Individual Differences in Divergent Thinking as a Function of Variations in Sensory Status

Abstract

Recent neuropsychological data have suggested that visual imagery and visual stimulus processing may share some common cortical processing areas. Because imagery involves the recreation of sensory images, it could be the case that the quality of the sensory inputs may determine the usefulness of imagery in problem solving. This study investigated whether a relation exists between sensory status and divergent thinking ability. A sample of 1,461 participants was tested for visual acuity, color discrimination ability, stereopsis, and pure tone hearing ability. Two measures of divergent thinking involving alternate uses of familiar objects also were taken. Individuals with moderate deficits in visual acuity and stereopsis (which are the abilities that will most profoundly affect relevant aspects of the images for these divergent thinking tasks) performed significantly worse. Performance of those with moderate color discrimination or auditory deficits (both irrelevant to manipulating the images) was indistinguishable from those without such deficits. Thus poor visual acuity and stereopsis may reduce success in divergent thinking tasks because the effectiveness of imagery in achieving novel solutions is reduced when stored images are lacking in details.