不同創造力運作與認知抑制、工作記憶廣度間關係之探討

Abstract

過去研究者對於高、低創造力者的篩選未有共同、一致的典範可能是造成創造力研究成果分歧的原因之一。本論文區分心理計量取向強調的發散性思考測驗與認知取向評量的創意問題解決表現分別涉及不同創意想法產出的歷程，並進一步探討此兩類創造力運作與認知抑制、工作記憶廣度等認知因素的不同關係。Eysenck（1995）提出認知抑制降低提高外界無關訊息的收錄量，是促成知識表徵型態改變、進一步提高創造力表現的機制，但此假說非但未區分不同創造力，亦未考量認知抑制降低對內在訊息提取的影響，以及工作記憶廣度在知識表徵型態改變中的可能角色。綜合過去研究結果，本論文提出下列假設：認知抑制降低可增加內在無關訊息提取數量，符合發散性思考作業對於想法數量與新奇性的要求，但並不一定能滿足創意問題解決中適切性的考量。另一方面，工作記憶廣度限制才是能否處理多量外界訊息、促使相關知識表徵型態改變，進一步影響創意問題解決表現的關鍵。實驗一中首先以個別差異的觀點檢驗不同創造力運作與認知抑制的關係。實驗二再以不同創意問題篩選進行重複驗證。結果顯示發散性思考表現優異者在認知抑制功能的測量作業中顯現較低抑制效果，而創意問題解決表現優異者則與一般人無異。實驗三中以雙重作業操弄探討工作記憶廣度對不同創造力運作的影響，結果顯示此操弄顯著提升一般受試者的發散性思考得分，卻妨礙創意問題解決表現。實驗四中以相關分析探討認知抑制、工作記憶廣度、知識表徵型態，與兩類創造力運作間的關係。結果顯示發散性思考表現僅與認知抑制呈顯著負相關，另一方面，創意問題解決表現則僅與工作記憶廣度、知識表徵呈顯著相關。兩類創造力運作與認知抑制、工作記憶廣度的關係不同。

One of the problems in creativity research was that researchers didn’t distinguish “high creatives” from different source of creativity measures. In this article, I pointed out that widely-used divergent thinking tests were different from the creative problem solving process, and tested the different relationship between them with some cognitive factors: cognitive inhibition and working memory capacity. Eysenck (1995) hypothesized that reduced cognitive inhibition could increase the amount of encoding of external information, change the structure of knowledge representation, hence promote creativity performance. But he not only failed to distinguish different creativity, nor he considered the possible role of working memory capacity in the process of changing knowledge representation. According to past evidence, I proposed two hypotheses: (1) Reduced cognitive inhibition could increase the amount of retrieving of irrelevant internal information, therefore match the novelty and quantity requirement of divergent thinking tests. However, this irrelevant information would not fit the consideration of appropriateness in creative problem solving. (2) Working memory capacity played a restricting role in information processing, therefore had a key effect in the process of changing knowledge representation and solving creative problems. Exp.1 tested the relationship between two kinds of creativity with cognitive inhibition from the individual difference perspective. Exp.2 used another creative problem to replicate the above results. The results showed that subjects performed well in the divergent thinking test showed lower level of cognitive inhibition functioning in two measures of cognitive inhibition. On the other hand, subjects performed well in creative problem solving showed the same level of cognitive inhibition functioning with less creative ones. Exp.3 used the “dual task” method to test the effects working memory capacity on two creativity tasks. The results showed that this manipulation significantly increased the performance of ordinary subjects in the divergent thinking test, but hindered creative problem solving performance. Exp.4 tested the relationship between cognitive inhibition level, working memory capacity, the structure of knowledge representation and two kinds of creativity all together. The results showed that divergent thinking ability was only negatively correlated with cognitive inhibition. On the other hand, the performance of creative problem solving was correlated with working memory capacity and the structure of knowledge representation, but not with cognitive inhibition. It was concluded that divergent thinking ability was affected by cognitive inhibition, while creative problem solving ability was more constrained by working memory capacity. Two kinds of creativity measures had different relationship with cognitive inhibition and working memory capacity.