Can People Creative in Imagery Interpret Ambiguous Figures Faster than People Less Creative in Imagery?

Abstract

The purpose of the research study was to investigate whether people creative in imagery are better than people non‐creative in imagery at interpreting ambiguous figures. Creativity, in the imagery paradigm, is said to involve two processes: combinational play and discovery. Discovery plays a major role in creativity as it is the process of discerning, judging or interpreting the value of a mental construction. Furthermore, creative people have been said to be insightful thus supporting the proposition advanced here that people creative in imagery are faster at interpreting and finding alternative interpretations for ambiguous figures than people less creative in imagery. This study reports both latencies and discoveries in perception and mental imagery as measured on a figure combination task. The data support the conclusion that people creative in imagery are more capable in reinterpreting ambiguous figures and that they are quicker in their discoveries than people less creative in imagery. The analysis to the questions of how the subjects arrived at their discoveries may also illustrate the Gestalt literature on insight as a rapid pattern recognition.