- Divergent thinking
- Convergent thinking 
- Group brainstorming 
- Creative cognition
- Latent inhibition (LI)
- Savant syndrome
- Common characteristics of creative individuals

Focuses of Research on Creativity

Creativity library

The cognitive ability to produce creative ideas. It is part of everyday eminent creativity, and is one of the sources of creativity. It is affected by motivation and other factors.

Creative Ideation

Intrinsic motivation and few guidelines allow people to have discression about their work. Having both intinsic motivation and the freedom of choice promotes creative ability and allows for generation of novel ideas.

Intrinsic motivation promotes creativity

Procrastination can help promote creativity when intrinsic motivation is low.

Creativity and Procrastination

In a study using fMRI to compare the cognitive processes of improvised and memorized musical sequences played by pianists, it was found that prior to performing an improvised melody, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex deactivated, whereas it stayed active during a memorized tune.

Jazz Improvisation and Impulse Control

Highly creative individuals often exhibit a combination of traits, including possessing deep knowledge in a particular field, dedicating years to their work, exploring novel solutions, and taking risks. A crucial characteristic is their engagement with others; they benefit from seeking advice, mentorship, and collaborative discussions, as significant creative developments rarely occur in isolation.

Characteristics of Highly Creative People

Creativity is not confined to artistic expression; it is a vital form of intelligence that drives innovation across many disciplines. Its application can be seen in all areas of life, ranging from everyday problem-solving, like decorating a home, to significant scientific discoveries, such as developing a new understanding of cellular biology.

Creativity Beyond the Arts

Creativity, while often viewed as an individual strength, is significantly enhanced by social interactions. Nobel laureate Dr. Tom Steitz emphasized the crucial role of mentorship, especially early in a career, and ongoing dialogue with colleagues. He argued that major discoveries and insights do not happen in isolation but are fostered by these collaborative processes.

Collaboration and Mentorship in Creativity

A software developer has been working for years on a complex coding problem and has deep expertise in the subject, but cannot find a solution. She attends a workshop with graphic designers and, after hearing them discuss their methods for visual problem-solving, she conceives a novel algorithm that solves her problem. Based on this scenario, which factor was most instrumental in her creative breakthrough?

Creativity is the ability to generate, create, or discover new ideas, solutions, and possibilities.

Google

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

New Mexico Highlands University

Trinity College (CT)

Cognitive psychology is an area of psychology that focuses on studying cognitions, or thoughts, and their relationship to our experiences and actions. Like biological psychology, it is broad in scope and often involves interdisciplinary collaborations to study mental processes such as:  - attention - language - memory - perception - problem-solving - creativity - thought - decision-making - processing - knowledge - learning

It also includes the study of computer-based cognitive models such as connectionism (parallel distributed processing). Fields that draw from cognitive psychology include learning science and developmental psychology.

Cognitive Psychology

Wikipedia

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

The flow of ideas and associations that can lead to conclusions or actions

Thought

Choosing a belief, action or object out of a set of alternative options.

Decision-Making

The process of consciously focusing on specific stimuli. Attention is a limited resource, but automatic processing allows us to use our limited attention on other stimuli while performing an automatic task.

Attention

Information and knowledge encoded into the brain to be retrieved 

Memory

Perception is the complex psychological process of organizing, interpreting, and consciously experiencing sensory information. It involves making sense of the raw data detected by sensory receptors, actively shaping our conscious experience based on focused attention, past experiences, and cultural background.

Perception

Creativity

- Structuralism
- Behaviorism 
- Cognitive revolution

Early schools of thought/movements in Psychology (leading up to cognitive psychology)

Contributing fields to cognitive psychology

Contains Sources Relevant to Cognitive Psychology:
- Sources From Books
- Sources from Journals
- Sources from Websites
- Journals from Organizations 

References for Cognitive Psychology

Processing (cognitive)

Understanding or awareness of something or the sum total of one's understanding/awareness of all things.

Knowledge

Learning science an interdisciplinary field that works to further our understanding of learning as well as to engage in the design and implementation of learning innovations. Contributing fields include cognitive science, computer science, educational psychology, anthropology, and applied linguistics. 

Learning Science

An approach to computer-based cognitive model in which concepts are represented by distributed activity across a network.

Connectionism (parallel distributed processing (PDP))

Problem solving is a fundamental cognitive process people engage in daily to find solutions for challenges they encounter. These challenges can range from straightforward tasks, such as doubling a recipe, to more complex situations, like handling an unexpected equipment failure under a tight deadline. A more formal definition states that "problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods in an orderly manner to find solutions to problems."

Problem Solving

The psychological and neurobiological operations by which information is processed, to build knowledge and understanding that supports decision making.

Cognition

Cognitive psychology helps designers to overcome psychological barriers and create products that are more intuitive for the products to be more readable, accessible, easy to navigate and allowing for users to use products more intuitively. 

UX Research and Cognitive Psychology

It is something that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of that mechanism. Looking at that something will not tell us anything about what is going on in the "mechanism". Examples include:
- Experiences of mental imagery

Epiphenomenon

Which of the following best describes the focus of cognitive psychology?

Which of the following is an example of a mental process studied in cognitive psychology?

Which of the following fields draws from cognitive psychology to understand how people learn?

Which of the following concepts is central to cognitive psychology?

Language is a formal system of communication that is structured by a set of rules, known as grammar, and utilizes a vocabulary of words, referred to as a lexicon.

Language

A cognitive psychologist is a psychologist who studies thinking and explores questions related to mental processes. They investigate topics such as how people determine the best way to solve problems, how individuals develop an understanding of concepts without direct physical experience (for example, understanding snow without ever seeing or touching it), and how young children acquire language without formal instruction.

Cognitive Psychologist

Cognitive psychologists investigate a wide array of subjects to better understand human mental processes. Specific areas of study include determining and measuring different types of intelligence, analyzing why individuals vary in their problem-solving abilities, and evaluating how emotional intelligence influences success in the workplace. Additionally, researchers explore how individuals organize information gathered from their environments into meaningful categories of thought.

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