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Understanding exploratory creativity in a visual domain

Published: 03 November 2011 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes a computerized aesthetic composition task that is based on a "creativity as search" metaphor. The technique collects detailed, moment-to-moment data about people's search behavior, which can help open the "black box" that separates independent variables that influence creativity from their outcomes. We first describe the technique and provide a detailed theoretical framework. Then, we discuss how the technique is typically applied, describe several in-progress studies, and present some preliminary results. Finally, we discuss relations to other work, limitations, and future directions. We argue that this technique and the research that it enables will facilitate a deeper understanding of the creative process, become a valued tool for creativity researchers, and contribute to methodological and theoretical advances in how creativity is studied and understood.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    C&C '11: Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition
    November 2011
    492 pages
    ISBN:9781450308205
    DOI:10.1145/2069618
    • General Chair:
    • Ashok K. Goel,
    • Program Chairs:
    • Fox Harrell,
    • Brian Magerko,
    • Yukari Nagai,
    • Jane Prophet
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 03 November 2011

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    Author Tags

    1. creativity
    2. experimental methods
    3. optimization
    4. search

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    C&C '11
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    C&C '11: Creativity and Cognition 2011
    November 3 - 6, 2011
    Georgia, Atlanta, USA

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