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Visualization of N-Gram Input Patterns for Evaluating the Level of Divergent Thinking

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Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems: Recent Trends, Advances and Solutions

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 364))

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Abstract

Creative thinking is often considered to be difficult, one reason because humans tend to be trapped in the same patterns of thinking and cannot easily come up with a totally new combination of concepts. In other words, humans are not talented at evenly exploring combinatorial space. In order to visualize how strong this tendency is, we implemented a system that asks the subject to type in a long sequence of numbers. The system then counts the frequency of the appearance of the same subsequences using n-grams. We called it “the Creativity Test.” It measures one’s efficiency of exploring a wider part of a combinatorial space without being caught in few patterns. The result is assumed to be related to the ability of divergent thinking, which is considered to be important in creative thinking. When we tested the system on a group of subjects, we discovered that, for most of them, surprisingly long n-grams appeared frequently, making the subjects realize how inefficient they were at coming up with new combinations.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 21700121, 25280110, and 25540159.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Library, Information and Media Science, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, 305-8550, Japan

    Taro Tezuka

  2. Graduate School of Library, Information and Media Studies, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, 305-8550, Japan

    Shun Yasumasa & Fatemeh Azadi Naghsh

Authors
  1. Taro Tezuka
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  2. Shun Yasumasa
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  3. Fatemeh Azadi Naghsh
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Correspondence to Taro Tezuka .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automatic Control and Biomedical Engineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland, and International Centre for Decision Sciences and Forecasting, Kraków, Poland

    Andrzej M.J. Skulimowski

  2. Polish Academy of Sciences, Systems Research Institute, Warszawa, Poland, and AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland

    Janusz Kacprzyk

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Tezuka, T., Yasumasa, S., Naghsh, F.A. (2016). Visualization of N-Gram Input Patterns for Evaluating the Level of Divergent Thinking. In: Skulimowski, A., Kacprzyk, J. (eds) Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems: Recent Trends, Advances and Solutions. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 364. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19090-7_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19090-7_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19089-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19090-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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