Cognitive States of Potentiality in Art-making

TL;DR

This study investigates whether artistic creativity aligns more with honing theory, which emphasizes actualizing a single ill-defined idea, or with search-and-select models, through a classification experiment involving artists' responses.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence supporting honing theory by demonstrating that judges perceive artists' responses as consistent with potentiality states rather than discrete idea search.

Findings

Judges favored honing theory classification for artists' responses.

Participants' responses were more aligned with potentiality states.

Empirical support for honing theory over search-select models.

Abstract

Creativity is thought to involve searching and selecting amongst multiple discrete idea candidates. Honing theory predicts that it involves actualizing the potentiality of as few as a single ill-defined idea by viewing it from different contexts. This paper reports on a study that tests between these theories. Participants were invited to "Create a painting that expresses yourself in any style that appeals to you", and asked "Were all of your ideas for your painting distinct and separate ideas?" Naive judges were provided with descriptions of the two theories of creativity, sample answers, and practice responses to classify. The judges were significantly more likely to classify the artists' responses as 'H', indicative of honing theory rather than 'S' indicative of a search-select view of creativity.