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On creative exploration: a computational paradigm

Talk by Lior Noy, Arison School of Business, IDC & Theatre Lab, Weizmann Institute

Info about event

Time

Friday 1 March 2019,  at 14:00 - 15:30

Location

IMC Meeting Room, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483-312

Organizer

Kristian Tylén

Abstract

Creative exploration – the search for new and valuable patterns in a space of solutions - is central in the development of art, science and technology. The talk will present a paradigm for studying creative exploration using a computational approach. This paradigm distills a complex human behavior into simple experimental setting, allowing for detailed analysis and modelling, aimed at revealing basic principles underlying creative exploration.

The creative foraging game is a high-resolution experimental paradigm that quantifies creative exploration in a well-defined space of geometric shapes. Individuals explore the space of 10-connected squares (~36k possible shapes), searching for patterns they find beautiful and interesting. Participants alternate between exploration along meandering paths and exploitation of categories of similar shapes. Within a category, but not in exploration, people move along optimal paths. Participants discover new categories through ambiguous shapes that belong to two categories, an experimental proxy for creative leaps. Furthermore, in creative foraging people leave a category of similar shapes far before depleting it, showing that people in creative foraging do not follow predictions of Optimal Foraging Theory.

Toward the end of the talk I will briefly describe an ongoing collaboration with Prof. Kristian Tylén, Aarhus University, aimed at extending the creative foraging game into a dyadic creative exploration paradigm.

 

Bio-sketch

Dr. Lior Noy is a creativity researcher and trainer. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Weizmann Institute of Science, with background in psychology, computer science and theatre. He is a performer and teacher in Playback Theatre, an improvisation form based on real-life stories. His research focuses on finding the basic principles of creative exploration, and he is currently a lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, where he teaches courses on creativity and digital innovation.