Adaptation and Cognition

Research exploration of creativity potentially provides a clarification of the criteria for normal, highly adaptive, and pathological patient functioning. Very little controlled experimental research on creativity has, however, been carried out. This paper reports the results of two related experiments on a specific type of creative cognition named “homospatial thinking,” which has been described in previous empirical research. Homospatial thinking consists of actively conceiving two or more discrete entities occupying the same space or spatial location, a conception leading to the articulation of new identities. Experimental conditions involved the production of literary metaphors in response to either superimposed or separated pairs of projected visual images by 89 writer subjects. In one experiment, two randomly selected groups of subjects were exposed to photographic slides containing the experimental superimposed and the control separated image pairs for a full period of 5 minutes for each metaphor to be produced. In the other experiment, two randomly selected subject groups were exposed to the same photographic slides for a period of only 2 minutes for each metaphor in order to assess the effect of mental work in the absence of the visual stimuli. Creativity of all metaphors produced by all subjects was independently rated by two literary judges. Results support the hypothesis that homospatial thinking is operative in creative production of literary metaphors. As metaphorical construction is paradigmatic for creative activities in a wide variety of areas, it is suggested that homospatial thinking operates widely in creativity. Because creativity is an important type of human adaptation, the results have pertinence to both psychiatric practice and theory.