Past Event

Insight and the Evolution of Creative Ideas

Please join us on January 17th in Room 2203 DT, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m., where Dr. Liane Gabora of the University of British Columbia will be giving the talk, Insight and the Evolution of Creative Ideas.

There will be light refreshments before the talk and everyone is welcome.

Abstract

How does the human mind come up with new ideas? It is widely assumed that creative thought involves haphazardly generating a set of well-formed, predefined candidate ideas, and then selecting amongst them. I will introduce an alternative, referred to as the honing theory of creativity, according to which:

(1) Creative individuals wrestle with issues or ideas that are ill-formed, or in a state of potentiality, which take shape by considering them from different perspectives or contexts.

(2) Creative outputs are the external manifestation of the process by which an individual’s internal model of the world, or worldview, self-organizes into a more stable structure. Just as a body heals itself when wounded, elements of a body of knowledge modify each other to solve problems, reduce dissonance, or accommodate unexpected events. Most thoughts have little effect on the worldview, but the occasional thought triggers another, which triggers an avalanche of conceptual change, resulting in insight.

I will present converging evidence for the honing theory of creativity from neuroscience, studies of analogy formation and creative style, a mathematical theory of concepts that incorporates their contextual, non-compositional nature, and a computer model of cultural evolution.

Biography

Liane Gabora is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. She researches the mechanisms underlying creativity, how creative ideas evolve through culture, and how humans came to be so creative, using computer models and studies involving human participants. She also works on comparisons of biological and cultural evolution, and the development of a general theory of evolution that encompasses both. She is also a published short story writer and a composer of piano music. Dr. Gabora has over 100 papers published in scholarly books and journals, has given lectures worldwide, and has over a million dollars in research grants. She was awarded the 2011 Berlyne Award from Division 10 of the American Psychological Association for outstanding achievement.

Website: http://people.ok.ubc.ca/lgabora/

Blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindbloggling