Synesthesia and creativity in fine arts students: An Empirical Look

Abstract:

A survey of 358 fine arts students at three large universities indicated that 23% (84) experienced synesthesia in a spontaneous and consistent manner, and 49% (175) reported no such experience. From this subject pool, 61 synesthetes and 61 controls, equated on gender, major, year in school, and verbal intelligence, received a battery of four creativity measures. The synesthetes scored significantly higher than controls on all four creativity measures; and their self‐rated frequency and vividness of synesthesia though significantly intercorrelated, correlated marginally with the measures of creativity. The results are consistent with anecdotal reports that synesthetes are often involved in musical and artistic fields, and possessive of a high degree of creativity.     

The Effects of Extrinsic Motivation on Scientific and Artistic Creativity among Middle School Students

The present study tested the effects of extrinsic motivation on scientific and artistic creativity among Chinese middle school students. In Study 1, a between-groups design was applied to examine the effects of expected rewards on scientific and artistic creativity among 123 students, and in Study 2 the same design was applied to examine the effects of expected evaluation from different raters on scientific and artistic creativity among 120 students. We also considered the effects of grade and gender in both studies. The results of Study 1 indicated that expected material reward had significant negative effects on scientific creativity for 7th graders, while expected social reward had significant positive effects on scientific creativity for 8th graders, and both expected material and social rewards had significant positive effects on artistic creativity. The results of Study 2 indicated that expected evaluation from teachers and classmates had significant negative effects on scientific creativity and significant positive effects on artistic creativity. These results suggest that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the effects of extrinsic motivation and creativity, Factors such as culture, type of extrinsic motivation, grade, and domains of creativity must be fully considered when cultivating adolescents’ creativity.     

Examining Gender with General Creativity and Preferences for Creative Persons in College Students within the Sciences and the Arts

The purpose of the research was to investigate gender similarities and differences in general creativity constructs with their preferences for creative persons. Data were collected from 247 participants (87 engineering, 24 psychology students with a psychology major, 51 psychology students with a major other than psychology, 30 English, and 55 music students) from a large Mideastern Big 10 university. All participants completed measures of general creativity (creative personality, creative temperament and cognitive risk tolerance) and a demographic questionnaire with the request to list 10 creative persons and their given field. Results indicated that males and females tended to have similar levels of general creativity, yet the most frequently listed creative eminent persons tended to be male. The most frequently listed creative person selections were in science and art, with the three most frequently selected eminent persons being in the science domains. The most frequent creative person selections, consistently selected by at least 10 participants, were Caucasian males.     

Cultural and Bilingual Influences on Artistic Creativity Performances: Comparison of German and Chinese Students

Empirical research on the relationship between culture and creativity has thus far yielded no consistent results. Investigations of the differences are mostly post-hoc, and results are inconclusive. A creativity-value-oriented theory is proposed to explain cultural differences, as an alternative to ethnic and language effects. This study was conducted to compare the performances of artistic creativity of Germans and Chinese. Results revealed that the four groups of students examined (German students of Caucasian descent, German students of Asian descent, Chinese students studying abroad, and Chinese students studying in China) differed in their artistic creativity. German participants (Caucasian Germans and Asian Germans) produced more creative and aesthetically pleasing artwork than did their Chinese counterparts (Chinese studying abroad and domestic Chinese). This difference was observed by both German and Chinese judges. There no significant subgroup differences in creative performances—no difference between the two German groups, and no difference between the two Chinese groups. Finally, although there were significant differences between German judges, Chinese judges studying abroad, and domestic Chinese judges in judging the artworks, these were not due to a preference for artwork from students from their own cultural background. Chinese and German judges roughly agreed on what constitutes creativity. These results suggest that cultural differences affect creative performances.     

Nothing But Stereotypes? Negligible Sex Differences Across Creativity Measures in Science,Arts, and Sports Adolescent High Achievers

Previous research has focused on understanding when, why, and how sex differences in creativity occur, as results vary across samples, measures, and methodologies. In the current study we investigated sex differences in creativity among 984 high achieving adolescents in three expertise areas: Sciences, Arts, and Sports. Eight creativity indicators were analyzed: Alternative uses task (AUT) fluency; creative self-efficacy (CSE); intraindividual strengths (difference between CSE and AUT Fluency); five self-reported creativity scales: Self/everyday, scholarly, performance, mechanical/scientific, artistic. The results showed negligible sex differences ( $n_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .01), with females performing better in AUT Fluency and males self-rating their CSE higher. No sex differences were found in self/everyday, scholarly and performance creativity. Males self-rated their mechanical/scientific creativity ( $n_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .06) higher than females; while females self-rated their artistic creativity ( $n_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .02) higher in comparison to males. Our results extend the existing literature by finding negligible sex differences in adolescent expert groups. However, some stereotypical differences emerged, for example, females with Sciences expertise rated their mechanical/scientific creativity lower than males with and even without Sciences expertise. Results call for further investigation into the links between sex differences, expertise, and specific creativity domains.     

Artistic and Scientific Creative Behavior: Openness and the Mediating Role of Interests

The arts and sciences have been identified as two specific domains that are dependent upon the creative process. A total of 369 undergraduate students served as research participants in two separate studies. In the first study, participants (N = 238) completed a measure of Openness to Experience (NEO‐PI; McCrae & Costa, 1999) and a questionnaire assessing artistic and scientific creativity (ASAS; Guastello & Shissler, 1994). Results from study 1 indicated that the Aesthetics and Actions personality traits were significantly related to artistic creativity, while the Ideas trait was the only lower level personality trait to significantly correlate with scientific creativity. In the second study, participants (N = 131) completed a measure of Openness to Experience (NEO‐PI), Vocational Interests (Holland, 1985), and an artistic and scientific creativity questionnaire (Guastello & Shissler, 1994). Findings from study 1 were largely replicated in study 2. Namely, Aesthetics and Ideas were significantly related with artistic and scientific creativity, respectively. Results from partial correlation computations were used to identify specific personality traits that were used in a series of regression models testing the second goal of the second study. Specifically, vocational interests were observed to mediate the relationship between personality dispositions and creativity. Results suggest the ability of lower level personality traits of Openness to differentiate between artistic and scientific creativity. In addition, results lend support for the motivational aspect of vocational interests.     

Cultural influences on artistic creativity and its evaluation

Two studies were designed to compare (a) the rated creativity of artworks created by American and Chinese college students, and (b) the criteria used by American and Chinese judges to evaluate these artworks. The study demonstrated that the two groups of students differed in their artistic creativity. American participants produced more creative and aesthetically pleasing artworks than did their Chinese counterparts, and this difference in performance was recognized by both American and Chinese judges. The difference between the use of criteria by American and Chinese judges was small, and consisted mainly of the American judges' use of stricter standards in evaluating overall creativity. Moreover, in general, there was a greater consensus among Chinese judges regarding what constitutes creativity than among American judges. The study also revealed, but preliminarily, that the artistic creativity of Chinese students was more likely to be reduced as a function of restrictive task constraints or of the absence of explicit instructions to be creative. The results of this study seem to support the hypothesis that an independent self‐oriented culture is more encouraging of the development of artistic creativity than is an interdependent self‐oriented culture. Other possible explanations, such as differences in people's attitudes toward and motivation for engaging in art activities, or socioeconomic factors might also account for differences in people's artistic creativity.     

Creativity profile of university and conservatory music students

Abstract:

Music students in conservatories appear to be driven, single minded, highly gifted individuals. Little research has been done concerning the differences, if any, between music students who choose to study in conservatory settings and those who choose a university. The creative potential, preference for high energy activities, and personality characteristics of music majors at the New England Conservatory of Music and at the University of Wisconsin were compared. Instruments used were: Barron‐Welsh Revised Art Scale, Adjective Check List (ACL) Creativity Scales, Drawing Task, and Action Preference Test. Results indicated that the conservatory students scored significantly higher on the Action Preference test than the university music students; otherwise the two populations appeared very similar. The 63 music students were significantly more creative than normative groups but not as creative as art students. They were distinctly different from norm groups on 19 scales of the ACL. Their preference for high energy activities was significantly higher than norm groups.     

Educational Intervention and the Development of Young Art Students' Talent and Creativity

This study focuses on behavior associated with young art students' developing artistic talent (skills and art‐making behavior) and creativity (personal expressions of visual information). The study examines the role of personal expertise in a student's development of problem finding, domain‐specific technical skill, perseverance, evaluation, and creative ideation. The study compares 30 experienced art students' artistic processing and products with those of 29 novice art students. Both groups are 7‐ through 11‐year‐olds. The author recorded participants' behavior as they created drawings in two contexts — from imagination and from life — and three adult artists then assessed the technical skill and creativity revealed in the drawings. Multivariate analyses of the variables associated with the drawing products and processes offer evidence of the changes related to the students' developing expertise in both novice and experienced groups. This study finds that the drawing situation (life or imagination) interacts clearly with the relationships among hypothesized components of creativity, gender, and predictors of expertise. Technical skill, perseverance, modifications, and creativity in drawings from life were significant predictors of expertise. Modifications, efficient problem finding, and creativity in drawings from imagination were additional significant predictors of expertise. Gender was found to be a measurable factor in both the artistic process and the assessments of drawings from imagination. The findings are discussed within the context of three conceptions: artistic talent, developing creativity, and art education.     

Exploring the Assessment of and Relationship Between Elementary Students’ Scientific Creativity and Science Inquiry

The purposes of this study were to (a) develop and validate instruments to assess elementary students’ scientific creativity and science inquiry, (b) investigate the relationship between the two competencies, and (c) compare the two competencies among different grade level students. The scientific creativity test was composed of 7 open-ended items designed to assess divergent creativity and 2 open-ended items to assess convergent creativity. The science inquiry tests were composed of an open-ended inquiry (O-inquiry) test and a multiple-choice inquiry test (M-inquiry). The aforementioned instruments were verified with satisfactory validities and reliabilities in a pilot study. A total of 321 elementary students from grades 3, 4, 5 and 6 participated in the study to determine the performance differences detected by these instruments. It was found that both convergent and divergent creativity were significantly (p < .001) related with O-inquiry and M-inquiry. Analyses of variance revealed that there were significant grade-level main effects for scientific creativity and science inquiry. Post-hoc pair-wise comparisons revealed significant gaps between the 3rd graders’ performances on scientific creativity and science inquiry and the performances of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Implications for curricular design and science teaching are discussed.     

Schizotypy and creativity in visual artists

‘Every work of art is an uncommitted crime ’ Adorno (1951) . Cited in Julius (2002) . Given the putative relationship between creativity and schizotypy/psychoticism, the current study set out to investigate differences in scores on a range of personality and creativity measures between visual artists and non‐artists. Results found that the visual artists group scored higher on measures of positive‐schizotypy, disorganized‐schizotypy, asocial‐schizotypy, neuroticism, openness and divergent thinking (uniqueness) than did the non‐artist group and lower on agreeableness. These findings lend support to other studies reporting higher schizotypy scores in artistic and creative cohorts, although provide some of the first evidence of higher unusual experiences and impulsive nonconformity scores on the Oxford‐Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O‐LIFE) in visual artists. The relationship between creativity and schizotypy is discussed in terms of unusual ideas and a propensity to endorse socially undesirable responses.     

认知抑制对科学创造力和艺术创造力的影响

研究通过2个实验,考察不同高低抑制水平对科学创造力和艺术创造力的影响。通过安排不同难度的Simon任务（不一致试次占70%或10%）来消耗被试的认知资源,达到操纵被试的抑制水平,以侧抑制任务的前后测来评估被试抑制水平的变化情况,实验1和实验2分别以科学创造力测验和粘贴画任务测量被试的科学创造力和艺术创造力。结果发现,在科学创造力测验上,高抑制水平组被试的流畅性和灵活性得分显著高于低抑制水平组;在粘贴画任务中,低抑制水平组被试的创造性、可爱程度、综合印象得分以及总分均显著高于高抑制水平组。表明高认知抑制水平有利于科学创造力,低认知抑制水平有利于艺术创造力,认知抑制对科学创造力和艺术创造力的影响存在分离效应。     

阅读障碍学生创造力特征的研究

本研究采用问卷测量的方法,对76名阅读障碍学生的创造力特征以及教师对其创造力评价的客观性进行了研究,结果表明:(1)阅读障碍学生的创造力总分与正常学生并无显著差异,但阅读障碍学生创造力的独特性和抽象性成绩显著优于正常学生。(2)对阅读障碍学生而言,流畅性、精细性和创造力总分存在性别差异;创造力总分亦存在年级差异;独特性与创造力总分在年级与性别因素上均存在交互作用。(3)不同学科教师对正常学生的创造力评价显著高于阅读障碍学生,他们对正常学生的创造力评价基本客观,对阅读障碍学生创造力的评价则与测验成绩呈显著负相关。     

Openness to experience and creativity: When does global citizenship matter?

The relationship between the openness to experience trait (OTE) and creativity has been well documented in previous research. Likewise, the global citizenship construct has theoretical overlap with both OTE and creativity. We hypothesised global citizenship would make a unique contribution to explaining variance in five types of creativity (self/everyday, scholarly, performance, mechanical/scientific and artistic), above and beyond the contribution of OTE. Participants were predominantly female, European American, traditionally aged college students (N = 407). Global citizenship prosocial outcomes explained unique variance in self/everyday (sr² = .10), scholarly (sr² = .03) and mechanical/scientific (sr² = .03) creativity. Results are discussed in terms of dual processes theories of cognition.     

Differences in Mathematical Performance,Creativity Potential,and Need for Cognitive Closure between Chinese and Australian Students

Research has shown that Chinese students outperform students from several Western countries on mathematics performance while some evidence has suggested that Western students perform more strongly on tests of creativity. One potential mechanism for these differences may be a higher need for cognitive closure among Chinese students. The current research compared performance on tests of mathematics and creativity among 50 students of Chinese background and 49 Australian students of Anglo‐Saxon background. As predicted, Chinese students performed better on mathematics while Australian students performed better on the measure of creativity. Australian students also had a lower score on one subscale of the need for cognitive closure, preference for predictability. Across the sample, preference for predictability showed small but significant negative correlations with several measures of creativity and positive correlations with several measures of mathematics. These findings were interpreted with respect to characteristic educational practices in both nations.     

Openness to experience, plasticity, and creativity: Exploring lower-order, high-order, and interactive effects

What are creative people like? Openness to experience is important to creativity, but little is known about plasticity, the higher-order factor that subsumes openness. College students (n = 189) completed measures of the Big Five and measures of creative cognition (fluency and quality of divergent thinking), everyday creative behaviors, creative achievement, and self-rated creativity. Latent variable models found broad effects of openness to experience and few effects of the other four domains. At the higher-order level, plasticity predicted higher scores on nearly all of the facets of creativity, and stability had several significant effects. For some creativity measures, plasticity and stability had opposing effects. Tests of latent interactions found no significant effects: plasticity and stability predict creatively independently, not jointly.     

The Creative Medical Student: A Descriptive Study

Biographical study distinguished high from low creative medical students by broken homelife, greater preference for movies, modern music, serious books, bridge playing and creative hobbies. High creatives seek challenge, academic or research careers, verbal and imaginative expression. Low creatives have higher motivation, better academic grades, more economic and family interests, are often oldest children and head for general practice. Independent, original explorations characterize high creativity while traditional, authoritative explanations satisfy the less creative. Fricke's Opinion, Attitude and Interest Survey made the creativity identification. Factor analysis related OAIS Scores, Omnibus Personality Inventory and Medical College Admission Test scores to cross check with biography data. A motivational Index is suggested as a predictor of supportive value to the creativity score.     

Synaesthesia,creativity and art: What is the link?

It has been suggested that individuals with synaesthesia may show heightened creativity as a result of being able to form meaningful associations between disparate stimuli (e.g. colour, sound). In this study, a large sample (N=82) of people with various kinds of synaesthesia were given two psychometric tests of creativity (Remote Associates Test, Alternate Uses Test) and were also asked about the amount of time engaged in creative arts (visual art, music). There was a significant tendency for synaesthetes to spend more time engaged in creative arts and this was, at least in part, dependent upon the type of synaesthesia experienced. For example, synaesthetes experiencing vision from music were far more likely to play an instrument than their other synaesthetic counterparts. There was no relationship between this tendency and the psychometric measures of creativity, but synaesthetes did outperform controls on one of the two psychometric measures (Remote Associates). We conclude that the tendency for synaesthetes to be more engaged in art is likely to have a different mechanism to psychometric measures of creativity, and that there is no direct link between them. Although synaesthetes may well perform better on some measures of creativity, we suggest that synaesthetes have better bottom‐up access to certain associations, but are not necessarily better able to use them flexibly (in divergent thinking).     

Personality and Religion Among Music Students

A sample of 422 students attending courses in eleven departments or colleges of music completed the short form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and measures of prayer and church attendance. In comparison with the population norms, both male and female music students recorded significantly higher scores on the extraversion scale and significantly lower scores on the psychoticism scale. The data confirm that psychoticism is the dimension of personality fundamental to individual differences in religiosity.     

Estimating Creativity with a Multiple-Measurement Approach Within Scientific and Artistic Domains

This article presents the structure and the composition of a newly developed multifaceted test battery for the measurement of creativity within scientific and artistic domains. By integrating existing procedures for the evaluation of creativity, the new battery promises to become a comprehensive assessment of creativity, encompassing both domain-general and domain-specific components. In particular, the test battery was designed for the measurement of the 2 main stages of the creative thinking process: ideation and evaluation. The test battery also includes 2 measures of creative achievement and can be used to assess professional levels of creativity in artistic and scientific creativity, as well as everyday creativity. Because creative thinking is not an isolated phenomenon in human behavior, the battery includes the measurement of 2 constructs, intelligence and personality, both of which are highly relevant for creativity. Preliminary results from a vast administration campaign of this test battery are presented.