Creativity and cognition:Producing effective novelty

Abstract

The cognitive approach to creativity emphasizes the processes involved in producing effective novelty, as well as the control mechanisms that regulate novelty production, and the structures that result. Merely novel structures display surprisingness and incongruity, to be sure, but they must also be meaningful and practicable to be effective. There are no special processes or control mechanisms unique to the production of effective novelty, but metasystematic operations are particularly favorable for it. Effective novelty can be produced at lower levels of cognitive development, but children's creativity is likely to differ qualitatively from that of adults. Although the cognitive approach takes little account of motivation, personality, or the social environment, it provides an operationizable definition of some aspects of creativity, and offers insights into what needs to be fostered to promote it.