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Abstract
Evidence suggesting that episodic specificity induction improves divergent thinking performance in younger and older adults has been taken as indicative of the role of declarative memory processes in creativity. A series of studies were carried out to verify the specificity of such findings by investigating the effects of several novel episodic and semantic memory induction procedures on a widely employed measure of divergent creative thinking (the Alternate Uses Task), in comparison to a control induction and a no-induction baseline in both younger and older adults. There was no clear evidence for a specific role played by the induction of episodic or semantic memory processes in facilitating creative thinking across the three experiments, and the effects of the induction procedures (episodic, semantic and control) on divergent thinking were not comparable across age groups. On the other hand, higher levels of creativity were generally associated with older adults (60-80 years). In Experiments 2 and 3, older adults generated a greater number of responses (fluency), more unique responses (average originality, peak originality, creativity ratings) and more varied responses (flexibility) than younger adults (18-30 years). The findings are discussed in relation to the specificity of declarative memory operations and their impact on creative thinking, especially within the context of healthy ageing.
Highlights
The relationship between creativity, memory and ageing is a perplexing one
There was a dissociation in the pattern of induction responsivity such that younger adults showed greater responsivity following the episodic induction whereas older adults demonstrated stronger responsivity following the semantic induction
The episodic induction focused on personal event construction via an autobiographical memory retrieval task while the semantic induction comprised of a free association task
Summary
The relationship between creativity, memory and ageing is a perplexing one. While healthy ageing is associated with a decline in several cognitive abilities, creative capacity seems to be relatively preserved. Addis and Schacter [7] postulated that if a cognitive task relies on episodic memory, performance on the task should improve following the induction of episodic-specific processes The aim of Experiment 3 was to use the same episodic induction procedure (ESI) as in the first study to showcase such effects [7] to evaluate the effect of the same on divergent creative thinking and to assess whether previous findings may perhaps be specific to the type of memory induction implemented. This induction procedure was incorporated into the general format of the paradigms used in the previous studies as follows. The latter will be scored via subjective creativity ratings, as in the original study by Madore and colleagues [8], as well as via the objective scoring methods of creativity used in Experiments 1 and 2 (average originality and peak originality measures)
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