Creativity, Ambiguous Figures, and Academic Preference

Abstract

Abstract. Research suggests that ambiguous figure reversal is associated with creativity, but current evidence relies on subjective self-report that is difficult to quantify (Wiseman, Watt, Gilhooly, Georgiou, 2011 British Journal of Psychology 102 615-622). Using quantifiable measures of both phenomena we confirm this claim. We also find that participants studying science experience much more frequent reversal-a novel and intriguing finding.Keywords: ambiguous figure reversal, creativity, academic preference IntroductionRecently Wiseman et al (2011) presented evidence for a relationship between creativity and ease of reversal of an ambiguous figure. As they note, this conclusion is limited by their self-report measure: participants were shown an ambiguous figure and asked to rate how easy they found it to see the opposite interpretation. Most participants rated this as easy or very easy (95% in study 1, 85% in study 2), suggesting that they had no baseline against which to judge their relative reversal ability. Individual differences therefore might reflect factors like self-confidence rather than reversal ability. We replicate the finding using quantifiable measures of reversal. We also extend the work by using more than one type of ambiguous figure. Ambiguous figures fall into three distinct categories, in which reversal is of figure and ground, content, or perspective (Long and Toppino 2004). See figure 1 for exemplars.

The Relationship Between Subthreshold Autistic Traits, Ambiguous Figure Perception and Divergent Thinking

“…They confirmed this link, finding a close relationship between the frequency of reversals and divergent thinking fluency in typically developing adolescents and adults. This finding has since been replicated by Doherty and Mair (2012). The ability to reverse ambiguous figures relies on the executive function of inhibition in normal development (Wimmer and Doherty 2011) and on working memory (Intaite et al 2014).…”

Functional brain networks underlying idiosyncratic switching patterns in multi-stable auditory perception

“…In sum, these correlations between idiosyncratic switching patterns, individual personality traits and neurotransmitter profiles are compatible with the observed temporal stability of switching patterns, as these stable characteristics may influence the perceptual processing of multi-stable auditory stimuli. High creativity has been found to be related to increased switching in ambiguous figures (Doherty and Mair, 2012;Wiseman et al, 2011), but was found to be unrelated to individual differences in auditory streaming (Farkas et al, 2016a). However, there is a lack of consensus both in the definition (Kozbelt et al, 2010) and in the assessment (Plucker and Mackel, 2010) of creativity.…”

Spectres of Ambiguity in Divergent Thinking and Perceptual Switching

“…For example, in Experiment 2 the first phase duration for image D2 (street map-flag pole, see Figure 5) is longer than for other images in the same experiment, suggesting that this image is processed differently. Previous studies that examined the connection between creativity and perceptual switching overlooked the role of different types of images (Doherty & Mair, 2012;Laukkonen & Tangen, 2017;Wiseman et al, 2011;Wu et al, 2016). It is possible that the relation between perceptual switching and creativity is found only for some images.…”

“…They also found a strong correlation between self-reported ease of perceptual switching and categorical flexibility measured with a single item unusual uses task. Following up on these results, Doherty and Mair (2012) found that fluency for written responses measured with the Pattern Meanings task (Wallach & Kogan, 1965, p. 33) is positively correlated with the number of switches in perceptual multistability tasks (duck-rabbit, vase-face, Necker cube). The authors speculated that the same executive control mechanisms may be involved in perceptual switching and divergent production, therefore the relationship is worth exploring further.…”