The creation of new ideas plays an important role in the growth of any society. Inventions such as the telephone and automobile have provided the tools for increased levels of communication and widened the access to information. While the modern generation may view these inventions as staples of our society, at the time of their conception they were viewed as revolutionary new concepts. Without the concept of the phonograph, for example, we may never have had the benefit of 8-tracks, audio cassettes, or compact discs. These creations, while separate in their levels of advancement, are all based on the initial notion of recorded sound.
Researchers recognize the benefits of prior knowledge as adaptive to survival.
Without the use of prior knowledge it would be impossible to advance cognitively. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence that the notion of structured imagination is accurate and that the use of prior Creativity 3 knowledge plays a role in the production of novel ideas by inducing constrains on an individual s creative process. Specifically, participants were asked to create creatures that might be expected to live on other planets, but that the creatures must not represent those found on earth. They hypothesized that those who were shown examples of possible creatures just prior to the task would incorporate more features of the examples into their own creative product than those who were not presented with any prior example. This hypothesis was confirmed.