Take a look at the new version of this page: [ beta version ]. Tell us what you think.

ABSTRACT

We attempted to determine whether the provision of diverse information could facilitate creative idea generation. For this purpose, we enlisted 35 students to generate two ideas individually by using the scanning material provided. The results revealed that the participants tended to select similar articles and to reduce their diversity even though diverse materials were provided. Further, the diversity of the materials they used actually was positively correlated with the quality of the generated ideas. We concluded that the diversity of materials that were not provided but nevertheless used had an effect on idea generation.

REFERENCES

• 1: Finke, R. A., Ward, T. B., and Smith, S. M. (1992). Creative cognition: Theory, research, and applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• 2: Osborn, A. F. (1957). Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking. Rev. ed. NY: Scribners.
• 3: Wshida, Y., Mitsuishi, S., and Horii, H. (2009). A Future scenario generation experiment in socio-technological problems using scanning method. Sociotechnica, 6, 1--15

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.1 Systems and Information Theory
          Subjects: Value of information

General Terms:
Experimentation, Verification

Keywords:
diversity of information, idea generation, scanning method