Publications • Human-Centered Computing • Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Special issue on problem-solving, creativity and spatial reasoning

Falomir, Zoe; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

Appeared in: Cognitive Systems Research

Problem-solving, creativity and spatial reasoning are high level abilities of cognitive systems with high potential for synergies. However, they have been treated separately by different fields. This special issue presents research work on these topics, aiming to observe their interrelations in order to create theoretical approaches, methodologies and computational tools to advance work on creativity and spatial problem-solving in cognitive systems.

Keywords: CreaCogs

A Visual Remote Associates Test and its Initial Validation

Hassan Zunjani, Faheem; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

Cognitive Science Society | 2019

Keywords: CreaCogs

Towards Reframing Codenames for Computational Modelling and Creativity Support Using Associative Creativity Principles

Zunjani, Faheem Hassan; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery | 2019

Appeared in: Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition

Using games to model, measure and increase creativity in children and adults would be a very engaging path to social impact and empirical progress. This paper proposes an approach to reframe the new and popular board game Codenames using associative creativity principles. The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a test measuring creativity as a function of associative ability. comRAT-C is a previous computational cognitive system that can solve the RAT using associative and convergence principles. In this paper, we formalise Codenames using associative principles from comRAT-C. A way to computationally model and measure the difficulty of Codenames is proposed. We discuss whether Codenames or a future variant of it can be used in creativity research.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Normative Data for 111 Compound Remote Associates Test Problems in Romanian

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Taranu, Mihaela; Ionescu, Thea

Appeared in: Frontiers in Psychology

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a classical creativity test developed by Mednick and Mednick in 1967. RAT problems and their norms so far exist only in a few languages, including English, Dutch, Japanese and Italian. In this paper, we describe our process of constructing a set of Remote Associates Test problem in Romanian. 63 native speaking Romanian participants have solved this set. The set of items shows high internal consistency. Normative data pertaining to each problem is provided, together with a description of RAT problems peculiarities in Romanian.

Keywords: CreaCogs

An approach to computational creation of insight problems using CreaCogs principles

Bahety, Arpit; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

Manchester: CEUR-WS.org | 2019

Appeared in: Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition

Insight problems are used in the study of human creativity problem solving to evaluate the creativity of the solver, and the process through which creativity problem solving is cognitively deployed. However, not many such problems exist, and the factors underlying their creation are not well controlled. The framework CreaCogs proposes ways in which cognitive AI systems could be used to solve diverse such problems using a small set of processes. In this paper, a previous approach for the creation of insight problems proposed in CreaCogs is implemented computationally. The initial experiments, results, limitations, perspectives and potential are reported upon.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Computationally resurrecting the functional Remote Associates Test using cognitive word associates and principles from a computational solver

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Schöttner, Mikkel; Schuberth, Susanne

Appeared in: Knowledge-Based Systems

Human creativity is usually assessed with a variety of established creativity tests. One of this is the Remote Associates Test (RAT), which aims to measure the ability of reaching remote associates with linguistic stimuli. A well known variant of the RAT exists – the compound RAT, for which normative data and solvers have been proposed in the literature. However, a different type of RAT was proposed in 1971 by Worthen and Clark – a functional form which had the potential of measuring other types of associations. However, the few test items proposed by Worthen and Clark where lost during archive transport, and cannot be accessed. In this paper, we set to reconstruct an ample set of functional items in the spirit of Worthen and Clark’s idea, using information science techniques. Cognitive word associates are used as data. The process of a former computational solver of the RAT is repurposed to create rather than solve items. The approach of constructing queries is evaluated by getting human participants to solve both functional and compound items. In the process, a previous computational approach to solving the compound RAT is also validated in the functional RAT context.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Towards a Multi-level Exploration of Human and Computational Re-representation in Unified Cognitive Frameworks

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Schöttner, Mikkel; Bahety, Arpit

Appeared in: Frontiers in Psychology

Re-representation is a critical ability to (i) understanding human creative problem solving, and (ii) modeling computational cognitive systems able to support or perform creative problem solving tasks on their own. This paper proposes a unified multi-level cognitive approach to investigating re-representation: the study of sensory-based, concept-based and problem template based possible forms of re-representations in an integrated manner. Descriptions and explanations of each level prepare the ground for further computational modeling. A study is deployed in order to explore the relationship between the various tasks proposed to reflect re-representation. A significant correlation between the investigated tasks is discovered. Two previous studies from the literature are replicated. A new strong and significant relationship between the Pattern Meanings Test and the Alternative Uses Test is observed.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Visual and linguistic stimuli in the Remote Associates Test: a cross-cultural investigation

Toivainen, Teemu; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Repeykova, Vlada; Lihanov, Maxim; Kovas, Yulia

Appeared in: Frontiers in Psychology

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a measure of associative ability, which is often regarded as essential for creative thinking. The most commonly used version of the test is the compound RAT. However, many RAT items do not translate directly in different languages. Additionally, a linguistic measure cannot be used to measure visual associative ability. A visual measure for associative ability that is similar to the RAT would be a useful tool for cross-cultural investigations of creativity. The present study investigated the relationship between the linguistic and a newly developed visual version of RAT in Russian and Finnish native speakers (for both samples n = 67). Both linguistic and visual measures showed good internal reliabilities in both samples (Cronbach’s α = 0.73–0.84). The mean score in the visual task was slightly higher for the Finnish sample. The correlation between the two measures was stronger in the Russian sample (r = 0.56) compared to the Finnish sample (r = 0.28). These results are discussed in relation to linguistic and cultural differences between the samples.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Special Issue on Problem-solving, Creativity and Spatial Reasoning

Falomir, Zoe; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

Appeared in: Cognitive Systems Research

Problem-solving, creativity and spatial reasoning are high level abilities of cognitive systems with high potential for synergies. However, they have been treated separately by different fields. This special issue presents research work on these topics, aiming to observe their interrelations in order to create theoretical approaches, methodologies and computational tools to advance work on creativity and spatial problem-solving in cognitive systems.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Cognitive AI Systems Contribute to Improving Creativity Modeling and Measuring Tools

Zunjani, Faheem Hassan; Olteteanu, Ana-Maria

Cham: Springer International Publishing | 2019

Appeared in: International Work-Conference on the Interplay Between Natural and Artificial Computation

Cognitive science and cognitive psychology have long used creativity tests to measure and investigate the relationships between creativity, creative problem solving and other cognitive abilities. Implementing cognitive systems that can model and/or solve creativity tests can shed light on the cognitive process, and presents the possibility of building much more precise creativity measuring tools. This paper describes four cognitive AI systems related to the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and their contributions to creativity science. comRAT-C is a system that solves the RAT, correlating with human performance. comRAT-G reverse engineers this process to generate RAT queries with a high degree of parameter control. fRAT generates functional RAT queries, resurrecting a theoretical concept proposed by researchers many decades ago. The visual RAT takes advantage of the formal conceptualization necessary for computational implementation, to expand the RAT to the visual domain. All the cognitive systems and generated RAT queries have been successfully validated with human participants and have contributed in improving creativity modeling and measuring tools.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Are all Remote Associates Test equal? An overview and comparison of the Remote Associates Test in different languages

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Behrens, Jan Philipp

Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society | 2019

Appeared in: Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

The Remote Associates Test (RAT, CRA) is a classical creativity test used to measure creativity as a function of associative ability. The RAT has been administered in different languages. Nonetheless, because of how embedded in the language the test is, only a few items are directly translatable, and most of the time the RAT is created anew in each language. This process of manual (and in two cases computational) creation of RAT items is guided by the researchers’ understanding of the task. However, are the RAT items in different languages comparable? In this paper, different RAT stimuli datasets are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Significant differences are observed between certain datasets in terms of solver performance. The potential sources of these differences are discussed, together with what this means for creativity psychometrics and computational vs. manual creation of stimuli.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Object reorientation and creative performance

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Shu, LH

Appeared in: Journal of Mechanical Design

Functional fixedness refers to a cognitive bias that prevents people from using objects in new ways and more abstractly from perceiving problems in new ways. Supporting people in overcoming functional fixedness could improve creative problem solving and capacities for creative design. A study was conducted to detect whether a relationship exists between participants' tendency to reorient objects presented as stimuli in an alternative uses test (AUT) and their creativity, also measured using the Wallach Kogan (WaKo) pattern meanings test. The AUT measures creativity as a function of identifying alternative uses for traditional objects. The WaKo pattern meanings test detects the ability to see an abstract pattern as different possible objects or scenes. Also studied is whether Kruglanski's need for closure (NFC) scale, a psychological measure, can predict the ability to incorporate reorientation cues when identifying uses. This study revealed highly significant, high correlations between reorientation and several creativity measures, and a correlation between reorientation and the predictability subscale of the NFC scale. A qualitative exploration of participants' responses reveals further metrics that may be relevant to assessing creativity in the AUT.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Computationally constructing a repository of compound remote associates test items in American English with comRAT-G

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Schultheis, Holger; Dyer, Jonathan B.

Appeared in: Behavior research methods

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) has been used to measure creativity, however few repositories or standardizations of test items exist, like the normative data on 144 items provided by Bowden and Jung-Beeman. comRAT is a computational solver which has been used to solve the compound RAT in linguistic and visual forms, showing correlation to human performance over the normative data provided by Bowden and Jung-Beeman. This paper describes using a variant of comRAT, comRAT-G, to generate and construct a repository of compound RAT items for use in the cognitive psychology and cognitive modeling community. Around 17 million compound Remote Associates Test items are created from nouns alone, aiming to provide control over (i) frequency of occurrence of query items, (ii) answer items, (iii) the probability of coming up with an answer, (iv) keeping one or more query items constant and (v) keeping the answer constant. Queries produced by comRAT-G are evaluated in a study in comparison with queries from the normative dataset of Bowden and Jung-Beeman, showing that comRAT-G queries are similar to the established query set.

Keywords: CreaCogs

Re-representation in Cognitive Systems

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Indurkhya, Bipin

Appeared in: Frontiers in Psychology

@article{olteteanu_re-representation_2018, author = {Olteteanu, Ana-Maria and Indurkhya, Bipin}, title = {Re-representation in Cognitive Systems}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, year = {2018}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/7414/re-representation-in-cognitive-systems}, language = {english} }

Keywords: Creacogs

Artificial Cognitive Systems that can answer Human Creativity Tests : An Approach and Two Case Studies

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Falomir, Zoe; Freksa, Christian

Appeared in: IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems

Creative cognitive systems are rarely assessed with the same tools as human creativity. In this paper, an approach is proposed for building cognitive systems which can solve human creativity tests. The importance of using cognitively viable processes, cognitive knowledge acquisition and organization, and cognitively comparable evaluation when implementing creative problem-solving systems is emphasized. Two case studies of artificial cognitive systems evaluated with human creativity tests are reviewed. A general approach is put forward. The applicability of this general approach to other creativity tests and artificial cognitive systems, together with ways of performing cognitive knowledge acquisition for these systems are then explored.

Keywords: Creative_Cognitive_Systems

Creativity from Multiple Cognitive Science Perspectives

Olteteanu, Ana-Maria; Indurkhya, Bipin

Appeared in: Frontiers in Psychology

Keywords: Creacogs