Emotion, Metaphor, and the Creative Process

We propose a central role of emotions in generating metaphors for creative thinking. We focus on individualized emotions attached to concepts or images and describe how these emotional endocepts interact with each other and can provide the basis for creative associations between memory elements. We discuss individual differences, context effects, and implementation issues. Metaphor provides a means of expressing emotion-based associations for creative problem solving, In terms of metaphor generation, emotional resonance can identify domains relevant to a problem for building a metaphor. We also address links between creativity, intuitive thinking, and modern art and poetry. In general, our proposal specifies one way in which emotion and cognition may be intricately related.

[1]  I. A. Richards,et al.  Principles of literary criticism , 1925 .

[2]  I. Richards.  The Philosophy of Rhetoric , 1936 .

[3]  Heinz Werner,et al.  Comparative Psychology of Mental Development , 1942 .

[4]  Edward Sapir,et al.  Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech , 1955 .

[5]  H. Schlosberg.  Three dimensions of emotion. , 1954, Psychological review.

[6]  W. Gordon.  Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity , 1961 .

[7]  M. Black.  Models and metaphors , 1962 .

[8]  Douglas Berggren,et al.  The Use and Abuse of Metaphor, I , 1962 .

[9]  S. Mednick.  The associative basis of the creative process. , 1962, Psychological review.

[10]  C. Osgood.  On the whys and wherefores of E, P, and A. , 1969, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[11]  W. B. Hall,et al.  Personality inventory correlates of creativity among architects. , 1969, The Journal of applied psychology.

[12]  J. Jenkins.  Remember that old theory of memory? Well, forget it. , 1974 .

[13]  A. Tellegen,et al.  Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences ("absorption"), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. , 1974, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[14]  A. Ortony.  Why Metaphors Are Necessary and Not Just Nice , 1975 .

[15]  S. Arieti,et al.  Creativity: The Magic Synthesis , 1979 .

[16]  R. M. Billow.  Metaphor: A review of the psychological literature. , 1977 .

[17]  M. Black.  More about metaphor , 1977 .

[18]  Allan Paivio,et al.  Mental comparisons involving abstract attributes , 1978 .

[19]  E. Tulving,et al.  Richard Semon's Theory of Memory , 1978 .

[20]  Judith A. Arter,et al.  Metaphor: Theoretical and empirical research , 1978 .

[21]  Paul Ricoeur,et al.  The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling , 1978, Critical Inquiry.

[22]  Albert Rothenberg,et al.  The Emerging Goddess: The Creative Process in Art, Science and Other Fields , 1979 .

[23]  N. Kogan,et al.  Understanding visual metaphor: developmental and individual differences. , 1980, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[24]  John Suler,et al.  Primary process thinking and creativity. , 1980 .

[25]  J. Russell.  A circumplex model of affect. , 1980 .

[26]  Robert A. Prentky,et al.  Creativity and psychopathology , 1980 .

[27]  A. Tellegen.  Practicing the two disciplines for relaxation and enlightenment: comment on "Role of the feedback signal in electromyograph biofeedback: the relevance of attention" by Qualls and Sheehan. , 1981, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[28]  Rand J. Spiro,et al.  On the role of pervasive experiential coloration in memory , 1982 .

[29]  H. Pollio,et al.  An evaluation of three different theories of metaphor production through the use of an intentional category mistake procedure , 1982 .

[30]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Understanding and appreciating metaphors , 1982, Cognition.

[31]  J. Bartlett,et al.  Emotional mood and memory in young children , 1982 .

[32]  T. M. Amabile.  The social psychology of creativity , 1984 .

[33]  H. H. Clark,et al.  Understanding old words with new meanings , 1983 .

[34]  J. Russell.  Pancultural Aspects of the Human Conceptual Organization of Emotions , 1983 .

[35]  G J Taylor,et al.  Alexithymia: concept, measurement, and implications for treatment. , 1984, The American journal of psychiatry.

[36]  S. Levine.  A Critique of the Piagetian Presuppositions of the Role of Play in Human Development and a Suggested Alternative: Metaphoric Logic Which Organizes the Play Experience is the Foundation for Rational Creativity , 1984 .

[37]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Practical intelligence in real-world pursuits: The role of tacit knowledge. , 1985 .

[38]  Elizabeth Mertz,et al.  The influence of positive affect on the unusualness of word associations. , 1985 .

[39]  Frank R. Kardes,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986 .

[40]  Douglas L. Hintzman,et al.  "Schema Abstraction" in a Multiple-Trace Memory Model , 1986 .

[41]  A. Rothenberg,et al.  Artistic creation as stimulated by superimposed versus combined-composite visual images. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Parallel distributed processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 1: foundations , 1986 .

[43]  M. H. Kelly,et al.  Metaphor comprehension and knowledge of semantic domains. , 1987 .

[44]  A. Ortony,et al.  Metaphorical Uses of Language in the Expression of Emotions , 1987 .

[45]  S. Kemper,et al.  What could reaction-time studies be telling us about metaphor comprehension? , 1987 .

[46]  A. Isen,et al.  Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. , 1987 .

[47]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The Cognitive Structure of Emotions , 1988 .

[48]  T. Clevenger,et al.  Semantic distance as a predictor of metaphor selection , 1988 .

[49]  D. Simonton.  Creativity, leadership, and chance. , 1988 .

[50]  J. Averill,et al.  Grief as an emotion and as a disease: A social-constructionist perspective. , 1988 .

[51]  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,et al.  Motivation and creativity: Toward a synthesis of structural and energistic approaches to cognition , 1988 .

[52]  H. Gruber.  The evolving systems approach to creative work , 1988 .

[53]  D. Gentner.  Metaphor as Structure Mapping: The Relational Shift. , 1988 .

[54]  F. Barron.  Putting creativity to work. , 1988 .

[55]  C. Brewin.  Cognitive change processes in psychotherapy. , 1989, Psychological review.

[56]  Carl Hausman,et al.  Metaphor and art , 1989 .

[57]  A. Katz.  On choosing the vehicles of metaphors: Referential concreteness, semantic distances, and individual differences , 1989 .

[58]  T. Clevenger,et al.  The effects of schematic and affective processes on metaphorical invention , 1990 .

[59]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , 1990 .

[60]  Conflict over emotional expression: psychological and physical correlates. , 1990 .

[61]  Gregory J. Feist.  Synthetic and analytic thought: Similarities and differences among art and science students , 1991 .

[62]  Eileen Cornell Way.  Knowledge Representation and Metaphor , 1991 .

[63]  J. Tolaas,et al.  Notes on the Origin of Some Spatialization Metaphors , 1991 .

[64]  Reuven Tsur,et al.  Absorption and Trance-Inductive Poetry , 1991 .

[65]  J. Averill.  The structural bases of emotional behavior: A metatheoretical analysis. , 1992 .

[66]  S. Chaiken,et al.  The generality of the automatic attitude activation effect. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[67]  Metaphor production in creative writing , 1992 .

[68]  J. Averill,et al.  Voyages of the Heart: Living an Emotionally Creative Life , 1992 .

[69]  L. F. Higgins,et al.  The Role of Emotions in Employee Creativity , 1992 .

[70]  K. Oatley.  Best Laid Schemes: The Psychology of Emotions , 1992 .

[71]  B. Indurkhya.  Metaphor and Cognition: An Interactionist Approach , 1992 .

[72]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Basic emotions, rationality, and folk theory , 1992 .

[73]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  Metaphor and Thought: Metaphor, language, and thought , 1993 .

[74]  Cathy H. Dent-Read,et al.  Where Do Metaphors Come From , 1993 .

[75]  Donald A. Schön.  Metaphor and Thought: Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy , 1993 .

[76]  Metaphor and Thought: Metaphor in science , 1993 .

[77]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The role of similarity in similes and metaphors , 1993 .

[78]  H. Gardner,et al.  Metaphor and Thought: Metaphor and irony: Two levels of understanding , 1993 .

[79]  Noam Chomsky.  Language and thought , 1993 .

[80]  P. Salovey,et al.  The intelligence of emotional intelligence , 1993 .

[81]  Max Black,et al.  Metaphor and Thought: More about metaphor , 1993 .

[82]  S. Epstein.  Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious. , 1994, The American psychologist.

[83]  Keith Oatley,et al.  Appraisal, computational models, and scherer's expert system , 1994 .

[84]  P. Lang.  The varieties of emotional experience: a meditation on James-Lange theory. , 1994, Psychological review.

[85]  Gregory J. Feist.  The affective consequences of artistic and scientific problem solving , 1994 .

[86]  A. Damasio.  Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York (Grosset/Putnam) 1994. , 1994 .

[87]  K. Oatley,et al.  The experience of emotions in everyday life , 1994 .

[88]  Emma Policastro,et al.  Creative Intuition: An Integrative Review , 1995 .

[89]  T. Palfai,et al.  Emotional attention, clarity, and repair : Exploring emotional intelligence using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale , 1995 .

[90]  Mark A. Runco,et al.  Personal creativity: Definition and developmental issues , 1996 .