An integrated, synthetic ontology of creativity, formalising and integrating multiple theories: (a) Personal creativity Wallace's personal creativity phases Guilford's personal creativity traits Smith's cognitive creativity Moruzzi's personal creativity keys (b) social creativity: Csikszentmihali's domain/field of creativity Amabile's expertise/thinking/motivation Sternberg's creative personal traits (c) dual personal/social creativity: Gardner's multidimensional theory (personality plus context) Rhodes' 4P theory Simonton's c/C, creativity function theory, divergence/error Corazza's mental/social process Jenning's computational creativity (d) neuro creativity: Kenett's metaanalysis of neural correlates of creativity Some important questions need special investigation, concerning computational creativity, fruition, and opera aperta: - AI is not a person, and how could we distinguish between personal and social for an LLM? - Opera aperta goes beyond production vs. fruition (the patina of a monument, table, and metaphorically a book or a painting, let alone Sistine Chapel colors ...) Version 1.2: added support for modelling Guilford's divergence as the search for a meta-convergence connecting two convergent but unrelated ideas. Turner and Fauconnier's Conceptual Blending theory is used, applying an extended Framester semantics.
The relation between product and producer
The correlation between functional constructs and neural or physiological states
The relation between a creative situation, and an antity it focuses on, for example between a painting process, and its social context, or between a musical composition, and its author.
The association between a personality trait whit a specific person
A general influence relation between agents, processes, creative products, or ideas. Specific axioms apply to dependencies between influencing and influenced entities.
The relation between artist and its environnment
The relation between creative individual and its creative process
The relation between product and environment
The relation between the creative process and the final creative product
a multiplicative forumala of creativity, based on originality, utility and surprise
Simonton, D.K. (2013c). What is a creative idea? Little-c versus Big-C creativity. In J. Chan & K. Thomas (Eds.), Handbook of research on creativity (pp. 69– 83). Cheltenham Glos, UK: Edward Elgar
From Corazza's DUCP (2019): Actions that influence and shape the creative process, decisions, and directions, with a feedback effect.
Capacity to adjust to new conditions (Corazza, 2019).
allows an evaluation of the quality and value of own ideas
Guilford, J. P. (1973). Characteristics of Creativity.
it is related to the cultural environment
Rhodes, M. (1961). An analysis of creativity. The Phi Delta Kappan 42, 305–310.
Wallas (1926): identification of a goal and verification of an idea.
A creative domain (e.g., music) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).
it is typically defined as a novel or divergent concept or thought that arises in the mind of an individual and can be communicated to others
It is something that is produced as a result of the creative process, by a specific Person
A function defined by Simonton that considers the creativity score c of an idea in terms of: - originality (valued as 1 minus idea probability p from the perspective of a person a), - utility (between 0 and 1 on the evaluation of utility u from the perspective of a person a), and - surprise (valued as 1 minus the presence of utility u in the personal background knowledge v of a person a) The function multiplies the three scores: c=(1-p)*u*(1-v)
it is related to the relationship between humans and environment
Any situation that involves creative processes, ideas, products, persons, contexts, etc.
Rhodes, M. (1961). An analysis of creativity. The Phi Delta Kappan 42, 305–310. Simonton, D.K. (2013c). What is a creative idea? Little-c versus Big-C creativity. In J. Chan & K. Thomas (Eds.), Handbook of research on creativity (pp. 69– 83). Cheltenham Glos, UK: Edward Elgar
it is based on utility, originality and obviousness of the creative idea/product
A network of interconnected brain areas that are activated when an individual is at rest
Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 98(2), 676-682.
Divergent thinking is a thought process used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion. Many possible solutions are explored in a short amount of time, and unexpected connections are drawn. Following divergent thinking, ideas and information are organized and structured using convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution (Guilford, 1956)
Guilford, J. P. (1973). Characteristics of Creativity. Similar to Amabile's (1996) Creative Thinking.
From Corazza's DUCP (2019): Emotions are central to the creative process, influencing motivation, direction, and quality.
Errors randomly happening in a creative process, reused to make sense of them (e.g., from Simonton, 2003).
Corazza's (2019) Evaluation Dynamics: continuous assessment shaping current and future creation efforts. Cf. also Moruzzi (2020).
Observations carried out during experimental studies. In creativity neuroscience, it represents relations between neural patterns, creative tasks, and persons.
Csikszentmihalyi's (1997) field of experts in a domain (e.g., music).
Amabile (1996): the basis of creative work which includes knowledge, technical skills and talent.
From Corazza's DUCP (2019): Random external events that influence creative processes unpredictably.
An explicitly created group of natural persons, here for artistic purposes (a music band, a literary, artistic, or scientific group, etc.
The dynamics of influences in a creative domain. Multiple relations may affect such dynamics temporally, spatially, cognitively, and emotionally. Cf. the influencedBy properties. Influence dynamics not only include direct person-person (including artist groups) relations, but also indirect paths through creative product similarity, social networks that make influence probable, multi-domain influence (e.g., Velvet Underground <- Andy Warhol, Archie Shepp <- Black Panthers), etc. In order to generate an influence dynamics case from binary influence relations, a production rule should be designed with a SPARQL CONSTRUCT query, or other means (e.g., SPIN).
From Corazza's DUCP (2019): New information and connections that continuously change, shaping the creative process.
It represents the possibility of generating new idea
It is related to specific personal characteristics that can be synthesized in self-efficacy, tolerance of ambiguity, and willingness to risk
Guilford, J. P. (1973). Characteristics of Creativity. Similar to Amabile's (1996) Intrinsic Motivation.
An unconscious elaboration (Baumeister et al., 2014) which ignores rigid thought patterns and allows for a more infantile and playful vision (Csikszentmihalyi 1996; Gaut 2012; Piirto 2010).
A pattern of brain areas associable to creative tasks and persons during experimental observation.
Kenett, Y. N., Kraemer, D. J., Alfred, K. L., Colaizzi, G. A., Cortes, R. A., & Green, A. E. (2020). Developing a neurally informed ontology of creativity measurement. NeuroImage, 221, 117166.
Wallas (1926): incubation and illumination (insight, aha moment).
It represents the possibility to try new ways for old things
Corazza's 2019 Openness. Similar to Guilford, J. P. (1973)' Liberal cognitive style. Characteristics of Creativity.
Specific personal characteristics, traits, or capabilities of a creative individual
Sternberg, R. J. (1988). A three-facet model of creativity. Rhodes, M. (1961). An analysis of creativity. The Phi Delta Kappan 42, 305–310. Kenett, Y. N., Kraemer, D. J., Alfred, K. L., Colaizzi, G. A., Cortes, R. A., & Green, A. E. (2020). Developing a neurally informed ontology of creativity measurement. NeuroImage, 221, 117166.
It is applies to motivation, learning, thinking and communication that leads to a creative idea
A creativity situation seen as a personal scoring of a creativity function.
A group of people inferred to have a certain characteristic based on a controlled sampling of subjects in an experimental task.
used to explain the usefulness of own ideas to others
Cerebral and/or bodily activations that occur during the creative process
Corazza, 2019: the capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties.
it defines the resource present in the environment
A motivational system that drives exploration, search for information, and desire for new experiences
Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). A meditation on the affective neuroscientific view of human and animalian MindBrains. From the couch to the lab: Trends in psychodynamic neuroscience, 145-175.
A creativity situation seen as a consensual average scoring of a creativity function.
From Corazza's DUCP (2019):The environmental, historical, and personal experiences.
Any person in the DOLCE sense: an organic physical agent, excluding artificial agents, social groups, social reifications such as companies, institutions, etc. In this ontology we refer primarily to persons proactively involved in a creative process, and distinguished from artificial agents.