About this Research Topic

Background

The aim of this Research Topic is to advance our understanding of cognitive creativity, creative problem-solving, and creative art and artistic performance by showcasing novel and/or interdisciplinary methodological approaches for studying these areas.

There is a long history of research into cognitive creativity and creative performance. This has addressed questions of what constitutes a creative product, the creative process, individual differences in creative ability and potential and their relationship to expertise, and finally environmental influences on creativity. However, as creativity is such a broad and multifaceted area, research has tended to be focused into pockets of discrete study which suffer from a lack of cross-fertilization. It is thus important to integrate research ideas and empirical methods and findings across a variety of disciplines, including but not restricted to psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, medicine, education, and performance science.

One important aspect of this cross-fertilization is the sharing of methodological approaches for investigating creativity. Much existing research utilises a relatively small number of tried and tested empirical methodologies, and these will differ between disciplines and areas. For instance, much creativity research employs paradigms such as the Alternative Uses Task and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, and research into insight relies heavily upon lab-based studies of classic ‘insight problems’.

We see three ways whereby novel methodological approaches can be applied: 1) Traditional methodological approaches can be employed to investigate hitherto unresearched domains. 2) Recent technological advances and the increased accessibility of domain-specific populations online provide the opportunity to develop brand new research methodologies that move beyond the tried and tested. 3) Researchers can interrogate one domain of creative performance using perspectives from another, either within the same discipline or in a different one, thus juxtaposing methodologies from multiple domains and disciplines. Such juxtapositions may be rather more ‘off the beaten track’, such as using magic to study insight, and music to study medicine.

The main aims of this Frontiers Research Topic are therefore to showcase recent methodological developments, according to these three approaches outlined above, in any area of cognitive creativity, creative problem-solving and creative artistic performance. Moreover, we hope to foster interdisciplinary discourse. We welcome the following submission formats: original research, methods, hypothesis & theory, opinion, review, and perspective.

Keywords: creativity, methodology, performing arts, intellectual games, insight, interdisciplinarity

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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