Creative Imagination Research Articles

DS-Viz: a systematic method for visualizing design spaces

ABSTRACT Much of design research is framed around the idea of ‘spaces:’ problems, solutions, alternatives, concepts, knowledge and even design itself have all been seen as occupying spaces. Visualizing design spaces, understanding their configuration and how designers explore and expand them, can yield valuable insights into design processes. This paper reports a novel method for creating Design Space Visualizations, a method we call DS-Viz. This allows researchers to create 2D and 3D representations of design spaces from multidimensional descriptions of design ideas. Using data from a study of 30 participants completing a game-based design activity, we show how DS-Viz can be used to investigate designers’ behavior during their design processes. By analyzing two additional datasets from a more open ideation task and a more closed parametric design task, we also demonstrate how the method can be applied to different design contexts. We discuss how DS-Viz can support the creation of design space visualizations enabling researchers to derive metrics related to designers’ explorations. Further to its potential use in research, we highlight the possible benefits of employing the visualizations created with DS-Viz to provide designers’ with feedback in educational and professional contexts.

Law and reason

Since its introduction in 1912, the Auteurswet (Authors’ Act .copyright act) has protected works that have an ‘individual, original character’ and ‘bear the personal stamp of the maker’. The act grants that maker exclusive rights, including the right to exploitation. This means that the maker can decide for themselves how, where and when the work is made public or copied. In addition, the act confers personality rights, which protect the maker against changes or other impairments of the work that might damage their honour and reputation. Although the Auteurswet did not have its origins in the building industry, the act has certainly demonstrated its relevance to that sector, given that architects’ designs also fall under the protection of the act. Since 1912 several authors’ rights lawsuits have been filed in the context of the construction industry. These have focused in particular on the question of whether alterations to buildings encroach on the rights of the architect. Nowadays the debate often revolves around the tension between the creative vision of the architect on the one hand and functional or social interests on the other, such as a change of purpose. This leads to a weighing of interests in which the key consideration is how these interests relate to the personality rights of the architect. This article focuses on conflicts arising from changes to existing buildings during their architects’ lifetime. Four case histories are considered: the De Maerle villa (1917‑1918) in Huizen, the Metropool multi‑tenancy building (1991‑1992) in Amsterdam, the Ministry of Agriculture, Trade and Industry (2015) in The Hague, and the Naturalis Natural History Museum (2017) in Leiden. The key question is whether the arguments used in the evaluation and outcome of these cases have changed over time. The analysis of the four cases reveals that legislation, including the Auteurswet, is constantly subject to interpretation. In summary, the cases demonstrate that the act continues to evolve, partly in response to social change. There remains the important question of whether the application of the act (in other words, the interpretation of the weighing of interests) to architects’ designs is still consistent with current practice. The societal importance of preserving existing buildings and retrofitting them for sustainability is increasing. Demolition has become less acceptable from the viewpoint of sustainability, which only serves to heighten the tension between architectural authors’ rights and societal interests. Yet the jurisprudence shows that there is still scope for these societal interests. In the weighing of interests, arguments in favour of preserving a design are set against reasons for change, such as changing uses, modern functional requirements and sustainability. The cases discussed here illustrate how the interpretation of the Auteurswet has evolved and adapted to social change. This includes a greater focus on the personality rights of the maker. Although that does not result in a complete interdiction on changes to buildings, it does help to clarify the scope of these rights. It ensures that the Auteurswet remains balanced between creative freedom on the one hand and societal interests on the other, with room for continued development in the future.

The Role of Creative Imagination, Illustration and Storytelling in Supporting Social, Emotional and Mental Health in Educational Settings

The Role of Creative Imagination, Illustration and Storytelling in Supporting Social, Emotional and Mental Health in Educational Settings

A STEAM Experience: Architectural Modeling and Technology Exploitation at the Museum

ABSTRACT In this paper, we discuss our proposed implementation of transdisciplinary STEAM practices in a museum learning environment to connect architecture, culture, and history to mathematics education, through the creation of technology-based visualizations. These STEAM practices were implemented in a museum in Egypt in the form of professional development (PD) workshops for five in-service mathematics teachers. The PD workshops focused on transdisciplinary approaches to mathematics modeling using GeoGebra (dynamic geometry software) visualization utilizing Augmented Reality (AR), and 3D printing technology. Sociocultural constructivism guided our theoretical preferences in this study. We followed design-based research and ethno-modeling methodologies to apply these PD workshops in the museum learning environment. This paper discusses the results that emerged from qualitatively analyzing the collected data, in the form of themes that focused on technology utilization at the museum. We conclude our paper with a discussion on the possibilities and future opportunities in technology utilization and affordances at the museum.

Visual analysis of emerging topics and trends in contrast agent extravasation research in medical imaging: a bibliometric study using CiteSpace and VOSviewer.

This study presents a visualization of the global research dynamics on contrast agent extravasation in medical imaging using a knowledge map, revealing the research directions, emerging topics, trends, and frontiers in this field. Using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software with the Web of Science Core Collection database as the data source, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on relevant studies of contrast agent extravasation in medical imaging examinations. Analysis was performed on aspects such as yearly publication volume, country/institution distribution, authorship, co-citation documents, and keywords, leading to the creation of visualizations. A total of 4,635 articles were included in the study, with the first relevant research report appearing in 1950. The yearly publication and citation volumes have shown an overall increasing trend over the years. Research in this field was predominantly concentrated in the United States, accounting for approximately one-third of the global publication output. The University of California System was the top institution in terms of publication volume. The top five high-frequency keywords were "magnetic resonance imaging," "computed tomography," "management," "diagnosis," and "contrast agent." Cluster analysis of keywords revealed three main clusters: "contrast," "fluorescein angiography," and "focused ultrasound," showing good continuity over time. The keyword burst analysis identified that "gd dtpa" had the highest burst value of 20.51. The emergence of keywords shifted over time. At present, the keywords that are still emerging are "multimodal imaging," "case report," and "leakage." More scholars are dedicating efforts to research on contrast agent extravasation in medical imaging. "Multimodal imaging" will be a key research focus in the foreseeable future. Contrast agent extravasation remains a substantial challenge with high research value in medical imaging.

Global research trends and hotspots in the application of lasers for acne treatment from 1986 to 2022: bibliometric and visual analysis.

Conventional acne treatments are associated with side effects from medication and antibiotic resistance, leading to the search for alternative therapeutic modes of action, such as lasers. The considered bibliometric and visual analysis was designed to present the research publications related to the application of lasers in the treatment of acne from 1986 to 2022, identifying the trends and foremost contributing countries, institutions, and journals. The Scopus database was used to explore publications related to the use of lasers for the treatment of acne. The publications were reviewed based on predefined criteria, including the year of publication, study type, country of origin, affiliated institutions, journals, and citation patterns, employing descriptive analysis. The data were subsequently entered into Microsoft Excel 2016. Furthermore, for the creation of visualization maps depicting international collaborations and research hotspots, we employed VOSviewer software version 1.6.20. A total of 469 documents were retrieved from the Scopus database for analysis. Of those, 74.41% were original articles, 12.15% were reviews, 3.84% were letters, and 9.59% were other forms of publications. Since 2003, the number of publications has shown a consistent positive trend, with a slight plateau between 2012 and 2019. The United States was the most contributing country (33.26%), followed by South Korea (10.23%) and China (10.02%). The emerging research hotspots were "fractional laser therapy and carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers", "types of laser therapy and combination therapies for acne treatment", and "the effectiveness of laser treatments". This study is the first bibliometric analysis of the use of lasers in acne management. These findings indicate an increasing interest in this emerging field, especially in exploring the efficacy of various types and combinations of lasers. This study can help researchers and policymakers understand research trends and gaps to guide future research, collaboration, and decision-making.

Platformed creativity: Female chuktubers in Korean football media

This study proposes the concept of platformed creativity to examine how new technologies have engaged in the social dynamics of creative practices. In recent years, a few Korean female digital creators have become visible by producing and sharing gender-bound football media content on YouTube. Based on a critical discourse analysis involving the channels of four female Korean chuktubers, I found that this user-generated media platform offers these female digital creators the opportunity to capitalize on their unpopular and unconventional characteristics and narratives, allowing them to transform their creative practices into collective resistance against gender norms and hierarchies in the football media industry. However, YouTube also limits these chuktubers’ creative possibilities to the extent that it does not fundamentally intervene in the existing gender architecture within society. This study concludes that user-generated media platforms invigorate the social dynamics of creative practices while simultaneously controlling the social potential of creative imagination.

DO CONTO AOS QUADRINHOS: UMA PROPOSTA DE LETRAMENTO LITERÁRIO E TRADUÇÃO INTERSEMIÓTICA A PARTIR DO CONTO “MARIA”, DE CONCEIÇÃO EVARISTO

The present work aims to present a proposal for literary literacy for elementary school based on intersemiotic translation through the reading of short stories and the production of comic books. Thus, in this study, we propose a didactic experience to be lived with elementary school classes, especially with students from the 8th and 9th grades, observing the relationship between the reading/reception of the literary text and the comics produced by the students as a form of interpretation and translation of the short story "Maria", by Conceição Evaristo (2014). To this end, we take the opportunity to discuss concepts inherent to intersemiotic translation and the language of comics and their contributions to the formation of the critical reader in school. This work is qualitative and of a basic-propositional nature, characterized by using the workshop cycle as a methodological apparatus for the proposition of classes. To support our didactic proposal, we bring as a theoretical framework, mainly, the studies of Santaella and Nöth (2001) and Borba (2020), regarding intersemiotic translation, and Ramos (2019), Santos and Vergueiro (2012) and Assis and Marinho (2016), regarding the language of comics and the teaching of comics in the classroom. We hope that the didactic proposal presented in this work will contribute to the expansion of the students' reading repertoire, to the improvement of reading skills and interpretation of literary texts in the classroom, to the encouragement of imaginative creativity and to the formation of critical readers.

"It's always happy to see me": Exploring LOVOT robots as companions for older adults.

AI-enabled social robots present the potential to resolve the loneliness and social isolation of older adults in long-term care (LTC). There is limited research on how older adults perceive and make sense of these robots and how human-robot companionship is formed. This study investigated older adults' experiences using LOVOT, a social robot. Using an ethnographic study design, we introduced LOVOT robots to a Canadian LTC home for four weekly interaction sessions. Thirty-six residents, seven family members and two healthcare staff participated. Data collection involved observational field notes and conversational interviews. The analysis was guided by ikigai, a Japanese well-being concept. Reflexive thematic analysis identified four key themes. 1) Joy: The robot offers joy and excitement through interactions. 2) Acceptance: For older adults with mobility or cognitive impairments, LOVOT gives consistent positive responses, offering a sense of unconditional acceptance. 3) Creativity: The robot's non-verbal communication allows older adults to grow creative imagination, encouraging personal expression and expanding interaction possibilities. 4) "Not for me": Not all participants like the LOVOT robot. AI-enabled social robots show potential in supporting the psychosocial needs of older adults, which have broader implications for LTC practices and future research directions. Future research should further explore the creative utility of social robots among LTC residents.

Children’s cognitive story mapping: a complex South Africa/Canada transdisciplinary collaboration

ABSTRACT This innovative transdisciplinary children's cognitive story mapping collaboration was initiated in 2022 by Circle of All Nations (CAN), Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC) Carleton University, (in Canada), National Association of Child Care Workers (NACCW) and Durban University of Technology (DUT) (in South Africa). It integrates approaches from arts and humanities, social services and cartography in child and youth care work by engaging social service sector workers and researchers in art story map creation with children and youth. The joint engagement and research in the compilation and presentation of the data, findings and knowledge is leading to new dimensions in participatory mapping where children initiate the map creation process with workers. The children's map visualizations of social and environmental realities, concerns and needs have led to a prioritization of issues for practice, program and policy development, including in child protection case management. Researchers complement the work with national and provincial digital maps that permit analysis and focussed interventions. This article introduces the term Cognitive Story Maps; it is a preliminary exploration of theoretical frameworks, including Indigenous, that support collaborative bridge building between distinct domains of creative visualization, methodological practice and cartographic representation to generate innovations in knowledge creation and research.

The Impact of Real-Time Reader Interactions on Plot Structure and Pacing in Chinese Web Novels

The rise of real-time reader interaction in Chinese web novels has revolutionized digital storytelling, transforming it from a traditionally author-driven process into a highly dynamic and audience-influenced medium. Unlike conventional literature, where narratives are predetermined, web novelists frequently adjust plot structure, pacing, and character development based on real-time reader feedback. This paper explores the various mechanisms of reader interaction, including comment sections, bullet chats, voting systems, and financial incentives, and examines their impact on story progression. Through case studies of popular web novels such as The King’s Avatar, Release That Witch, and Ze Tian Ji, the study demonstrates how audience participation can lead to significant alterations in narrative arcs. The research also contrasts Chinese web fiction with Western platforms like Wattpad and Kindle Vella, highlighting differences in monetization, engagement strategies, and storytelling conventions. Furthermore, the paper investigates the challenges authors face in balancing their creative vision with audience expectations, identifying successful strategies employed by top web novelists. Finally, the study considers the global implications of Chinese web fiction, particularly its influence on transmedia storytelling, AI-driven content creation, and the future of interactive literature. By analyzing the interplay between authorship and real-time reader engagement, this research provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging role of participatory storytelling in the digital age.

The disencapsulated mind: A premotor theory of human imagination.

Our premodern ancestors had perceptual, motoric, and cognitive functional domains that were modularly encapsulated. Some of these came to interact through a new type of cross-modular binding in our species. This allowed previously domain-dedicated, encapsulated motoric and sensory operators to operate on operands for which they had not evolved. Such operators could at times operate nonvolitionally, while at other times they could be governed volitionally. In particular, motoric operations that derive from the same circuits that compute hand motions for object manipulation could now be retooled for virtual manipulation in a mental workspace in the absence of any physical hand or other effector movements. I hypothesize that the creativity of human imagination and mental models is rooted in premotor simulation of sequential manipulations of objects and symbols in the mental workspace, in analogy with the premotor theory of attention, which argues that attention evolved from "internalized" eye movement circuitry. Overall, operator "disencapsulation" led to a bifurcation of consciousness in humans: a concrete form centered on perception of the body in the physical world and an abstract form focused on explanatory mental models. One of the consequences of these new abilities was the advent of psychotic disorders that do not exist in species possessed solely of the concrete type of consciousness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Espousing Stakeholder Engagement for Enterprise Growth: Ali Jimale Ahmed’s Art of Language Manipulation in Critical Thought and Analysis

Language is the primary vehicle writers use to present their views in the ideological transactions they have with their audience over a particular subject matter. However, a variety of other factors such as context, social environment, creative imagination, ideology, style, critical outlook, and mastery of the medium influence the writer’s work. Although these are common features available in every writer’s stock, authors differ in the skills they use in representing multiple abstract phenomena. More importantly, authorial difference is demonstrated in each writer’s ability of manipulating language to present his thoughts. This includes but not limited to the appropriate selection of the features of language, the writing style, cohesion and logical flow of ideas, and the narrative flow to capture the readers’ attention as key stakeholders in the writing process. This article presents an overview of how Ali Jimale Ahmed, a Somali-American academician, poet and literary critic, uses language to communicate his thought in prose and poetry. It shows how, while delineating his argument and crafting his subject matter, Ahmed espouses various stakeholders in his creative works through a careful and artful manipulation of language for effective and emphatic communication.

Андрей Платонов — пролетарский писатель? К проблеме дефиниции ключевых слов советской эпохи

Can Platonov be considered a proletarian writer, given his background from the working class and his recognition as such? In Soviet literature, there were such terms as “proletarian writer” that had an obvious ideological meaning. However, when we consider them in the context of specific phenomena, this meaning is not always obvious. Platonov’s references to Mayakovsky’s works and his comments in response to proletarian criticism indicate how his artistic style was transformed under the influence of the ideological discussions of the time. His creative vision tends towards dramatic forms, and his works are influenced by emotional involvement in the tragic fate of his fellow workers, who during the first five-year plan were forced to perform impossible tasks. Engineers and professional writers were accused of sabotaging socialism, and Platonov devoted himself to these topics. Platonov saw himself as a writer who speaks through artistic images. His work was not devoid of aesthetic impartiality, but it was shrouded in assessments rather than meanings. The concept of a “proletarian writer,” as it related to Platonov, has changed over time. According to the charter of the VAPP (All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), this meant that the writer had to belong to the combat detachments of the working class. However, this definition was challenged during discussions about codification, and a new interpretation appeared in which the proletarian writer was perceived as a craftsman, a master, and a dedicated professional.

CompositingVis: Exploring Interactions for Creating Composite Visualizations in Immersive Environments.

Composite visualization represents a widely embraced design that combines multiple visual representations to create an integrated view. However, the traditional approach of creating composite visualizations in immersive environments typically occurs asynchronously outside of the immersive space and is carried out by experienced experts. In this work, we aim to empower users to participate in the creation of composite visualization within immersive environments through embodied interactions. This could provide a flexible and fluid experience with immersive visualization and has the potential to facilitate understanding of the relationship between visualization views. We begin with developing a design space of embodied interactions to create various types of composite visualizations with the consideration of data relationships. Drawing inspiration from people's natural experience of manipulating physical objects, we design interactions based on the combination of 3D manipulations in immersive environments. Building upon the design space, we present a series of case studies showcasing the interaction to create different kinds of composite visualizations in virtual reality. Subsequently, we conduct a user study to evaluate the usability of the derived interaction techniques and user experience of creating composite visualizations through embodied interactions. We find that empowering users to participate in composite visualizations through embodied interactions enables them to flexibly leverage different visualization views for understanding and communicating the relationships between different views, which underscores the potential of several future application scenarios.

Embodied Creativity: An experimental school laboratory on movement to promote the educational development of students with SLD

The concept of creativity identified as a mental construct, in recent years, has seen an evolution towards an embodied vision of creativity. The body and movement take on a fundamental role as an educational and inclusive tool for relating to others, for exploring the environment and as a generator of ideas and mental abilities. In this regard, the aim of this research was to propose a creative dance school laboratory for students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) and evaluate its effectiveness in the development of fundamental personal skills. The Questionnaire on Mental Abilities second version (QuAM 2) was used as an evaluation tool and the results allowed us to appreciate the goodness of the educational proposal and to propose interesting considerations for the stakeholders of teaching and special pedagogy.

Visualizing Temporal Topic Embeddings with a Compass.

Dynamic topic modeling is useful at discovering the development and change in latent topics over time. However, present methodology relies on algorithms that separate document and word representations. This prevents the creation of a meaningful embedding space where changes in word usage and documents can be directly analyzed in a temporal context. This paper proposes an expansion of the compass-aligned temporal Word2Vec methodology into dynamic topic modeling. Such a method allows for the direct comparison of word and document embeddings across time in dynamic topics. This enables the creation of visualizations that incorporate temporal word embeddings within the context of documents into topic visualizations. In experiments against the current state-of-the-art, our proposed method demonstrates overall competitive performance in topic relevancy and diversity across temporal datasets of varying size. Simultaneously, it provides insightful visualizations focused on temporal word embeddings while maintaining the insights provided by global topic evolution, advancing our understanding of how topics evolve over time.

THE USE OF EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER PROGRAMS IN CORRECTIONAL WORK WITH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The article clarifies the role, content and requirements for the selection of computer programs for correctional work with preschool children. The approaches in the pedagogical literature concerning the application of computers in preschool and primary school age are analyzed, namely: the use of computers for learning; the use of computers as a means for child’s cognitive development. To achieve the goal, methods of analyzing scientific literature and studying the scientific papers in this area have been used. Methods of empirical research presupposed conducting a questionnaire and survey: collecting data from preschool teachers on the importance of creating organizational and pedagogical conditions for the use of computer programs in correctional work with preschool children. The computer programs that are necessary for a speech therapist in preparing for classes are presented: PowerPoint, Paint, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW, Word Text Editor. It has been established that the use of computer programs in correctional work with preschool children will be effective under the following organizational and pedagogical conditions: taking into account the age and individual characteristics of children; the use of personally oriented learning and a competency-based approach; increasing the level of motivation of children, their interest and stimulation of solving problem-oriented life situations that require children’s significant mental efforts; strengthening the developmental focus of the game; ensuring active interaction of all participants in the game activity. The general advantages of using computer programs in correctional work with preschool children have been formulated: a flexible combination of various methods, techniques and means of effective learning; intellectual development of children and all cognitive processes; development of creative imagination and stimulation of cognitive interest in preschool children; increasing the level of motivation when children can learn from their own experience and the experience of others in a specific matter; friendliness towards the teacher and each other; cohesion of the children's collective; development of the ability to critically assess the situation and predict the consequences of one's own activities, etc.

The Effect of Mathematics Learning with the Creative Visualization Technique on the Geometry Ability Level of Students at SMP Islam Wonopringgo

Students often face difficulties in understanding geometric concepts, particularly in the Pythagorean theorem as well as in plane and solid geometry, necessitating innovation in teaching methods. This study aims to examine the effect of problem-based mathematics learning using the Creative Visualization technique on improving the geometry skills of eighth-grade students at SMP Islam Wonopringgo, based on Van Hiele’s theory. The study employed a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-posttest control group design. The sample consisted of two purposively selected classes: the experimental class, which received instruction using the Creative Visualization technique, and the control class, which followed conventional teaching. The research instrument was a geometry skills test based on Van Hiele's five levels of geometric thinking. The results showed a significant difference in the improvement of geometry skills between the two groups. Students in the experimental class showed more significant progress, particularly at the analysis and informal deduction levels. Thus, the Creative Visualization technique is proven to be effective in enhancing students’ geometry skills and can be considered an alternative method in geometry instruction.

스테이블 디퓨전 (Stable Diffusion)인공지능 생성 이미지를 통한 디자인 접근방법 연구 - 칭저우(Qingzhou)박물관 롱싱사(⿓興寺) 불상 피규어 디자인을 중심으로

This study focuses on utilizing Stable Diffusion technology to assist hand figurine design, exploring innovative methods through image generation AI to create unique Buddhist statue hand figurines. The research centers on the hand figurine of the Longxing Temple Buddha from the Cheongju Museum, explaining the principles of the technology and the characteristics of visual creation through literature and case studies. It analyzes the concept of hand figurines and explores the aesthetics of Buddhist statues and the SWOT analysis of the hand figurine market, identifying design challenges. Based on similar research and user analysis, the study derives user requirements and transforms the aesthetic characteristics of the Buddhist statue into a LoRA model training set, verifying its learning effectiveness. Subsequently, it generates images using prompts and LoRA hierarchical control, evaluating their usability. The results show that this hand figurine design method contributes to modernizing aesthetic characteristics and integrating trendy elements, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness, and is expected to offer a new direction for hand figurine design development.