Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ( IF 11.1 ) Pub Date : 2021-06-22 , DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2022340118 Jay A Olson 1 , Johnny Nahas 2 , Denis Chmoulevitch 2 , Simon J Cropper 3 , Margaret E Webb 3
Several theories posit that creative people are able to generate more divergent ideas. If this is correct, simply naming unrelated words and then measuring the semantic distance between them could serve as an objective measure of divergent thinking. To test this hypothesis, we asked 8,914 participants to name 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. A computational algorithm then estimated the average semantic distance between the words; related words (e.g., cat and dog) have shorter distances than unrelated ones (e.g., cat and thimble). We predicted that people producing greater semantic distances would also score higher on traditional creativity measures. In Study 1, we found moderate to strong correlations between semantic distance and two widely used creativity measures (the Alternative Uses Task and the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap Task). In Study 2, with participants from 98 countries, semantic distances varied only slightly by basic demographic variables. There was also a positive correlation between semantic distance and performance on a range of problems known to predict creativity. Overall, semantic distance correlated at least as strongly with established creativity measures as those measures did with each other. Naming unrelated words in what we call the Divergent Association Task can thus serve as a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking.
中文翻译:
命名不相关的词可以预测创造力 [心理和认知科学]
一些理论认为,有创造力的人能够产生更多不同的想法。如果这是正确的,简单地命名不相关的词,然后测量它们之间的语义距离,可以作为发散思维的客观测量。为了验证这一假设,我们要求 8,914 名参与者说出 10 个尽可能不同的单词。然后计算算法估计单词之间的平均语义距离;相关词(例如,猫和狗)的距离比不相关的词(例如,猫和顶针)的距离短。我们预测,产生更大语义距离的人在传统创造力测量中的得分也会更高。在研究 1 中,我们发现语义距离与两个广泛使用的创造力度量(替代用途任务和桥接关联差距任务)之间存在中度至强相关性。在研究 2 中,参与者来自 98 个国家,语义距离仅因基本人口统计变量而略有不同。在一系列已知可预测创造力的问题上,语义距离与表现之间也存在正相关关系。总体而言,语义距离与既定的创造力测量的相关性至少与这些测量之间的相关性一样强。因此,在我们称为“发散联想任务”中命名不相关的词可以作为发散思维的简短、可靠和客观的衡量标准。在一系列已知可预测创造力的问题上,语义距离与表现之间也存在正相关关系。总体而言,语义距离与既定的创造力测量的相关性至少与这些测量之间的相关性一样强。因此,在我们称为“发散联想任务”中命名不相关的词可以作为发散思维的简短、可靠和客观的衡量标准。在一系列已知可预测创造力的问题上,语义距离与表现之间也存在正相关关系。总体而言,语义距离与既定的创造力测量的相关性至少与这些测量之间的相关性一样强。因此,在我们称为“发散联想任务”中命名不相关的词可以作为发散思维的简短、可靠和客观的衡量标准。