Measuring creativity is a complex task because it involves a combination of cognitive processes, personality traits, and environmental factors. Creativity is not a single, easily quantifiable trait; rather, it is a multifaceted and dynamic aspect of human behavior. Measuring creativity remains a formidable challenge, yet scientists believe they have devised a notably straightforward method for evaluating at least one facet of it.
According to ScienceAlert, it's a test that you can take yourself in a couple of minutes, and it works best when you don't know much about how the analysis works. Visit the project page to try it out, and return here to learn more about it.
The new method, called the Divergent Association Task (DAT), asks people to name 10 nouns that are as far apart in meaning as possible. "Cat" and "book" would be more divergent than "cat" and "dog," for example.
A computer algorithm then measures this semantic distance-how much the two words have to do with each other-between the nouns the person came up with. Based on an analysis of responses from 8,914 volunteers, DAT is at least as good as current methods for predicting creativity in a person.
An algorithmic approach is employed to gauge the semantic distance, or the degree of association, between the nouns generated by an individual. Drawing insights from the responses of 8,914 participants, DAT demonstrates effectiveness comparable to existing methods in predicting a person's creativity.
"Several theories posit that creative people are able to generate more divergent ideas," wrote the researchers in their paper published in June 2021.
"If this is correct, simply naming unrelated words and then measuring the semantic distance between them could serve as an objective measure of divergent thinking."
