Scene schemas and creativity : examining the influence of schema based knowledge on the creative process /
The present research is centered within a cognitive view of
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| Format: | Thesis eBook |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
1995.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | The present research is centered within a cognitive view of creativity in which creativity is understood as the result of standard cognitive processes involving the retrieval of information from existing knowledge bases. It investigates the content and structure of schemas and the use of this knowledge in the creative process. By extending the work of Ward (1994), the study is an attempt to determine if broad knowledge structures, such as scene schemas, structure imagination in a manner similar to the structuring imposed by category knowledge in an imagination task. The extent to which a schema can influence imagination is examined in two experiments. The first is designed to determine the central properties and attributes for a restaurant schema in a non- creative task. The second asks subjects to imagine a novel restaurant for a bird-like species of aliens. Subject's imagined restaurants are then examined for the occurrence of those central properties and attributes. The data reveal the occurrence of three trends in the imagination task. First, there is compelling evidence to support the idea that schemas structure the product of a creative production task in much the same fashion that category knowledge structures a similar task. Second, the creative production task reveals information about the contents of the schemas not apparent in standard feature listing tasks. Third, the schema is not used rigidly to structure the creative product in such a way that the creative product exactly reproduces its real counterpart. An interaction occurs between schema based knowledge about restaurants and more specific category based knowledge about birds resulting in unique but recognizable products. This evidence provides support to the theory that imagination is structured by existing knowledge bases, This structure is provided by both specific category knowledge and more general schematic knowledge with the two of them sometimes interacting in the production of novel exemplars. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major subject: Psychology". |
| Physical Description: | viii, 63 leaves ; 28 cm. Also available online. Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |