April 15-21, 2025: ISSCI Symposium for Doctoral Students and Post Docs

14:00 – 14:15: Embodied Creativity: Negotiating Perspectives, Risk, and Affordances in BMX Freestyle
Author: Dave Camilleri
Abstract
This study investigates creativity in BMX riding through the lens of Perspective-Affordance Theory and embodied cognition. It examines how riders fuse physical actions with social and environmental cues to develop innovative movements in a variety of settings. Semi-structured interviews with 26 BMX riders reveal that creative expression in BMX is deeply intertwined with physical execution, community interaction, and the calculated embrace of risk and failure. The findings emphasise that socio-cultural support and individual risk-taking are critical in nurturing creative practices in real-world settings. Key words: BMX freestyle, Creativity, Culture, Affordances, Creative Actions, Creative Opportunities.

14:15 – 14:30: AI as a Helper: Leveraging Generative AI Tools Across Common Parts of the Creative Process
Author: Sudapa Chompunuch
Abstract This study explores Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) applications in creativity. We identify the four most common parts of the creative process: (1) Problem Identification and Framing, (2) Generating ideas, (3) Evaluating ideas, and (4) Deploying and Implementing ideas. We map Generative AI systems into this common part of the creative process. By positioning GenAI as a supportive “AI as a helper,” we propose a structured framework that identifies specific GenAI tools and their capabilities within each common part of the creative process. Through the analysis and demonstration of use cases, this study demonstrates how Generative AI systems facilitate problem identification, generate novel ideas, evaluate ideas, and enhance implementation. We also propose the criteria for evaluating these GenAI systems for each part of the process. Moreover, this study provides insights for researchers and practitioners who are seeking to enhance GenAI’s creative capabilities and human creativity. This study concludes with a discussion of the implications of these illustrative use cases and suggests directions for future research to further advance the use of GenAI.

14:30 – 14:45: Creative self-perceptions, potential, and enhancement of GenAI chatbots
Author: Dimitris Grammenos
Abstract
This paper investigates (a) the (emerging) creative self-perceptions of GenAI chatbots, (b) their creative potential, (c) their ability to self-assess the creativity of their own outcomes and that of their peers, and (d) how their creative outcomes can be improved. To this end, an exploratory study was implemented involving three popular commercial chatbots: ChatGPT (GPT-4o – paid) by OpenAI, Claude (3.5 Sonnet – paid) by Anthropic and Gemini (1.5 Flash – free) by Google. The study included four phases and employed well-established methods and tools from the scientific domain of (human) creativity research, including the Short Scale of Creative Self (SSCS) questionnaire, a verbal test of convergent-integrative thought from the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC) battery which was scored by the chatbots and human experts, and the Dynamic Assessment (DA) approach and humor as means for enhancing the chatbots’ creative outcomes. The results of the study are encapsulated in 21 original and, sometimes, surprising observations.

14:45 – 15:00: Do people prefer thinking inside or outside the box? Studying creative choices reveals biases against originality
Author: Sarah Moreno-Rodriguez
Abstract
Creativity involves a generation phase and an evaluation phase. Previous research indicates that idea evaluation involves subjective valuation via the Brain Valuation System (BVS), a network central to decision-making. Also, evaluation comprises a selection component: among generated ideas, which one is selected to be implemented? In this study, we investigate decision-making mechanisms during creative ideation as they may elucidate cognitive biases observed in creativity, such as the rejection of creative ideas under uncertainty. Forty participants completed an idea generation task, a likeability rating task, and a binary choice task in an MRI scanner, alongside assessments of creative abilities and behavior (AUT, ICAA, CAT,…). At the behavioral level, computational modelling revealed different valuation patterns depending on the task: likeability ratings were influenced more by originality than adequacy (i.e., individuals preferred more original ideas); but choices were biased against originality. Interestingly, bias size varied among individuals, and those with higher bias against originality scored lower on creativity scores than those with lower bias, highlighting the interplay between valuation patterns and creative abilities. These findings prompt consideration of which valuation patterns prevail during creative ideation: do individuals follow their declarative, unbiased preferences (as in the rating task) or their implicit, biased preferences (as in the choice task) when producing ideas? Future analyses including model comparisons of BVS signal during the generation task will address this question. Overall, this study challenges current accounts of the neurocognitive bases of creativity and underscores the importance of employing decision-making methods to explore creativity and its cognitive biases.

15:00 – 15:15: The role of semantic memory in the creative process
Author: Lorenzo Campidelli
Abstract
The emergence of network models allowed researchers to investigate and better define the structure of semantic memory. Recent studies have highlighted that highly creative people are characterized by more flexible, condensed, and connected semantic networks compared to individuals with low creativity. The aim of this paper is to assess whether more flexible semantic networks are associated with higher performance in different phases of the creative process. To understand this, a new performance task was developed: the Creative Process Task (CPT). CPT was designed to simulate and investigate three specific states of the process: 1) information processing (particularly information selection); 2) idea generation; 3) idea evaluation. Specifically, 137 participants were asked to execute, along with a series of verbal production tasks, the CPT task, which requires generating an original story from a main stimulus (e.g., a pen). Before the story production (idea generation), participants had to select three items from a set of stimuli pre-tested for their semantic distance from the main stimulus to use in their story (information selection). After the generation, they were asked to rate the originality of the story (evaluation). The results showed that more flexible semantic memory networks are associated with: 1) higher semantic distance of the selected stimuli in the selection phase; 2) higher originality of the story; 3) higher originality evaluation of the story. The study helped to shed light on the role of semantic memory structures on creative performance, contributing to an integrated and dynamic vision of its role during the creative process. Keywords: creative process, semantic memory, creative process task