Speaker
Description
The emergence of network models allowed researchers to investigate the structure of semantic memory, with recent studies highlighting that highly creative people are characterized by more flexible semantic networks compared to low creatives, with more connected, less modular, and less distance between nodes (Kenett et al., 2014). Other evidence pointed out that semantic networks are subjected to age-related stiffening, showing semantic structures featuring more segregated and less connected networks (Cosgrove, 2023).
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between semantic memory networks, creative performance and creative success in young (N= 81, Age = 18-26) and old adults (N=78, Age = 70-90). Participants completed two verbal fluency tasks and two free association tasks which results were used to estimate the indexes of semantic networks through a correlation-based network method. Then both groups performed an Alternative Uses Task, a measure of divergent thinking, and the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (Kaufman, 2012), a questionnaire measuring creative success in different domains.
Preliminary analyses (conducted in R) performed on the sample of the young participants replicated the typical network structures characterizing high and low creative individuals. Further, more specific data analyses are still undergoing, testing the hypotheses that: 1) network structures of old participants are less flexible compared to young participants; 2) network structures of high creative achievers do not differ between young and old participants. This work could help unravelling the complex role of semantic network and of its development in the definition of creative performance at different ages.
| If you're submitting a poster, would you be interested in giving a blitz talk? | No |
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| If you're submitting a symposium, or a talk that is part of a symposium, is this a junior symposium? | No |
