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Abilities Within and Across Visual and Verbal Domains: How Specific Is
Their Influence on Creativity?

Massimiliano Palmieroabc; Chie Nakatanib; Daniel Raverbd; Marta Olivetti Belardinelliac; Cees van
Leeuwenb
a
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy b Perceptual Dynamics Laboratory,
Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan c ECONA, Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive
Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems, d Department of Psychology, Illinois State University,
Online publication date: 09 November 2010
To cite this Article Palmiero, Massimiliano , Nakatani, Chie , Raver, Daniel , Belardinelli, Marta Olivetti and van Leeuwen,

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Creativity Research Journal, 22: 4, 369 377
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2010.523396
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CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 22(4), 369377, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1040-0419 print=1532-6934 online
DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2010.523396

Abilities Within and Across Visual and Verbal Domains: How

Specic Is Their Inuence on Creativity?
Massimiliano Palmiero
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Perceptual Dynamics
Laboratory, Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan; and ECONA, Interuniversity Centre for
Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural and Articial Systems

Chie Nakatani
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Perceptual Dynamics Laboratory, Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan

Daniel Raver
Perceptual Dynamics Laboratory, Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan; and
Department of Psychology, Illinois State University

Marta Olivetti Belardinelli

Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; and
ECONA, Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural
and Articial Systems

Cees van Leeuwen

Perceptual Dynamics Laboratory, Riken Brain Science Institute, Japan

Does visual creativity rely predominantly on visual abilities and verbal creativity on
verbal abilities, or is there a cross-over between the domains? Participants (N 25)
performed several visual tasks and verbal ability tests, as well as visual and verbal
creativity tests. Both correlation and multidimensional scaling analyses were performed.
Visual creativity was found to be related to visual abilities, in particular to restructuring.
Verbal creativity was related to verbal ability scores, such as vocabulary and comprehension, but also by vividness scores of the visual imagery questionnaire. These ndings
are consistent with the notion that visual creativity is largely domain- and task-specic,
whereas verbal creativity, even though mostly domain-specic, may, to some extent, be
sensitive to processes in the visual domain as well.

The cognitive processes involved in most creativity tasks

may be distinguished into several components, such
as application of knowledge, analogy, combination of
Daniel Raver thanks Matthew Hesson-McInnis for discussion of
statistical matters, George Fedorov for help in creating the graphical
presentation of the data, and Kate Levichkina for help in examining
the data.
Correspondence should be sent to Massimiliano Palmiero, Department of Psychology, University of Rome Sapienza, Via dei Marsi,
00185 Rome, Italy. E-mail: maixim@hotmail.com

elements, and abstraction (Welling, 2007), as well as

various processing stages, such as preparation, incubation, illumination and verication (Goswami, 1996;
Wallas, 1926). Many of these processes are generally
understood as involving high-level mental representations, independent of the specic domain of knowledge
or modality. This suggests that a person creative in
one domain (e.g., visual), will tend to be creative also
in another (e.g., verbal). According to this view,

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370

PALMIERO ET AL.

creativity may load on a single dimension, as Simonton

(2009) formalized in his hierarchical model.
In a contrasting perspective, creativity depends
mainly on domain-specic skills (Silvia, Kaufman, &
Pretz, 2009). This view emphasizes that visuo-spatial
abilities appear to be most important for visual creativity. For instance, Perez-Fabello and Campos (2007)
revealed that vividness of images of ne arts students
was associated with performance on tasks testing spatial
skill, spatial manipulation skill, and visual memory. Yet,
a domain-specic capacity for verbal creativity may be
the proclivity for remote associations, such as the generation of unusual verbs in response to the presentation of
nouns (Seger, Desmond, Glover, & Gabrieli, 2000), or
the introduction of unrelated words in the context of
story generation (Howard-Jones, Blakemore, Samuel,
Summers, & Claxton, 2005).
Therefore, in order to investigate the domainspecicity of creative processes, the relationships
between creativity and mental prociencies within
and across visual and verbal domains were explored.
To this aim, rst, divergent thinking tests were used to
measure visual and verbal creativity along the dimensions of originality, ideational uency, exibility, and
elaboration. In general, divergent thinking tests have
largely been used to investigate the relationships of
creativity with intelligence (Furnham et al., 2008;
Guilford, 1950; Runco & Albert, 1986), as well as with
more specic mental abilities (Runco & Pezdek, 1984;
Simmons, 1985). In addition, divergent thinking is an
important ingredient in earlier stages of creative processes (Jaarsveld & van Leeuwen, 2005).
Second, the mental imagery approach was used. Traditionally, two lines of creativity research have been
focused on imagery. The rst one attempts to clarify
the association between self-reported measures of mental imagery, such as those relying on vividness and spatial questionnaires, and creativity assessments (for a
review, see LeBoutillier & Marks, 2003). The second
one has concentrated on imagery generation approach
(Finke, 1990; Finke & Slayton, 1988; Finke, Ward, &
Smith, 1992; Riquelme, 2002; Verstijnen, van Leeuwen,
Goldschmidt, Hamel, & Hennessey, 1998).
Given that the relationships between creativity and
prociencies in visual and verbal domain have never
been studied using such a combination of approaches,
this study is unique in that. The hypotheses were as
follows: (a) If creativity predominantly engenders
domain-specic processes, visual abilities should be correlated positively only with individual visual creativity
scores, whereas verbal abilities should be correlated only
with verbal creativity scores. (b) If creativity involves
predominantly domain-general processes, mental ability, and creativity scores should be correlated across
these domains as well.

METHOD
Participants
Twenty-ve Japanese participants were recruited for this
experiment. 16 participants were female (M age 21.3;
SD 1.98), and 9 male (M age 22.6; SD 1.59). Participants were paid 1000 yen=hr for their participation.
The local Ethics Committee had approved this study.

Procedure
Participants took part individually in a number of tests,
tasks,1 and questionnaires, divided over two sessions
with a short break in-between. During the rst session,
they performed on creativity tests both in visual and verbal domain, whereas during the second session they performed on several tasks and tests in order to assess their
visual and verbal mental abilities. See Table 1 for the list
of tasks and tests. Within each session, the visual and
verbal tasks were presented in separate blocks in counterbalanced order. Within each block, the order of the
tasks was random. The experiment lasted approximately
2 hr and 30 min.
Visual Creativity Tests
Figural
completion
(F-completion). Following
Torrence (1974), participants were instructed to draw
elements and components to a basic object, such as decorations, shadowing, line drawings, and structural components. Participants were instructed always to draw the
basic object rst, and informed that they could use it as
many times as they liked in the same drawing. Three
basic objects were presented one by one: circle, picture
frame and capital L. For each basic object, participants
completed and dened as many instances of the given
basic object as possible within 4 min.
Figural combination (F-combination). Following
Finke (1990), participants were instructed to mentally
combine three visual components in order to assemble
a creative object. Six triads of components were used
(see Figure 1). In the combination process, components
could be changed in position, rotation, and size, but not
in their general structure. For each trial, each component of a triad was individually presented visually for
5 seconds. Participants were given 2 min to think of a
1

The word test was used whenever a procedure was applied that
emphasized uniformity (e.g., all items are always offered in the same
order). The word task was used whenever a procedure was used that
is based on methods of experimentation, emphasizing counterbalancing and=or randomization. In this case, we also speak of trials rather
than of items.

VISUAL AND VERBAL CREATIVITY

TABLE 1
Visual and Verbal Creativity Tests, Visual Ability Tasks and
Questionnaire (Italic), and Verbal Ability Tests Used During
the Experiment
First Session
Visual Creativity Tests
Figural completion
Figural combination

Verbal Creativity Tests

Alternative uses
Creative story generation

Second Session
Visual Ability Tasks
Mental inspection
Mental rotation
Visual restructuring
Visual working memory

Verbal Ability Tests

Vocabulary
Similarities
Comprehension
Verbal working memory
(digit span)

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Vividness of visual imagery questionnaire

creative object. After 2 min, they sketched their invention and provided a short denition of it. The instructions discouraged modications of the invention
during the drawing process.

Verbal Creativity Tests

Alternative uses (AU). Following Guilford (1967),
participants were asked to describe as many different
uses of common objects as they could. Stimuli to work
out were: brick, newspaper, and paper clip. Each stimulus was displayed in written form for 5 seconds on a
computer screen. Participants received 4 min for each
stimulus.
Creative story generation (CSG). Following
Howard-Jones et al. (2005), participants were asked to

FIGURE 1 Triads of elements for the gural combination test:

cube, bracket, cone; parallelepiped, di-pyramid, horn; strip, trapezoid,
cylinder; board, pentagon, tube; rhomboid semi-arch, wire; sphere,
handle, pot (adapted from Finke, 1990).

371

generate a creative story form sets of three words. Six

triads of words were used: sleep, language, sand; prejudice, delay, lion; space, lesson, knives; pen, cow,
rational; drill, shoes, honesty; wallet, books, mistake.
For each triad, words were displayed one by one in written form for 5 seconds on a computer screen. Participants were given 2 min to think of a story (with no
limit). Words could be changed in their form (e.g., using
plural, singular, synonymous, verbs, etc.). After 2 min,
participants provided their story with a short title and
wrote it down. The instruction discouraged modications of the story during the writing process.
Visual Tasks
Mental inspection (MI). Different patterns were
presented formed by nine 1
1 cm small black squares
distributed over a 5
5 cm large square shown in outline.
The patterns were arranged in simple forms, e.g., a capital T, or alternatively in complex forms, e.g., in four
chunks randomly distributed in the 5
5 cm square.
For each trial, a pattern was presented on the screen
for 2 seconds. Participants memorized the pattern.
Afterwards, a xation cross was displayed for 1 second.
Then a X mark appeared in one of the blank 1
1 cm
squares. The task was to decide as quickly and accurately as possible whether the X mark fell on or off
the target just visualized. When the response was given,
the X mark disappeared. The X mark could appear 3, 4,
or 5 times at different locations within one single trial
(Figure 2). 30 trials were randomly presented, 15 involving simple patters and 15 involving complex patterns.
On and off crosses had equal probability of occurrence.
Mental rotation (MR). A subset of three-dimensional
stimuli originally drawn by Shepard and Metzler (1971)
was used: Stimuli were at angles of 40, 80, and 160
degrees. For each trial, the target stimulus lasted on
the screen for 2 seconds. Afterwards, a cross appeared
on the screen for 1 second, and then a similar or mirror
(comparison) stimulus was presented at a different
rotation angle, until response. The task was to decide
as quickly and accurately as possible if the target and
the comparison stimuli were identical or mirror images,
by imagining the comparison stimulus to rotate in a
clockwise direction (on the vertical axis), until it
matched the orientation of the target stimulus. Thirty

FIGURE 2 Example trial for the Mental Inspection Task.

372

PALMIERO ET AL.

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trials were randomly displayed: 10 for each rotation

degree. Corresponding and mirrored stimuli were
balanced across trials.
Visual restructuring (VR). This task required participants to reinterpret ambiguous pictures. Stimuli were
taken from Hogeboom (1995), who used ambiguous gures: rhinogiraffe, duckrabbit, old manmouse, lamp
toilet paper, duckelephant, tentcake, eyespider. To
this set of stimuli, the piraterabbit ambiguous gure
was added. Each of these stimuli was embedded in a series of 6 gures changing from one interpretation to
another in small steps (Figure 3). Stimuli were presented
in sequence, each lasting on the screen for 2 seconds.
The task was, starting from one unambiguous extreme,
to determine as early and accurate as possible in the
series the alternative interpretation of the gure. Items
within series were presented in counterbalanced order
across participants.
Visual working memory (VWM). Luck and Vogels
(1997) paradigm was used to assess individual visual
working memory capacity. For each trial, a sample
random pattern including a specic number of colored
elements was presented for 100 ms. During this time,
participants memorized the pattern. After 100 ms, the
screen turned blank for 900 ms, and then a test pattern
was presented for 2 seconds. The test pattern could be
same with respect to the sample pattern, or different,
meaning that the color of one element had changed.
The task was to decide, as accurately as possible, if the
test pattern was identical or different with respect to
the sample pattern. Three, four, ve, six, and seven
element patterns were used. Thirty trials were randomly
presented. Same and different stimuli were balanced
across trials.
Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire
(VVIQ). The Japanese version of the Marks (1973)
VVIQ was administered two times: the rst time with
open eyes, and the second time with closed eyes. In
both cases, items to imagine were read aloud to the
participants.

Battery of Verbal Tests

In order to evaluate verbal prociency, four subtests
of the Japanese version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligent
Scale-Revised (WAIS-R; Shinagawa, et al., 1990) were
used: expressive word knowledge (Vocabulary Test
VocT), concept formation (Similarities Test SimT),
social awareness (Comprehension Test ComT), and
verbal working memory test (Digit Span both forwards
and backwards DigS).

Data Analysis
Regarding F-Completion and AU different subscores
were analyzed. Regarding originality, to avoid contamination of originality by uency, a measure proposed by
Runco, Okuda, and Thurstone (1987) was calculated.
This score was based on the relative frequency of each
idea in the sample composed of N participants. Each
response was scored between 1=N (when only one
participant proposed the idea), and N=N 1 (when all
participants came up with the same idea). Then the score
was subtracted from 1 in order to have higher scores
associated with higher originality. The sum of these
scores across responses was used as the individual originality score. Furthermore, the individual uency was
scored, using the total number of the responses across
trials, excluding incomplete and impossible responses,
as well as exact repetitions of responses across trials.
Next, exibility was scored as the total number of categories that were encompassed in the responses across
trials. Finally, elaboration was scored as the total
amount of visual or verbal details given in the responses
across trials.
Regarding F-Combination and CSG, two independent Japanese judges evaluated both drawings and
stories. Drawings were evaluated on originality, dened
as a drawing being new and not derived from something
else, from 1 (very poor originality) to 5 (very high
originality), and on practicality, dened as an item
involving an actual use in a specic context, rather than
a hypothetical use, from 1 (very poor practicality) to
5 (very high practicality). The interrater correlations
(intraclass correlation coefcient absolute agreement)

FIGURE 3 Example trial for the Visual Restructuring Task (adapted from Hogeboom, 1995).

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VISUAL AND VERBAL CREATIVITY

were signicant, both for originality subscore (a .85,

p < 0.001), and practicality subscore (a .50, p < 0.05).
Stories were scored on originality, dened as the
capacity to relate remotely the targets words to concepts, from 1 (very poor originality) to 5 (very high
originality), and on formal style of the story, dened
as the capacity to express efcaciously and correctly
many concepts and details related especially to target
words, from 1 (very poor style) to 5 (very high style).
The inter-rater correlations were signicant, both for
originality (a .92, p < 0.001) and formal style
(a .92, p < 0.001). For both tasks, the average of
the ratings of subscores provided by the independent
judges were used.
With respect to MI, MR, and VR, response times
(RTs) associated with errors were removed, and then
averaged the remaining ones across conditions for each
task. RTs were inverted to obtain a Speed measure, such
that faster reaction times led to higher scores. For VWM,
accuracy was computed separately for set-sizes with
three, four, ve, six, and seven elements. For VVIQ,
the average score of the two administrations was used.
For verbal prociency, the responses were scored according to the instructions reported in the WAIS-R manual
(Japanese version; Shinagawa et al., 1990).

373

modal working memory capacity, suggesting ceiling

effects for the smaller memory set sizes.
Within verbal domain (Part-B), CSG signicantly
correlated to VocT and ComT with both originality
and formal style subscores. AU correlated both with
VocT and ComT in the originality, uency, exibility,
and elaboration subscores. Thus, the higher was the performance on VocT and ComT, the better was the performance on verbal creativity tests. The elaboration
subscores of AU correlated also with the SimT score.
No correlation was found between any of the verbal
creativity and DigS subscores.
When verbal ability scores were compared to the subscores of each of the visual creativity tests, no relation
was found (Part-C). Finally, correlations between visual
ability tasks and verbal creativity scores were assessed
(Part-D). VWM of three elements correlated with both
the originality and formal style sub-scores of CSG,
whereas when the set consisted of ve or more elements,
with the elaboration sub-scores of AU. With ve elements, the correlation was negative, with six or seven
elements it was positive. Last but not least, AU correlated with the VVIQ scores in the originality, uency
and exibility subscores. No other correlations reached
signicance.
Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS)

RESULTS
Correlations
Given that the number of correlations was large but the
number of available participants was too small to lead
to highly reliable results, the correlations should be
interpreted with caution. Indeed, the alpha error probability of erroneously accepting the correlation coefcient when could be equal to zero may be much
larger than .05 in this case. However, many correlations
reached the signicance in groupings that were theoretically sensible according to our hypotheses.
Table 2 shows the correlation coefcients and their
signicance levels within the visual domain, verbal
domain and across domains. Within visual domain
(Part-A), the F-Combination originality and practicality
subscores correlated negatively with VR speed. Participants with high originality and high practicality scores
on F-Combination were slower to reinterpret ambiguous gures in VR. All subscores of F-Completion correlated positively with VR speed. Participants with high
scores on F-Completion were faster to nd the alternative interpretation of an ambiguous gure. No correlation occurred between F-Combination and the other
visual ability tasks. Elaboration subscores of
F-Completion correlated with VWM scores, but only
when the memory set size was large (6), and exceeding

To compensate the concerns about the reliability of

correlations, the MDS was used. As Garson (2009)
explained, MDS does not have assumptions regarding
sample size, using the distance between individual variables to create a dimensional representation of the
entire set of variables. Distance between variables is a
similar, but converse, idea to correlation between variables. That is, if two variables are highly correlated,
they will likely have a low distance between them.
MDS models can be evaluated in terms of squared correlation (R2), the percentage of the original distances
between variables explained by the distances in the
dimensional solution.
MDS was handled by SPSS version 11.5, which
converted the original variable scores to distance measures, and which allows consideration of variables as
interval-level variables. The program transformed the
variables to Z-scores in order to eliminate the effect
of the different scales used for many of the variables;
Euclidean distance was used as the distance measure,
and it provided solutions between 1 and 6 dimensions.
Further, the procedure used matrix conditionality and
Euclidean distance as the scaling model. A three
dimensional solution provided an interpretable
solution with modest stress (u 0.207) while still
explaining a large percentage of the original distances
(R2 0.74).

374

combination originality
combination practicality
completion originality
completion uency
completion exibility
completion elaboration

0.35
0.28
0.04
0.07
0.01
0.11

VVIQ
0.01
0.03
0.16
0.17
0.17
0.33
0.09
0.02
0.03
0.11
0.02
0.17

Mental
Inspection
Speed
Visual WM
(3 set-size; ACC)
0.04
0.12
0.19
0.13
0.05
0.15

Visual
Restructuring
Speed
0.41
0.57
0.45
0.46
0.55
0.51
0.17
0.25
0.15
0.19
0.17
0.14

Visual WM
(4 set-size; ACC)
0.06
0.02
0.30
0.34
0.24
0.18

Visual WM
(5 set-size; ACC)

0.50
0.62
0.52
0.51
0.58
0.43

0.47
0.57
0.45
0.42
0.46
0.45

0.39
0.39
0.23
0.19
0.25
0.43

Similarities

combination originality
combination practicality
completion originality
completion uency
completion exibility
completion elaboration

0.06
0.00
0.20
0.15
0.11
0.08

0.03
0.15
0.14
0.14
0.12
0.06

0.23
0.38
0.07
0.11
0.10
0.09

Similarities

0.26
0.25
0.65
0.63
0.64
0.39

0.21
0.22
0.32
0.29
0.26
0.25

0.14
0.17
0.15
0.16
0.09
0.01

0.26
0.15
0.34
0.31
0.30
0.12

Visual
Restructuring
Speed

Visual WM
(4 set-size; ACC)
0.14
0.18
0.04
0.01
0.02
0.06

Visual WM
(3 set-size; ACC)
0.45
0.50
0.20
0.22
0.28
0.20

Note. VVIQ vividness of visual imagery questionnaire. WM working memory. ACC accuracy.

p 0.05 level (2-tailed).  p 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Story generation originality

Story generation formal style
Alternative uses originality
Alternative uses uency
Alternative uses exibility
Alternative uses elaboration

VVIQ

Mental
Inspection
Speed

Mental
Rotation
Speed

0.33
0.27
0.37
0.34
0.39
0.47

Visual WM
(5 set-size; ACC)

0.33
0.34
0.38
0.37
0.31
0.41

Visual WM
(6 set-size; ACC)

Part D: Correlation Coefcients and Signicance Levels Across Domains Between Subscores of Each Verbal Creativity Tests and Visual Ability Task Scores

Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural

Comprehension

Vocabulary

0.19
0.04
0.34
0.32
0.35
0.42

Visual WM
(6 set-size; ACC)

Part C: Correlation Coefcients and Signicance Levels Across Domains Between Subscores of Each Visual Creativity Tests and Verbal Ability Task Scores

Story generation originality

Story generation formal style
Alternative uses originality
Alternative uses uency
Alternative uses exibility
Alternative uses elaboration

Comprehension

Vocabulary

Part-B: Correlation Coefcients and Signicance Levels Between Subscores of Each Verbal Creativity Tests and Verbal Ability Task Scores

Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural
Figural

Mental
Rotation
Speed

Part A: Correlation Coefcients and Signicance Levels Between Subscores of Each Visual Creativity Tests and Visual Ability Task Scores

TABLE 2
Correlation Coefficients

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0.20
0.26
0.24
0.21
0.21
0.42

Visual WM
(7 set-size; ACC)

0.14
0.04
0.00
0.01
0.03
0.01

Digit Span

0.26
0.18
0.22
0.22
0.17
0.07

Digit Span

0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.19
0.16

Visual WM
(7 set-size; ACC)

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VISUAL AND VERBAL CREATIVITY

Two of the three dimensions found in the data can

be interpreted in multiple ways, and thus are labeled
as X, Y, and Z in Figure 4. The X dimension separated
measures by the number of stimuli used in each trial;
measures using a singular stimulus were associated with
higher scores, and measures using multiple stimuli were
associated with more negative values. Along the Y-axis,
the variables align in a verbal versus visual measure separation, with most visual measures associated with positive Y values and most verbal measures associated with
negative Y values. An alternative interpretation of this
dimension is verbally presented stimuli associated with
negative Y values and visually presented stimuli associated with positive Y values. The Z dimension organizes
the variables into creativity measures and cognitive ability measures. The further along the positive Z-axis a
point is located, the more likely it is to be a creativity
measure; points further along the negative Z axis are
more likely to be cognitive ability measures. A confounding explanation for the arraying of the variables
along the Z dimension is length of trial, as the ability
tasks had shorter trials than the creativity tests.
One distinct characteristic of the solution is that the
variables formed a generally spherical, but hollow

FIGURE 4 Three-dimensional representation of the relationships

between verbal and visual cognitive abilities and verbal and visual
creativity. Verbal creativity tests are the black dots, whereas the verbal
cognitive ability tasks are the medium gray dots of the lowermost part
of the gure. The verbal working memory test is the dark dot attached
to the Y axis (right side) of the upper part of the gure. Visual working
memory tests are the brightest dots in the gure, including the gray one
in the uppermost part of the gure; other visual cognitive ability tests
are the medium gray dots, while visual creativity tests are black dots.
Size of the balls indicates depth, perpendicular to the page surface.

375

shape. This may indicate lack of relationship between

many of the variables. Subscores for most tests, including AU, CSG, F-Combination, and F-Completion,
formed close clusters, however. Further, tests or tasks
that were visual or verbal (whether creative or ability)
tended to be closer to each other than to measures for
the other domain. As such, visual creativity tests were
as far or farther from verbal ability tasks than they were
from visual ability tasks. Similarly, the verbal creativity
tests were as distant, or more distant, from visual ability
tasks than they were from verbal ability tasks.
Not all variables neatly t the pattern, however.
VWM tests were spaced very distally from each other,
and DS was approximately as close to VWM with four
elements and to MR as it was to the other verbal ability
tests. In that position, verbal working memory was
approximately equally distal from both visual and verbal creativity tests. Similarly, the visual working memory tasks for 3 and for 6 elements were approximately
as close to the verbal creativity tests as to the visual
creativity tests.

DISCUSSION
Visual and verbal creativity subscores were found to be
predominantly related to abilities within the same
domains. All the various subscores of both visual creativity tests correlated with visual Restructuring
Response speed only; several of the verbal creativity
subscores correlated with VocT and ComT scores.
Across domains, no correlations whatsoever were
obtained between visual creativity scores and verbal
abilities, and three out of four of the verbal AU subscores correlated with the VVIQ. In addition, with set
size three, VWM scores correlated with originality and
formal style subscores of CSG. With set size ve, they
correlated negatively with the elaboration subscores of
AU, and with set size six and seven positively. These
results reveal that to a greater extent than visual creativity, verbal creativity relies on domain-general information. MDS mostly conrmed these results: tests or
tasks that were visual or verbal (whether creative or ability) tended to be closer to each other than to measures
for the other domain. Working memory tests (visual
and verbal) were the exception, having no preferential
relationship with either domain.
More specically, for visual creativity these results
supported the view that the mental processes underlying
VR, such as visual exibility (Verstijnen & Wagemans,
2004), are crucial for creativity. Indeed, creativity has
frequently been associated with the capacity to break
out of the conventional constrains present in a specic
situation, involving the recombination of elements in
ways which yield new ideas. Previous studies in visual

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376

PALMIERO ET AL.

creativity in design (Verstijnen et al., 1998) using

F-Combination, and studies in artistic production (van
Leeuwen, Verstijnen, & Hekkert, 1999), showed that
designers and artists spontaneously drew sketches of
their creations which they explore visually, and use their
hidden structural components in novel syntheses and
combinations.
Correlations within domains were not always systematic. F-Combination negatively correlated but
F-Completion positively correlated with VR speed.
Participants with high originality and high practicality
sub-scores on F-Combination were slower to reinterpret ambiguous gures in VR. This nding contradicted
Riquelme (2002), who found high-creative individuals
to be more accurate and faster in reinterpreting
ambiguous gures than low-creative ones. However,
Riquelme scored items generated in F-Combination
on creativity using only dichotomic judgments. Moreover, only single ambiguous gures were presented
rather than step-by-step sequences. Yet, in the present
experiment, participants with high originality, uency,
exibility, and elaboration sub-scores of F-completion
were faster to nd these alternative interpretations.
These discrepancies are consistent with the notion that
besides domain-specic, creativity is task-specic to
some extent as well.
On a closer look at the visual creativity tasks, another
possible explanation for the dissociation just reported
could involve the sketching processes. F-Completion
used
sketching
throughout
the
procedure.
F-Combination allowed sketching only after mentally
assembling the visual components. Verstijnen et al.
(1998) found no correlation between mean creativity ratings and restructuring scores when participants did not
sketch during the time given to mentally compose the
objects. By contrast, they found a relationship when participants sketched during the mental composition task.
Therefore, it is possible that sketching and restructuring
processes jointly participate in visual creativity, sketching
allowing individuals to better assemble elements and
details. Consequently, they may require less working
memory loading for reconstructing the pattern after
modifying the perceived visual pattern composition.
Regarding the verbal domain, both CSG and AU
correlated with subscores of VocT and with ComT
scores. Because both correlations went in the same direction, in contrast with visual creativity, verbal creativity
appeared not to be task-dependent but point to a unied
dimension. These results are in disagreement with previous studies investigating the relationship between verbal creativity and specic verbal abilities. Runco and
Pezdek (1984) pointed out that divergent thinking tests
are unrelated to verbal ability. Indeed, Turner (1978)
revealed that people scoring highly on creative stories
were not necessarily good performers on the Stanford

Reading Comprehension Test. Moreover, Simmons

(1985) demonstrated only one moderate and positive
correlation between the Verbal Flexibility subtest of
Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and language performance of children. Nevertheless, Otto
(1998) found positive correlations between ve verbal
creativity tests adapted from the TCTT and second language grades. Yet, Albert and Kormos (2004) showed
that originality and uency relying on verbal creativity
correlated with measures of an oral narrative task performed by second language learners. Therefore, some
connection could be claimed between, on the one hand
the skills needed for encoding and decoding of language
and verbal creativity on the other.
Across domains, unsystematic correlations were
obtained between VWM and some subscores of verbal
creativity. Some of these might be spurious; on the other
hand, a correlation between VWM for set size 3 and
exibility of AU could be relevant. The VWM score
for set size 3 is sensitive to the low end of visual working
memory capacity. Perhaps low-working memory
capacity limits the type of objects that can be visually
activated simultaneously, which limits exibility. The
only systematic correlations across domains were those
of originality, uency, and exibility subscores of AU
with the VVIQ. This result is in line with previous ndings, suggesting that some aspects of verbal creativity
rely on cross domain skills. Indeed, Forisha (1978)
found that AU correlated with Bettss (1909) Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery only in women. Shaw and
Belmore (19821983) revealed that VVIQ was signicantly correlated with scores on Just Suppose Test from
TTCT and Mednicks (1962) Remote Associate Task.
Surprisingly, VVIQ scores did not correlate with any
visual creativity scores. AU, itself, may therefore involve
a specic kind of visual imagery, which better correlate
with the capacity to see clear mental images. Recently,
Olivetti Belardinelli et al. (2009) demonstrated that vividness scores correlate with the fMRI bold signal of
visual and motor imagery cued by verbal sentences.
Plausibly, the alternative uses were found through
imagining the object in association with an action
performed with it.
In summary, this study did not conrm Simontons
(2009) model, which hypothesized a single cognitive
dimension (continuum) encompassing all forms of creativity. Rather, this study showed that visual and verbal
creativity are mostly domain-specic processes, but visual more exclusively so than verbal creativity, which
sometimes may rely on specic aspects of imagery. In
addition, visual creativity was considered to be
task-dependent, whereas verbal creativity constitutes a
more uniform dimension. To conclude, this study
depicts creativity as complex and capricious, ever sensitive to contextualized factors.

VISUAL AND VERBAL CREATIVITY

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