The relationship between attention and creativity in a cross-section of British adults. PDF

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The relationship between attention and creativity in a cross- section of British adults. Lindsey Carruthers, Dr Alexandra Willis and Dr Rory MacLean School of Life, Sport and Social Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland. [email protected] 1. Introduction 3. Preliminary R...

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The relationship between attention and creativity in a crosssection of British adults. Lindsey Carruthers, Dr Alexandra Willis and Dr Rory MacLean School of Life, Sport and Social Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland. [email protected] 1. Introduction

3. Preliminary Results

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent psychological conditions in children1 and is becoming more recognised in adulthood,2 with symptoms including diminished levels of attention, behavioural problems, impulsivity and hyperactivity.3

• Pearson Correlation analyses were conducted to look for relationships between attention and creativity within groups.

• Distractibility, a key diagnostic criterion of ADHD, may be associated with higher creativity levels in some individuals.Eg4 Creativity: The generation of original, appropriate, useful and valuable ideas, products or solutions.Eg 5 • ADHD may aid creativity as more original concepts can be produced when an individual’s attention is not entirely focused. This may be due to the likeliness of those with ADHD to be more mentally flexible, open to experience and receptive to new ideas or products.6 • Previous methods of investigating the relationship between attention and creativity are lacking in validity and reliability having used just one test each to measure creativity and attention.

• Within the Control Group, there were no correlations between the attention and creativity measures. Focused Attention • Within the ADHD Group, there were many correlations within CAQ Sustained Attention and between the attention and creativity measures. The table Focused Attention Verbal Divergent shows the between factors significant correlations. Sustained Attention Thinking: Originality Divided Attention: Maze Task • Independent samples t-tests were used to determine what Figural Divergent Self-Report Attention differences appeared between the Control Group and the Thinking: Originality Divided Attention: Maze Task ADHD Group. The results of these are displayed below.

2. Methods • The control group consisted of 100 members of the general public, recruited via opportunity sampling and email advertising. Of this group, 79 members were female and 21 were male. The mean age was 26.93 years (SD = 11.45 years). • Adults with ADHD are currently being tested, with 14 having taken part to date. The ADHD group results presented here are representative of those 14 participants, most of whom have been recruited via the Addressing the Balance Support Group. Of this group, eight members were female and six were male. The mean age was 30.71 years (SD = 11.66 years). • There are five measures of attention, and six measures of creativity which all of the participants have or will take part in. Those in the ADHD group completed an additional Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1).8 • The tasks were provided to the participant in a random order to prevent order and practice effects. • Each testing session lasted 80 minutes and took place in a quiet room in the Edinburgh Napier University Psychology Department. Attention Tests

Creativity Tests

• Self-Report Attention: A four item questionnaire was created by the researcher measuring self-rated attention levels. The answer scheme was based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Example questions are:

• Self-Report Creativity: Two questionnaires13-14 were combined to measure creative self-efficacy in terms of the importance of creativity and idea generation. The same answer scale was used as with the attention questions. Example questions are:

‘I can easily concentrate on one task until it is finished’ and ‘I am easily distracted’

‘ Being creative is important to me’ and ‘I am good at coming up with new ideas’

• Focused Attention: The Attentional Blink task9 involves the detection of two pre-specified targets (T1 and T2) at a fast pace. If T2 appears within 500ms of T1, it is usually missed by the participant. Those with well-focused attention would be more successful at reporting T2. In this example, T1 was the orange letter and T2 was the letter X.

• The Creative Achievement Questionnaire15 was also used to measure past creative recognition. The participants are asked about their training and success in ten different fields, including music, dance and scientific discovery.

• Sustained Attention: The Continuous Performance requires a repeated response to one target, in this case a red square, amongst distracter stimuli consisting of other shape and colour combinations. This task lasts 12 minutes with both reaction time (RT) and accuracy being scored. Those who could sustain their attention well had low RTs and made no errors. task10

• Verbal Divergent Thinking: Two Unusual Uses tasks16 were used to measure the participants’ ability to produce multiple ideas for uses of 1) a tin can and 2) a cardboard box. Divergent thinking is a common measure of verbal creativity and responses are scored for fluency (total number), flexibility (number of different types of idea) and idea originality.16 Unoriginal ideas included a tin can telephone and a cardboard box house, and original ideas included tin can musical instruments and cardboard costumes.

distracter (100ms)

ISI (2500ms) distracter (100ms)

ISI (1500ms) target (100ms)

ISI (2000ms) distracter (100ms)

distracter (100ms)

• Selective Attention: The Stroop task11 involves selecting and responding to the appropriate stimuli (colour) and ignoring the irrelevant stimuli (word). Those who perform well at this task would have quicker RTs when the two pieces of information are incongruent than those who do not.

p p p p p p p

< .05 < .05 < .05 < .05 < .05 < .05 < .05

Attention Tests

**

Creativity tests

Figure 1: The ADHD Group rated their own levels of attention significantly lower than the Control Group.

*

Figure 6: The ADHD Group reported significantly higher levels of creativity than the Control Group.

Figure 2: The ADHD Group were marginally better at reporting both targets, but not significantly so.

Figure 7: The ADHD group had higher scores on Creative Achievement, although not significantly so.

Figure 3: The Control Group had quicker reaction times, but the difference is not significant.

Figure 8: The ADHD Group outperformed the Controls on all aspects, but no significant difference.

Figure 4: The Control Group again had lower reaction times, but not at a significant level.

Figure 9: The ADHD group were better on all aspects, significantly so for Fluency and Elaboration.

Figure 5: The ADHD group showed an insignificant but larger deficit in task performance in the dual condition.

**

**

•In summary, the main differences between the two groups lie within Self-Reported Attention and Creativity, and Figural Divergent Thinking. • When the more individuals with ADHD have been tested, it is expected that more significant differences will be found.

4. Discussion and Conclusions • There is a clear difference in response pattern between the two groups, as the Control Group showed no internal correlations between attention and creativity tasks, but the ADHD group do. Focused and Sustained Attention are both related to Creative Achievement, and each type of attention measured, with the exception of Selective Attention, is related to the aspect of Originality. • This is the first sign that those with ADHD perform differently to those without. • The between group significant differences are currently sparse. The difference between Self-Reported Attention (figure 1) was expected due to the nature of ADHD, as those individuals were aware that they had the disorder, they are aware of their attentional deficits and therefore score themselves lowly on these questions.

Trial Events

ISI (1000ms)

= -.550 = .558 to .676 = .596 to .675 = -.700 to -.577 = .568 to .690 = -.515 = .626

• Error bars show ± SEM. * indicates p < .05, ** indicates p < .01.

Aim: To determine the ways in which performance on a range of attention and creativity tests may be related in adults with and without ADHD. • The findings should indicate if it would be valuable to incorporate aspects of creativity within learning environments in order to improve work rate and quality. Finding something that those with ADHD can do well at could improve confidence and self esteem, a lack of which is a serious problem in adults with the disorder.7

r r r r r r r

• Figural Divergent Thinking: A Picture Completion Task using circles16 was employed to measure the production of ideas through drawing. A sheet of simple circles was provided and participants were asked to make different and original pictures out of them. These were again scored for fluency and originality, as well as elaboration (the amount of detail added to each drawing).16 Unoriginal ideas included faces and fruit, and original ideas included bicycles and hot air balloons.

The difference in creative self-efficacy (figure 6) is an important indicator at this early stage that those with ADHD consider creativity to be more important, and rate themselves higher on this trait than the Control Group. • Significant differences appear between groups for Figural Divergent Thinking (figure 9), but not for Verbal Divergent Thinking (figure 8). It may be the case that this is the area in which those with ADHD particularly excel. Further analysis will confirm this. • It is observed that within the ADHD Group, Originality is the only aspect of Divergent Thinking that is related to attention measures, but is also the only aspect within Figural Divergent Thinking not to be significantly different between groups. REASON?? The results so far are positive. It is hoped that further investigation will go towards the development of our understanding on the relationship between attention and creativity, for those with and without ADHD. • The next step for this study is to test more participants with ADHD, with the hope of raising this number to at least 50.

• Divided Attention: Dual Tasking involves the completion of two tasks simultaneously. The present study used number lists as one task, and a tracking maze as the second task.12 Scores for both tasks were recorded separately before being combined to measure the deficit on each task. Those with little difference between single and dual task scores were more capable of successfully dividing attention.

• When data collection is complete, the collages will be judged by creative ‘experts’ according to the Consensual Assessment Technique.17 At this point, final results can be reported and pathways for further studies can become clear. • Creative Production: A collage making task was used to examine the ability of participants to produce a creative item from scratch. Several arts and crafts items were provided and the instructions were to make original and to think of a creative title. These have not been scored yet, so are not presented in the results section.

5. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Maria Shaw (ENU), Richard Jones (Addressing the Balance), Niki Vielma (ADHD Women’s Support Group) and all of the participants. 6. References 1 Gomez, R. and Condon, M. (1999). Journal of Learning Difficulties, 32(2), 150-158. 2 Glöckner-Rist, A., Pedersen, A. and Rist, F. (2013). Journal of Attention Disorders, 17, 114-127. 3 American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.). 4 White, H. A. and Shah, P. (2006). Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 1121-1131 5 Hennessey, B. A., & Amabile, T. M. (2010). The Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 569-598. 6 Abraham, A., Windmann, S., Siefen, R. et al. (2006). Child Neuropsychology, 12, 111-123. 7 Advokat, C., Lane, S. M. and Luo, C. (2011). Journal of Attention Disorders, 15(8), 656-666. 8 Kessler, R. C., Adler, L. and Ames, M. et al. (2005). Psychological Medicine, 35(2), 245-256. 9 Shapiro, K. L., Arnell, K. M. and Raymond, J. E. (1997). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1(8), 291-296. 10 Shalev, L., Ben-Simon, A., Mevorach, C., Cohen, Y. and Tsal, Y. (2011). Neuropsychologia, 49, 2584-2591. 11 Stroop, J. R. (1935). Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662. 12 Della Sala, S. D., Foley, J. A., Beschin, N. et al. (2010). Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 25, 410-419. 13 Beghetto, R. A. (2006). Creativity Research Journal, 18(4), 447-457. 14 Jaussi, K. S., Randel, A. E. & Dionne, S. D. (2007). Creativity Research Journal, 19(2-3), 247-258. 15 Carson, S. H., Peterson, J. B. and Higgins, D. M. (2005). Creativity Research Journal, 17(1), 37-50. 16 Torrance, E. P. (1966). Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: Norms-Technical Manual Research Edition. Verbal Tests, Forms A and B, Figural Tests, Forms A and B. 17 Amabile, T. M. (1982). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(5), 997-1013....