JOEL BENEDICT, PSY150O, ASSIGNMENT 3
ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND
CREATIVITY TEACHBACK
Joel D. Benedict
University of Advancing Technology
I.
Introduction
II.
Body
a. Summary of the creative process
i. Creativity
ii. Language
iii. Thought
b. How we told it in the teachback
III.
Conclusion
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JOEL BENEDICT, PSY150O, ASSIGNMENT 3
Analysis of Language, Thought, and Creativity Teachback
This paper analyzes the teachback which demonstrates the concepts of language, thought,
and creativity. We examine each concept as it affects the creative process. We will then explain
how the teachback translated the concepts into non-verbal form.
We describe the three concepts as we work our way through the description of the
creative process. Creativity is the novel and appropriate solution to a problem, which involves
four stages: “preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification (Sternberg, 1994, p. 316).”
The manifest act of creation is the verification stage—the evaluation, development, and
refinement of the idea into tangible form (Id). Illumination is the conscious plan immediately
prior to verification. Illumination is the mental solution expressed internally through linguistic
dialog. Preparation and incubation precede illumination and are both conscious and lower
cognitive activities. Language is the manipulation of thought into external verbal and other
communicative constructs. Creativity differs from language in that ideas are manipulated, “but
the manipulation [e.g. of color] does not follow the more regular traffic of externalization into
verbal constructs (Cohen, 1995).” Language precedes creativity and thought precedes language:
“cognitive attainments most often precede linguistic attainments (Sternberg, 1994, p. 253).”
Thought is composed of these basic cognitive attainments. Thought is composed of three
rudimentary qualitative principles that determine how the mind represents stimuli: encoding
perceptions, inference (relationship comparison), and application of inference to a new domain
(Sternberg, 1994, pp. 272-273).
Our analysis summarizes the teachback as a walk through the creative process: it starts
with basic thought, is illuminated by language, and is externalized by refinement of the creative
idea.
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JOEL BENEDICT, PSY150O, ASSIGNMENT 3
REFERENCES
Cohen, H. (1995, July 22). the further exploits of AARON, painter. Retrieved January 28, 2011,
from http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/cohen.html
Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.). (1994). Thinking and problem solving (2nd ed.). Stony Brook, NY:
Academic Press.
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