Creative Thinking

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Chapter 7 Thought, Language, and Intelligence
Chess
master Garry Kasparov had his hands full
when he was challenged by “Deep Blue,”
a chess-playing computer that was programmed so well that it has won games
against the world’s best competitors, including Kasparov. Still, even the most sophisticated computers cannot perceive
and think about the world in general
anywhere near as well as humans can.
Some observers believe that this
situation will eventually change as
progress in computer technology—and a
deepening understanding of human
cognitive processes—leads to dramatic
breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
psychologists’ efforts to build ever more intelligent systems and to better understand
the principles of human problem solving.
One approach to overcoming the limitations of both computers and humans is to
have them work together in ways that create a better outcome than either could achieve
alone. In medical diagnosis, for example, the human’s role is to establish the presence
and nature of a patient’s symptoms. The computer then combines this information in
a completely unbiased way to identify the most likely diagnosis (Swets, Dawes, &
Monahan, 2000). This kind of human-machine teamwork can also help in the assessment of psychological problems (Bernstein, Kramer, & Phares, in press).
Creative Thinking
creativity The capacity to produce
original solutions or novel compositions.
divergent thinking The ability to generate many different solutions to a
problem.
One of the greatest challenges in the development of artificial intelligence will be to program computers in a way that allows their thinking and problem solving to be as creative as that of humans. Consider the case that opened this chapter. It was Dr. Wallace’s
knowledge of the chemicals in paint—which has no obvious connection to human body
chemistry—that led her to figure out what was causing Laura McBride’s illness. Computers are still not nearly as good as humans are at recognizing that information from
one area can be used to solve a problem in a seemingly unrelated area.
The ability to blend knowledge from many different domains is only one aspect of
the creative thinking that humans display every day. People demonstrate creativity by
producing original, but useful, solutions to all sorts of challenges (Simonton, 1999;
Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2004a). Executives and homemakers, scientists and artists—all
may be creative to varying degrees (Klahr & Simon, 1999). How do we know when people are thinking creatively? Psychologists have defined creativity as mental activity that
can be inferred from performance on certain tests, as well as from the writings, computer
programs, artwork, and other products resulting from the creative process (Sternberg &
Dess, 2001). To measure creativity, some psychologists have generated tests of divergent
thinking—the ability to think along many paths to generate multiple solutions to a
problem (Diakidoy & Spanoudis, 2002). The Consequences Test is an example. It contains items such as “Imagine all of the things that might possibly happen if all national
and local laws were suddenly abolished” (Guilford, 1959). Divergent-thinking tests are
scored by counting the number of sensible responses that a person can give to each item
and how many of these responses differ from those given by most people.
Only sensible responses to creativity tests are counted, because creativity involves
divergent thinking that is appropriate for a given problem or situation. To be productive rather than just weird, a creative person must be firmly anchored in reality,
understand society’s needs, and learn from the experience and knowledge of others