William Orwig
Biographic Data
| ID | 4640731 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Orwig |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Orwig |
| SIGNATURE | ORWIG W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9913-6391 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Beyond the brush
Using AI to Generate Visual Art
As artificial intelligence (AI) advances in the realm of generative art, a critical question emerges: does human creativity matter? That is, do more-creative people produce more-creative AI-assisted artwork? To explore this, we conducted an online, pre-registered study in which we measured individual differences in creativity through two divergent-thinking tasks: The Alternate Uses Task and the Divergent Associations Task. Separately, participant…
The Roles of Memory and Imagination in Evaluating Usefulness of Novel Ideas
Episodic retrieval processes that support reconstructing past experiences and imagining future experiences have been linked to creative idea generation. However, little is known about the possible role of such episodic processes in the evaluation of creative ideas. Across two independent samples, participants rated the effectiveness of pregenerated object‐use pairs and subsequently reported the extent to which they relied on memory and imaginatio…
Creative Evaluation
How do we assess the quality of an idea? Current theories suggest that episodic memory contributes to creative ideation, implicating memory retrieval and mental simulation in the generation of creative ideas; however, the role of memory in creative evaluation has not been systematically examined. Across two independent online samples (Study 1 n = 50, Study 2 n = 626), we explore how episodic retrieval supports the evaluation of two distinct aspec…
A ‘Sweet Spot’ for Creative Ideation
Creativity researchers have recently sought to standardize idea assessment via computational measures of semantic distance: the degree of conceptual dissimilarity between words. The relationship between semantic distance and creativity has traditionally been described using linear models, with the embedded assumption that as semantic distance increases, so does the creative quality of ideas. However, informal observations would suggest that dista…
The Language of Creativity
Recent developments in computerized scoring via semantic distance have provided automated assessments of verbal creativity. Here, we extend past work, applying computational linguistic approaches to characterize salient features of creative text. We hypothesize that, in addition to semantic diversity, the degree to which a story includes perceptual details, thus transporting the reader to another time and place, would be predictive of creativity.…
Characterizing Features of Creative Writing in Older Adults
These results advance our understanding of age-related changes in creativity and highlight the potential role of episodic simulation in writing creative short stories
Intentionality of Self-Generated Thought
Studies suggest that internally oriented cognitive processes are central to creativity. Here, we distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of mind wandering and explore their behavioral and neural correlates. We used a sample of 155 healthy adults from the mind-brain-body dataset, all of whom completed resting-state fMRI scans and trait-level measures of mind wandering. We analyzed intentional and unintentional mind wandering tenden…
Individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory do not show enhanced creative thinking
Creative ideas are thought to result from flexible recombination of concepts from memory. A growing number of behavioural and neuroscientific studies provide evidence of a link between episodic memory and divergent thinking; however, little is known about the potential contributions of autobiographical memory to creative ideation. To provide a novel perspective on this issue, we assessed measures of divergent and convergent creative thinking in a…
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Individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory do not show enhanced creative thinking
Creative ideas are thought to result from flexible recombination of concepts from memory. A growing number of behavioural and neuroscientific studies provide evidence of a link between episodic memory and divergent thinking; however, little is known about the potential contributions of autobiographical memory to creative ideation. To provide a novel perspective on this issue, we assessed measures of divergent and convergent creative thinking in a…
Intentionality of Self-Generated Thought
Studies suggest that internally oriented cognitive processes are central to creativity. Here, we distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of mind wandering and explore their behavioral and neural correlates. We used a sample of 155 healthy adults from the mind-brain-body dataset, all of whom completed resting-state fMRI scans and trait-level measures of mind wandering. We analyzed intentional and unintentional mind wandering tenden…
The Language of Creativity
Recent developments in computerized scoring via semantic distance have provided automated assessments of verbal creativity. Here, we extend past work, applying computational linguistic approaches to characterize salient features of creative text. We hypothesize that, in addition to semantic diversity, the degree to which a story includes perceptual details, thus transporting the reader to another time and place, would be predictive of creativity.…
Characterizing Features of Creative Writing in Older Adults
These results advance our understanding of age-related changes in creativity and highlight the potential role of episodic simulation in writing creative short stories
Creative Evaluation
How do we assess the quality of an idea? Current theories suggest that episodic memory contributes to creative ideation, implicating memory retrieval and mental simulation in the generation of creative ideas; however, the role of memory in creative evaluation has not been systematically examined. Across two independent online samples (Study 1 n = 50, Study 2 n = 626), we explore how episodic retrieval supports the evaluation of two distinct aspec…
A ‘Sweet Spot’ for Creative Ideation
Creativity researchers have recently sought to standardize idea assessment via computational measures of semantic distance: the degree of conceptual dissimilarity between words. The relationship between semantic distance and creativity has traditionally been described using linear models, with the embedded assumption that as semantic distance increases, so does the creative quality of ideas. However, informal observations would suggest that dista…
Beyond the brush
Using AI to Generate Visual Art
As artificial intelligence (AI) advances in the realm of generative art, a critical question emerges: does human creativity matter? That is, do more-creative people produce more-creative AI-assisted artwork? To explore this, we conducted an online, pre-registered study in which we measured individual differences in creativity through two divergent-thinking tasks: The Alternate Uses Task and the Divergent Associations Task. Separately, participant…
The Roles of Memory and Imagination in Evaluating Usefulness of Novel Ideas
Episodic retrieval processes that support reconstructing past experiences and imagining future experiences have been linked to creative idea generation. However, little is known about the possible role of such episodic processes in the evaluation of creative ideas. Across two independent samples, participants rated the effectiveness of pregenerated object‐use pairs and subsequently reported the extent to which they relied on memory and imaginatio…
Creativity (8 works) · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Cognitive science (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis (3 works) · Cognition (3 works) · Memory Processes and Influences (3 works)