Chapter 3 – Creativity and expertise

Thinking that is directed toward finding a single correct or effective solution to a problem.

Thinking that is directed toward generating a range of potential ideas that meet a specified requirement or set of requirements

A task that requires participants to come up with as many uses as they can that are different from the normal use for a familiar object, such as a brick, within a limited time.

A form of long-term memory that consists of one’s interconnected general knowledge about the world, including concepts and words that make up language.

A brain-imaging technique that is based on the detection of positrons (or antielectrons). As a technique it has good spatial resolution to detect active brain regions but poor temporal resolution to detect changes in brain activity over time.

A network of brain regions that is active when the brain is in a resting state (albeit not sleeping) and when a person is engaged in mind wandering and imaginative thinking (e.g., remembering the past or thinking about the future).

A network of brain regions that is typically recruited by tasks that require executive control, inhibition and working memory.

Processes that function to organise, coordinate and control the workings of the cognitive system to achieve current goals.

Processes that inhibit dominant responses so that other, less dominant responses can be attended to.

A limited-capacity system used for the processing and short-term storage of information.

A network of brain regions that underpins the decision to switch between the involvement of the default mode network and the central executive network at any point in time.

A task in which participants are required to combine presented shapes to make a novel and interesting combination that depicts a recognisable object or assemblage.

A stage during problem solving when the target problem is set aside for a while so as to work on other things. It is claimed that incubation can facilitate solution discovery for the target problem when work on it resumes.

A form of quantitative analysis in which the statistical data from numerous previous studies on a particular topic are combined so that the overall evidence for particular effects can be determined.

Loose, associative thinking that is not overtly goal-directed or task-related.

A method to stimulate the production of unusual ideas by emphasising the quantity rather than the quality of idea generation and the deferment of any evaluation of ideas until a defined period of idea generation has occurred.

Problems that require specialist, prior domain knowledge for people to be able to solve them.

In relation to chess, this is an abstract, schema-based knowledge structure that consists of a mixture of fixed and variable information about chess pieces and their relative configurations.

A form of practice that is designed to improve performance by ensuring that learners are given tasks of moderate difficulty and are provided with informative feedback so that they have the chance to correct their errors.

An individual’s pre-existing and presumably innate capacities, abilities and propensities that are relevant to acquiring skills in a domain of activity.

A mechanism that is used by experts whereby domain-relevant information is rapidly stored in long-term memory such that it can be dynamically accessed using retrieval cues in working memory.