the following three: cookies, sixteen, heart" (Answer: "sweet").…”

Noticing Unexpected Objects Improves the Creation of Creative Solutions—Inattentional Blindness by Children Influences Divergent Thinking Negatively

“…Therefore, this investigation expanded the work of Kasof (1997) and others (cf. Dewing & Battye, 1971;Martindale, 1999;Mendelsohn, 1976;Mendelsohn & Griswold, 1964) that explored the relationship between different kinds of attention processes and creative performance. According to these previous results, it was assumed that children with higher attention performance (less IB) perform better in terms of divergent thinking.…”