Paul Paulus - US grants

9319999 PAULUS ABSTRACT Groups in organizations and industry often meet to generate ideas about important problems or issues. Sometimes such groups use brainstorming procedures in which they try to generate as many ideas as possible without concern for quality in a noncritical atmosphere. It is presumed that such an approach will yield both large numbers of ideas and a number of high quality ones. However, research has demonstrated that brainstorming groups generate fewer ideas and fewer high quality ideas than a comparable number of individuals brainstorming alone. Recent studies by the investigator have provided evidence that social influence factors may play a critical role in the performance of interactive groups. There is a tendency for individuals in interactive groups to match each others' performance. In laboratory groups with previously unacquainted members, there also appears to be a tendency for the low performing members to have a greater impact than high performing ones. The social influence model suggests that the poor performance of brainstorming groups results in part from their tendency to develop low performance norms or standards. On the other hand, the presence of productive group members may stimulate the other group members to be more productive. In several experiments using brainstorming groups of four individuals, the ability of two of the participants to generate ideas will be varied. In some conditions these two participants will be able to generate many ideas, and in other conditions they will be able to generate only a few ideas. It is expected that the variation in rate of co-worker activity will influence the activity level of the other participants during the brainstorming session as well as in a subsequent session with new participants. This series of studies will increase our understanding of the processes involved in group brainstorming and group task performance in general. It is likely that the social processes observed in group brainstorming will occur whenever group members combine their intellectual resources with those of others in an attempt to achieve some product or goal. Since much idea generation in science and industry involves group interaction, this series of studies will provide important information about the factors that influence both the productivity and creativity of such groups. The results of this research may suggest ways to enhance the effectiveness of groups on such tasks.

Much creative work and the development of innovations in science, industry, and organizations involves some degree of group interaction. A number of scholars in different disciplines have begun to study the creative process in groups. As a result, a number of interesting findings and theoretical models have been generated. Some aspects of the group process seem to hinder group creativity and can lead groups to have rather inflated perceptions of their effectiveness. However, under certain conditions groups can enhance the creative process by effectively sharing the unique intellectual resources of the group members. This conference will bring together scholars from the topic areas of cognitive psychology, creativity, groups, and organizations to discuss the factors that influence group creativity and innovation. Fourteen scholars from five different countries will make presentations. Because they come from different disciplines within psychology, many of these scholars do not typically have an opportunity to interact at conferences. Other scholars and graduate students will be invited to participate in the discussion process. The aim of the conference is to stimulate additional empirical work and theoretical development on the topic of group creativity. The conference will also facilitate efforts at theoretical integration and the development of new research paradigms. An increased understanding of the creative process in groups will provide useful information for more effective utilization of the creative potential of groups and teams in science and industry. The conference presentations will be the basis for a published volume on group creativity.

The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) will host a regional conference, Shaping the Future, for North Central Texas. The conference builds on the success of the initiatives of the School-to-Work grants to the College of Science at UTA. Other partnering universities are The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas at El Paso, and Texas A&M University. Included in the conference are representatives of local school districts, junior colleges, and industry. The conference focuses on four areas of science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) education. These are preparation for careers in SMET, using collaborations in the design of academic programs, stimulating cooperation across institutional boundaries, and effectively integrating technology into each level of curricula.

This collaborative project by a team of researchers at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Texas at Arlington represents a comprehensive study of the creative idea generation process in groups and organizations. The modern global economy is increasingly competitive, and there is growing pressure on science, industry, business and government to produce novel ideas and innovative solutions for difficult problems. Because most real-world problems are highly technical or involve the integration of information across a number of domains of expertise, almost all efforts to generate creative, effective solutions must be collaborative at many levels. In recent years, social psychologists have studied creative idea generation in small groups in a variety of settings, and have identified the factors that seem to facilitate or hinder innovation in organizations. However, it is now important to develop ways for systematically optimizing group creativity, and that is the ultimate goal of this research project. A model of idea generation in individuals, based on current knowledge of how the brain retrieves information from memory and organizes that information into both familiar and novel combinations, will be used as the basis for experimental studies of creative idea generation in groups and teams. Extensions of the model based on the theory of complex networks will be used to suggest ways to enhance innovation at the level of larger organizations. The research team itself is an example of effective collaboration among diverse individuals, with computer scientists, engineers, and cognitive and social psychologists pooling their expertise to study a complex and important problem.

The project plans to develop a cognitive model that helps understand, emulate and enhance creativity in conceptual electronic circuit design. Insight into creativity in circuit design is gained from novel behavioral experiments that investigate one main engine of creativity, that of generating conceptual combinations with emergent features, within and across three different areas: analog circuit design, architecture, and general domain. The work studies the impact of constraints and repeated iterations of the design task on the creativity of the solutions. Behavioral experiments in circuit design and architecture will be modeled after the guidelines developed for the general domain. Experiments in circuit design will study additive and non-additive conceptual combinations when designing new electronic circuits, such as modern operational transconductor amplifiers. Experiments in architecture will study, for example, the design of pedestrian bridges with a movable opening. Based on experiments, a cognitive model will be developed for generating iteratively novel conceptual combinations with emergent features.

The work is motivated by electronic circuit design being an expensive activity, accessible only to a small group of experts. There are arguably no methods to improve creativity in circuit design. This is an important limitation as electronic circuits are essential in healthcare, environmental monitoring, infrastructure management, telecommunication, and many other areas. The research is expected to lead to new, creativity-oriented design methodologies of superior productivity. The gained insights can also form the basis of original computer-aided design tools that invent novel circuits, a capability far beyond the tasks performed by current tools. The perspective on how novel conceptual combinations are generated and utilized can be used to develop new methods of instruction in electrical engineering, architecture and computer science.

This work is funded by SBE within the CreativeIT Program.