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Generation of Novel Responses: An Investigation of Healthy Ageing and Bipolar Disorder

Abstract  Creativity is the ability to generate thoughts or behaviours that are novel and useful. While there is no one theoretical model regarding the cognitive processes involved in creativity, emphasis is placed on both associative processes (i.e., a ‘bottom-up’ process that emphasises individual differences in semantic knowledge) and controlled attention (i.e., a ‘top-down’ process that taps into individual differences in attention and executive function).  Historically, there has been ambivalence in creativity research regarding the relationship between intelligence and creativity. However, recent research has suggested a new enquiry into this relationship, asserting that intelligence and creativity are more closely related than previously considered. When considering the creative person, individual differences in intelligence and personality, and more recently clinical disorders (e.g., Bipolar Disorder) have been implicated in creativity. The creation of novel responses involves the generation of ideas with frontal lobe involvement and executive functions thought to be required for both processes. Given that healthy older adults and people with Bipolar Disorder experience changes in function associated with the frontal lobe, both groups were included in this present study to highlight the potential impact of executive function deficits on idea generation.This current study investigated the generation of ideas, measured by verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks, the creation of novel responses, and the relationship between these two processes. The effects of healthy ageing and Bipolar Disorder were expected to result in reduced idea generation, and therefore, reduced creation of novel responses. Unexpectedly, the younger and older healthy adults performed comparably on all fluency tasks. Furthermore, each of the Bipolar Disorder cases demonstrated comparable performance on all fluency tasks when compared to the combined group of healthy controls. Consistent and significant correlations were found between phonemic fluency and verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks, adding to the existing research base of frontal lobe involvement and executive function in the generation and creation of novel responses. Associative fluency, as a cognitive process, was found to significantly contribute to performance on verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks. Given that the influences of associative processes were evident in both tasks that accessed stored knowledge and tasks that require novel responses, it is proposed that broad retrieval ability can be linked with creativity. This interpretation of associative processes within the context of the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive abilities could contribute to the ongoing reappraisal of the relationship between intelligence and creativity. In contrast, fluid intelligence was found to only correlate to verbal fluency tasks that relied on the retrieval of stored knowledge but not with non-verbal tasks that place high demand on novelty. Furthermore, the specific cognitive process of inhibition, was not found to be related to creativity in this present study. Finally, the absence of any link between the individual differences of personality and Bipolar Disorder was quite unexpected. Further research with a larger sample size and the inclusion of different measures of creativity (i.e., originality) is suggested, which would be expected to highlight the influences of personality and Bipolar Disorder on creativity.