Creativity in Science Through Visualization*

ABSTRACT The fact that attempts to gain insight into the creative process have been so unsuccessful suggests that they have overlooked at least one basic ingredient in the process. This ingredient may lie in the way the individual mind goes about remembering and manipulating data. The hypothesis is advanced that the creative persons appear to have stumbled onto and then developed to a high degree of perfection the ability to visualize—almost hallucinate—in the area in which they are creative. And their visualizations seem to be of a sort that lend themselves to easy manipulation in the thinking process. This is illustrated by reports from many of the great inventors of the past and it is easy to demonstrate that individuals differ enormously in the kind and degree of their ability to think in such manipulatable visualizations. If correct, this view of creativity suggests many research attacks and many potential changes in education for creative activity.