Creativity and the homospatial process. Experimental studies

Through empirical studies involving intensive and extensive interviewing of outstanding creative persons in literature, visual art, and science, a specific creative cognitive operation involving complex mental imagery was identified. This operation has been designated the "homospatial process" and defined as actively conceiving two or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a conception leading to the articulation of new identities. Four experimental assessments involving exposure to stimuli designed to evoke the homospatial process have been carried out with groups of talented persons as follows: (1) 43 writers produced short poetic metaphors in response to 10 different pairs of slide stimuli. Subjects were randomly assigned to view the pairs either superimposed upon one another, and thereby appearing to occupy the same spatial location, or separated and side by side on the screen as a control condition. (2) 46 writers were similarly divided and exposed for a shortened period of time to the same stimuli in order to encourage mental elaboration in the creation of poetic metaphors. (3) Drawings were created by 43 artists separated into a group exposed to three superimposed images and a control group exposed to the same component images side by side. (4) 39 artists were separated into a group exposed to three superimposed images and a control group exposed to the same images constructed into a single-image figure-ground display. Findings were that, in all four experiments, subjects' productions in response to the superimposed visual stimuli were rated significantly higher in creativity, by independent experts, than productions in response to the control condition. Therefore, the externalized representations of the homospatial process facilitated both literary and artistic creativity.