10 ms·

What Happens to Creativity as We Age?

254 points by hvo 9y ago

mzzter 9y ago
I'm not satisfied to define creativity as simply having "unusual ideas" as the article says in the opening paragraphs. The study focuses on cognitive flexibility, what I understand to be out-of-the-box thinking. Other research that composes creativity as a mixture of empathy, pattern-matching, and seeing the big picture suggests that creative ability can be refined with age.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Yeah, I also think "outside the box thinking" as defined by the article is particularly bogus. Their opening example of a 4 year old suggesting the grandfather stop eating all vegetables because eating vegetables defines an adult is cute, but I wouldn't say it leads anywhere productive or meaningful. In fact that kind of outside the box thinking is likely to kill the grandfather sooner. I suppose this doesn't matter so much if we're talking about purely artistic creativity, which is typically thinking outside the box solely for the sake of thinking outside the box. Sure, maybe that decreases with age, but I'd say objective-based creativity, where the goal is to solve a specific problem, should actually increase with age and accrued knowledge if a person can remain open to new solutions. Thinking outside the box is easy. Most adults simply don't do it because they're focused on productivity and goals. A kid might think that a great way to feed a family is to build their house out of pizza, so they can just eat the walls and never go hungry. Good luck with that...
  - gt_ 9y ago
    I also agree with all of these things. I think you're right about 'purely artistic creativity'. In addition, I think it's a distraction, a bit misleading. Let's say the boxes are a warehouse of boxes stacked in perfect cubular formation. So, when you leave one box, you find yourself in another.
    - gt_ 9y ago
      and we can muse on what the outside of the ware house is haha.
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    I stopped reading the article on that first paragraph, because they presented a stupid correlation from the kid as creativity. It's not creativity, it's a correlation. It's logical thinking. It's wrong logic, does it make it better than correct logic?
  - subroutine 9y ago
    I feel similarly. The scenarios they presented to measure creativity provided an ad hoc definition of creativity that does not appeal to me. As in, if that is the definition of creative, I don't care if I become less creative with age. On the other hand if these kids were solving problems that adults were struggling with, due to lack of imagination, I would feel a greater desire to preserve my juvenescent outlook. Then again, maybe that is merely a senescent definition of creativity biased by the trials and tribulations of adulthood, and the constant mission to be an efficient problem solver.
- deleted 9y ago
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- gt_ 9y ago
  I agree, but I would call that loose thinking, not out-of-the-box thinking. If you don't know where the the box walls are, it's a crap shoot finding the other side.
- fnl 9y ago
  This. In fact, I think creativity is something that needs cultivating. Artists can have their "best" phase about anywhere in life. I don't think there is any bias towards artists having their "best years" when they're young. While art is certainly the most cultivated form of creativity - at least to me.
- kristopolous 9y ago
  I think with time comes baggage that is hard to shake off. It's not impossible, but it's a very proactive activity. I try to posit "what would 16 year old me do here?" to open myself to new ideas and not constrain myself by patterns of the past.
- roceasta 9y ago
  Yes. Subjectively speaking it is finding the correct idea, not an unusual one. It's akin to remembering something. You either remember somebody's name or you don't; you don't make up a new one.
- abecode 9y ago
  I like a definition of creativity described in https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a-dent-in-the-universe/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a-dent-in-the-universe... , where it's contrasted with imagination. Briefly, creativity is domain specific, like in music or software, while imagination is a domain-independent survival skill for higher rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
japhyr 9y ago
I will turn 45 this year. One of my principles for healthy aging is to make sure I'm learning something new and challenging every year or two. I live in a fishing town in southeast Alaska, and I bought my first boat about three years ago. I bought a 16-foot boat with an open cabin, and it was an absolutely humbling experience. It feels like everyone here knows how to drive a boat, and sputtering through a harbor trying not to take out a row of motors was a really interesting learning experience. It forced me to be open to any and all feedback from all kinds of people. It forced me to seek out advice and assistance from people outside of my everyday circle of friends and co-workers. It made me pay attention to tides and weather in ways I hadn't needed to before. In short, it made me feel like I was looking at the world with new eyes again. That experience made me look for experiences every few years that are new enough that I have to see the world as a kid does again. Not in the wide-eyed wonder way, but in a way where I have to learn a whole new skill set. This year it's been learning how to drive a truck with a boat trailer. I thought I knew it intellectually, and I knew what I needed to make the trailer do, but I couldn't figure out how to make the back of the truck go where I needed it to. My neighbor was cracking up as he was helping me, and I think it was bringing him back into the mindset of looking at this kind of task from a beginner's perspective as well. I have a 6 year old son, and I love sharing these learning experiences with him. I want him to know that adults don't know everything, and that you really can spend your whole life learning new skills.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  Oh, man, boats will humble anyone. I managed to go overboard from mine the first day I had it... had to get fished out by some nearby fisherman, who thought it was hilarious.
  - hodgesrm 9y ago
    No kidding. The basic principles at the place where I sail are: * Keep the water out of the boat * Keep the people in the boat * Don't hit anything * If possible look good while doing the previous three It's harder than it looks.
- deleted 9y ago
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QAPereo 9y ago
I'm yet to hear a really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition of Creativity in the first place.
- codingdave 9y ago
  People over-think it -- creativity is simply taking an idea, and making that idea happen. Most people can be creative. The trick is for your creativity to be unique and original.
  - paganel 9y ago
    > creativity is simply taking an idea, and making that idea happen. Most people can be creative Maybe in the context of the HN audience (mostly people interested in writing computer programs), but for me being "creative" means being someone like Stanislaw Lem or Kafka, i.e. people who actually create new (in this case literary) worlds which are really, really interesting to navigate through, so much so that sometimes you don't want to come back into the real world.
  - flamedoge 9y ago
    a lot of times, new idea is just merger of two
- coldtea 9y ago
  Why do you need a "really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition of Creativity"? People know it when they see it, and instinctively know what it is even if they can't phrase it "rigorously". Not all things have a "really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition" -- especially "family resemblance" notions. What is a game, for example? You can use all kinds of words and rules to describes the notion of "game" but you can always find counter-examples ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance ).
- roceasta 9y ago
  When we hear that we'll know how to program AGI.
hellofunk 9y ago
I've always found it interesting that "creative activity" as relates to age is apparently quite different depending on the discipline. It's well-known that mathematicians (usually) get their most life-altering ideas quite early in life, while artists often create their most unique impacts much later in life.
- Kuiper 9y ago
  Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive) teaches a writing class where one of his lectures focuses on the notion that writing is more about skill/craftsmanship rather than ideas/inspiration: I want to disabuse you of a few notions. Writing is not about inspiration. Writing is not about ideas. Writing, or more specifically, getting published, is not about luck. What is writing about, then? Writing is about skill. And today I want to try and prove this to you. When someone sits down to play piano for you, how quickly can you tell if they're a good pianist or not? Basically everybody in this room can judge a pianist's level of skill within a minute or two of play. Not exactly, but you can know if this is someone who's good at piano, or if this is someone who's still an amateur at the piano. You can probably tell if this is a master versus someone who's just pretty good. Editors, published writers, people who know what they're doing, can do the same thing with one page of your writing in the exact same way. That is why it's not about inspiration, ideas or luck, because in one page I can judge how good a writer you are. People wonder why can editors reject manuscripts or, in this new age, where we're sometimes bypassing editors, how come the readers just put something down after one page when they haven't given it a real shot. You guys can judge this too. You've read enough, you know enough, you can judge if something is going to work for you pretty quickly. Perhaps not as quickly as most editors can, but you'll know. You'll read a chapter and you'll know if that person is a master, if they're in that medium grade where they've got some good things going on (it's still readable, but they're obviously not a master), or if this is someone's first novel they wrote when they were 12. You can tell all these things. So how do you develop this skill? Practice. He goes on to note that ideas/inspiration are important, but not the most central part of what makes writing effective. Many "creative" disciplines like writing, sculpting, and film are more about practiced and skilled craftsmanship than inspiration and ideas, whereas in some other fields, like maths and scientific discovery, breakthroughs really are about inspiration and ideas.
rothbardrand 9y ago
This is average people in a statistically (hopefully) relevant study.... average people are not creatives. Average people get locked into world views and ideology as they become adults. Average people don't take creative jobs. Creative people-- that would be an interesting group to study. As an older engineer, I'm not less creative. I'm slower at writing code, but I need to write a lot less code. In the end I execute at the same speed or faster than younger engineers (Who often seem to take off writing code before they've thought thru the problem and end up shooting themselves in the foot more often than coming up with an idea I hadn't considered. Not that there's anything wrong with them on the balance, just not a slam dunk that younger programmers are more productive.) I don't see this declining with aging, though my patience with people who can't respond to logic and facts is declining rapidly.
- jarsin 9y ago
  > I don't see this declining with aging, though my patience with people who can't respond to logic and facts is declining rapidly I have no patience for management either..aka people who can't respond to logic and facts
- madengr 9y ago
  Yep, I tolerate less and less BS either. Probably cost me my job someday.
- paulcole 9y ago
  >Average people don't take creative jobs. Hi! Average person with a creative job here. I'm good at my work (writing) but am otherwise not creative at all. I do it for money, stop thinking about it at 5PM, and that's it. I come home, watch TV, and exercise. I have no interest in creativity except that people will pay me for it.
  - roceasta 9y ago
    https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/samueljohn170103.html https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/samueljohn170103...
- 9y ago
alphonsegaston 9y ago
The thing that I've found as an artist is that, as one's skill grows, the management of that corresponding complexity can overtake one's creative capacity. At higher levels, the methods and structure required for competent execution are a cognitive load that crowds out other impulses. I think this is why you see a lot of older artists create works that are proficient, but repetitive, the habitual overtaking the innovative. But I don't think this is an unavoidable trajectory. Instead, one has to cultivate "creative thinking" in the same way that they do other skills. The thing that I've found most useful are arbitrary constraints derived from things like word association games. They encourage all kinds of divergent thinking.
rdiddly 9y ago
What you lose in creativity, you gain in knowing "not eating vegetables" is a fucking stupid idea!
- coldtea 9y ago
  What you gain in knowing "'not eating vegetables' is a fucking stupid idea" you lose in the youthful ability to easily digest any crap you like to eat, and still be healthy and fit eating it.
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    And by crap we mean alcohol.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    I'm not giving out health advice. Did you read the article? The kid thinks Grandpa can go back in time by not eating vegetables.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >I'm not giving out health advice. I'm not saying you do. I'm just pointing out that the wisdom of better eating we get at an older age is counterbalanced by the fact that we could eat much worse and not get sick or even out of shape when we were younger.
deleted 9y ago
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tchaffee 9y ago
This is similar to old companies compared to startups. The two together give a nice balance between stability (and efficiency) to experimentation. I wonder if the analogy extends to the article's observations about teens. Are "teen" companies fairly well established with what they are making but still willing to explore various relationship or management models?
gt_ 9y ago
Speak for yourself haha. This is a matter of trajectory. As you get older, you'll follow the trajectory you maintain. I exercise creativity more than fitness and I feel incredible hahahaha. Here's the key: Balance practice with theory. It's very sad to see so many people correlate creativity with childishness. What a farce! Kids are an amazing source of inspiration, and I make a point to cherish every moment around them. But, as you grow, you will probably develop more rigid understandings of the world and society. There's little there that means you are less creative; quite the contrary. But, maybe it's less likely you are exercising it. There are a lot of misnomers out there these days, and the understandings are not found where they should be (like art school). The point about process is one of the hardest parts these days. Rare alternative art histories offer radically different interpretations of creativity, and they are usually more archaeologically/anthropologically sound as well. Either way, our hurdles are related to many modern cultural trends like habitual idolization, genius fantasies, missed relationships with time and presence. It's a hard one and I have struggled with it a lot, so know you're not alone. The reality is that art is so rarely abstracted in the mind devoid of medium and time. Art is an interaction with materials and process BUT NOT an obsession with them. Obsess on other things. The gap in the middle harbors what we call the creativity. If you don't maintain the boundaries, you won't maintain the gap. Or, if you focus on creativity, you're missing the point and just getting older. Good luck!!! Oh and put yourself into art history because it's all interpreted anyhow. "We don't know! Let's find out!"
- snapcracklebach 9y ago
  What an interesting perspective. Beautifully said.
- deleted 9y ago
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- coldtea 9y ago
  >Speak for yourself haha. This is a matter of trajectory. As you get older, you'll follow the trajectory you maintain. I exercise creativity more than fitness and I feel incredible hahahaha. https://www.thehairpin.com/2017/07/men-you-dont-have-to-write-haha-at-the-end-of-statements/ https://www.thehairpin.com/2017/07/men-you-dont-have-to-writ...
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Before we get into the nitty gritty, did anyone else notice how dumb this article was? It presupposed some things without evidence: "we lose creativity" and then creates a convoluted study to support this notion. then creates a second convoluted study that undermines the presented presupposition and didn't discuss that at all. just right back to the conclusion that writer already had.
- avip 9y ago
  It's offensive to call cognitive science dumb.
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
    "cognitively negligent" if you like synonyms
  - deleted 9y ago
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ilamont 9y ago
I've wondered a lot about the relationship between creative output and age in terms of musicians. Across all genres, it seems that many talented musicians lose their ability to compose or take part in creative works as they get older. Sting talked about this (1); at some point in his mid-40s after writing and releasing new albums every few years the creative well seemed to dry up (he got it back later, and recently helped write and score a play). Other musicians shift to performance mode or give up creating new works altogether. However, with many well-known authors it seems to be more mixed. At one end of the spectrum you have people like Walter M. Miller Jr. and Harper Lee who write a great work and then seem to stop publishing by the time they reach their early 40s, and then at the other, there are people like Ursula K. LeGuin and Stephen King who are machines for more than 50 years. 1. http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351545257/how-do-you-get-over-writer-s-block http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351545257/how-do-you-get-over-...
- gt_ 9y ago
  Sharp observation. See my comment above. This general takeaway makes fine sense when you calculate the scope of the lifestyle differences. Here's my loose take: Music is a unique beast; especially these days. It remains the most scientifically fleeting artforms. The reasons why are sensory/media based for the most part, and usually entail a long-winded conversation because of the sheer abstraction of where the power lies in the medium. The conversations a musician has with it's audience actually seems to correlate more with what we consider childishness. In short, it's highly intuitive. Having this type of conversation briefly with rooms full of fans does not quite exercise the 'theory' end. Older musicians whose flame is still burning will usually have a deep and nuanced relationship with their art and practice that only those close to them can begin to understand. Maintaining that is rare.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  We need artists who started older, to compare. Alternative hypothesis- many artists come to prominence with one great contribution, but they can't do it repeatedly. Not because they are getting older but because they had one grand idea and failed to deliver another. See, one-hit wonders if all ages. See, The Beatles and Eric Clapton, both famous for continuous reinvention.
nemo44x 9y ago
I've always sort of thought about it as you get older and learn more about things you're interested in you lose the ability to misunderstand something and possibly come across something novel. Creativity becomes less of a coping mechanism as you begin to refine your mastery of your interests and have fewer chances of a misinterpretation taking you down a road of creative explosion. Which is why I find it important to try and learn new things and find new interests when you can. But even then, "creativity" so often results in a dead end since the chance of discovering something new, effective and possibly better is slim in the first place. But hopefully experience helps in sussing out obvious bad ideas - like not eating vegetables to grow young again.
interfixus 9y ago
I'm ancient (late fifties), but even so, I'm struck by the somewhat creakingly defensive tone of several comments in this thread - stolid narratives on the virtues of middle age experience and perspective. Fourty years younger me would be shaking my head. Present day me still is, a little bit. I try to keep up. I am not necessarily very good at it, but I try. I have sort of given up on quite a few of my contemporary friends who seem to have sort of given up on trying. But all too clearly, ideas and crazy angles just aren't coming the way they used to. I was probably at my creative peak when I was sixteen. Didn't really know shit about anything, but my writings and drawings from that time are still holding up, as fresh and inspired as anything I ever did.
- carbocation 9y ago
  Replying to you is quite arbitrary. But, at some point, I have to at least raise my point. I'm a cardiologist. I see patients every day. Anyone below 70, to me, is young. It's important to me that they feel the same way: it's easy to get old if you feel old. There's nothing factual or evidence based here. It's just my view. I understand that the running joke in the Valley is that you're old if you're out of your 20s. But, in my reality, 50s is extremely young.
  - BatFastard 9y ago
    I am in my 50's and I find the vast majority of adult I know at this age range are very uncreative in their thinking. Not sure why, maybe corporate life has beat it out of them.
    - oldandtired 9y ago
      If you look really closely at the 20 to 30 age group, much of their creativity is a rehash of old ideas, many of which were shown to be lacking when they first came up. They are successful now not because they are good ideas but because those who support them don't know their history and the consequences thereof. In addition many in that age group has less creativity than those who are older. Following trends and fashions is a common failure amongst people. Just because something has become fashionable doesn't mean that it is good.
jv22222 9y ago
For examples that go against this idea, check out the work of Maurice Sendak, Julia Donoldson or the cartoon Sarah & Duck, all of which can give any kids imagination a run for its money!
technobabble 9y ago
If you are concerned about your creativity, I highly recommend looking into improvisation. Although I am on the young side, I have devoted an evening a week to take improv classes. One of my previous professors did his Phd on how improvisational techniques can help with product design [1]. P.S. Spaghetti !?! Maybe tomorrow... [1]https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/61610 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/61610
Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago
The first example of the article is completely flawed though. It's not a matter of creativity, it's that the adult knows that aren't vegetables making you an adult, so he might be thinking a better, more efficient approach (doing something that forces you to learn). Sure there are creative things kids can do, but the first one is an example of ignorance, not creativity.
agumonkey 9y ago
In my twenties I had a very large drive, but of shallow conceptual level. Since my brain slowed a lot, but I can grasp much larger problems and still progress. It's a smoother exploration process rather than youth random rush through unknown space.
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
well one thing that's happened for me is that I have maybe an hour to work on things a night, therefore I can only be creative in my chosen field, but creativity as a general rule for me happens most when exploring the new, less exploration of the new less creation. The other thing is that while I might have great ideas I only have an hour a night to work on them, therefore I will not be implementing them and the end result is if someone would be trying to analyze my creative output now as opposed to my youth when I had more time they would say ah, there has been a precipitous drop in Bryan's creativity.
shams93 9y ago
It gets better and better if you don't quit your creative practice. Lets look at Nels Cline, the guitarist for Wilco. Now he is very successful,but for most of his life, up until he was over 50 he was a starving jazz guitarist. He never gave up his practice. For some musicians they suffer injuries or health issues that end their career. But as long as you stay healthy and limber and keep up your practice you don't start having issues until you're starting to get close to 80.
deleted 9y ago
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Powerofmene 9y ago
I too am in my 40s and I think that my creativity is still active. The main difference is now I have the experience to know when an idea is worth acting on and when it is just an "wow, wouldn't that be great." Even if something would be great, that does not mean that an idea that you have is one that ignites your passion. If you are not passionate about an idea it is not an idea that you should pursue, at least not as a founder, inventor, etc. I think creativity is simply the way you think. For me, when I see something that I like I always ask myself several questions such as : 1. I wonder why ...... 2. What would be the outcome of .... 3. What if..... 4. Wouldn't it be/function/look/inspire if 5. How can I make this..... These are not the only questions I ask, but if the answers keep me excited about something, I continue asking myself questions to see if the resulting answers create something worthy of further pursuit. If so, then I approach a couple of trusted people and ask them 'what if this did this or if you had this available to you' would you use it? Would you use it often? Would you tell others about it? What would make it better' etc. If you are lucky an idea or two or five are worth putting all of your energy behind. I have felt that way about a couple of ideas in my life but they did not always come at times that my life allowed me to pursue the idea with all my time and attention, until now. I liken it to finding your significant other, they have to challenge you, ignite your passion and the timing has to be right. But overall, I believe that Creativity is not about age as much as it is developing your own way of seeing things and then arriving at something new. Not everybody questions most things they see, hear, touch, etc but for those of us that do, well age is just a number.
crehn 9y ago
Just dropping by to say I really appreciate the HN community. I have learned a ton through this concentration of (mostly) smart, well-rounded and diverse bunch of people. Thank you. <3
senatorobama 9y ago
Something has happened to me. I'm 28. I used to have a shit tonne of ideas, ready to execute. Now that I'm approaching 3 years since graduation at a job that continually seems to demotivate me, all of them have gone. I wanted to be something special, now I have nothing to show. Don't ever take a job which you don't consider to have a meaningful impact on society.
- ak39 9y ago
  You're being unfairly hard on yourself. Too harsh. :-) here is what is mostly likely the scenario: 1. You've executed many "crazy ideas" but the projects haven't really mattered much. 2. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, every idea is tempered with merciless cost-benefit evaluation before you get started. You do this subconsciously. Many times you instantly conclude that the payoff for investing in new creative projects is not worth your time. This energy saving subconscious filter is a good thing most times. As you grow older your social responsibilities increase so you cannot be too frivolous with your time. But ... you keep imagining, you keep dabbling and when the balance for benefit vs cost tips differently you'll most likely go in with the same gusto and energy. The best part is all those years of dead end projects become a treasure trove of experience and components for your new project! Keep dabbling!
- deleted 9y ago
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- hyperdunc 9y ago
  Most jobs don't have a particularly meaningful impact on society - but they keep people busy and food on the table. It's a sad situation to work a job that demotivates, but it beats being destitute.
crunkykd 9y ago
Creativity comes in various flavors - exploiting the latest technical advances into something new. Favors recent academic grads ==> youth - ideas that require lots of hours of work to create ==> youth with more energy and productive work hours - connecting things from unrelated fields together to create something new and unexpected. Favors those with larger, broader experiences ==> age
z3t4 9y ago
When young everything was easy, because you knew so little.
sigi45 9y ago
naive is not the same as creative.
yodsanklai 9y ago
(only) 41, I don't think I've ever been particularly creative, but I've never been as enthusiastic about learning new things than now. If anything, it seems my short-term memory isn't as good as before.
dmichulke 9y ago
What the article doesn't touch is how to stay creative. One of computer scientific ways is to be epsilon-greedy, meaning everytime you have an action to take, you do (1-epsilon) (so 90% if epsilon = .1) times what you think is best and epsilon times something completely random. Of course, that is a heuristic that doesn't really make sense without a context because you wouldn't want to do it in your job interview or your marriage proposal. The other extreme is following the following quote which I find quite inspiring: If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough (attributed to Alan Key but who knows) While that's quite a high bar I personally do something quite different: When I see something strange happening, e.g. a bird landing right in front of you and looking at you, or you have a deja-vu or you see somewhere some strange reference that looks like a message that only you can understand because it's something that happened in your past, then I'm going to take the other choice. It happens a few times in a year and mostly biases explorative actions towards when I have a congnitive surplus anyway cause otherwise I wouldn't perceive the strange event in the first place.
6stringmerc 9y ago
I preserve creativity by allowing my internal disobedience to flourish and question things. Creativity is about seeing things differently. A lot of the "aging process" can be seen, at least from my perspective, as a grinding down into conformity in a lot of ways. YMMV.
known 9y ago
As we age we succumb to our prejudices.
plastroltech 9y ago
My feeling is that as an adult I have the ability to "think creatively" when I want to. I don't feel like a study of this nature really takes that into account. I'd be curious what would happen if they added a segment of the test where they ask the subjects to intentionally come up with a creative response.
gehwartzen 9y ago
It seems to me that we would naturally become less "creative" as we age because we are emmasing knowledge and experience. As we do so we have a much larger bank of solutions to new problems we face. When we are young we have to come up with creative solutions because we can't draw on past experience and accumulated knowledge. This is probably why we seem more creative when we try something new and novel. We now again have to come up with creative solutions because we have no other reference to go by.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  > become less "creative" as we age because we are emmasing knowledge and experience. As we do so we have a much larger bank of solutions to new problems we face. I don't think this makes any sense. Drawing on knowledge and experience, and a larger bank of solutions, to solve new problems is creativity. > This is probably why we seem more creative when we try something new and novel. We now again have to come up with creative solutions because we have no other reference to go by. I don't think makes any sense. When we older more experienced people try something new and novel our experience and knowledge and solutions from other fields doesn't suddenly evaporate. There is a lot of crossover in accumulated experience and knowledge.
SZJX 9y ago
I'd say this idea itself is already quite controversial and far from settled. Old people are not necessarily worse off in their abilities to think or their "creativity" or whatnot. Children might come up with a load of ideas because their knowledge has not been trained/structured in the same way as the adults have yet. But that doesn't mean their ideas would be particularly useful in solving real problems, since they tend to be far less reality-based. Also there are psycholinguistic researches at my university that suggest old people don't actually learn more slowly, they have just pruned some nonsensical connections and consolidated knowledge based on real world experience, and are thus worse at learning invented examples that might not make much sense.

254 points by hvo 9y ago

I'm not satisfied to define creativity as simply having "unusual ideas" as the article says in the opening paragraphs. The study focuses on cognitive flexibility, what I understand to be out-of-the-box thinking. Other research that composes creativity as a mixture of empathy, pattern-matching, and seeing the big picture suggests that creative ability can be refined with age.

scottLobster 9y ago
Yeah, I also think "outside the box thinking" as defined by the article is particularly bogus. Their opening example of a 4 year old suggesting the grandfather stop eating all vegetables because eating vegetables defines an adult is cute, but I wouldn't say it leads anywhere productive or meaningful. In fact that kind of outside the box thinking is likely to kill the grandfather sooner. I suppose this doesn't matter so much if we're talking about purely artistic creativity, which is typically thinking outside the box solely for the sake of thinking outside the box. Sure, maybe that decreases with age, but I'd say objective-based creativity, where the goal is to solve a specific problem, should actually increase with age and accrued knowledge if a person can remain open to new solutions. Thinking outside the box is easy. Most adults simply don't do it because they're focused on productivity and goals. A kid might think that a great way to feed a family is to build their house out of pizza, so they can just eat the walls and never go hungry. Good luck with that...
- gt_ 9y ago
  I also agree with all of these things. I think you're right about 'purely artistic creativity'. In addition, I think it's a distraction, a bit misleading. Let's say the boxes are a warehouse of boxes stacked in perfect cubular formation. So, when you leave one box, you find yourself in another.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    and we can muse on what the outside of the ware house is haha.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  I stopped reading the article on that first paragraph, because they presented a stupid correlation from the kid as creativity. It's not creativity, it's a correlation. It's logical thinking. It's wrong logic, does it make it better than correct logic?
- subroutine 9y ago
  I feel similarly. The scenarios they presented to measure creativity provided an ad hoc definition of creativity that does not appeal to me. As in, if that is the definition of creative, I don't care if I become less creative with age. On the other hand if these kids were solving problems that adults were struggling with, due to lack of imagination, I would feel a greater desire to preserve my juvenescent outlook. Then again, maybe that is merely a senescent definition of creativity biased by the trials and tribulations of adulthood, and the constant mission to be an efficient problem solver.
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gt_ 9y ago
I agree, but I would call that loose thinking, not out-of-the-box thinking. If you don't know where the the box walls are, it's a crap shoot finding the other side.
fnl 9y ago
This. In fact, I think creativity is something that needs cultivating. Artists can have their "best" phase about anywhere in life. I don't think there is any bias towards artists having their "best years" when they're young. While art is certainly the most cultivated form of creativity - at least to me.
kristopolous 9y ago
I think with time comes baggage that is hard to shake off. It's not impossible, but it's a very proactive activity. I try to posit "what would 16 year old me do here?" to open myself to new ideas and not constrain myself by patterns of the past.
roceasta 9y ago
Yes. Subjectively speaking it is finding the correct idea, not an unusual one. It's akin to remembering something. You either remember somebody's name or you don't; you don't make up a new one.
abecode 9y ago
I like a definition of creativity described in https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a-dent-in-the-universe/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a-dent-in-the-universe... , where it's contrasted with imagination. Briefly, creativity is domain specific, like in music or software, while imagination is a domain-independent survival skill for higher rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

japhyr 9y ago

I will turn 45 this year. One of my principles for healthy aging is to make sure I'm learning something new and challenging every year or two. I live in a fishing town in southeast Alaska, and I bought my first boat about three years ago. I bought a 16-foot boat with an open cabin, and it was an absolutely humbling experience. It feels like everyone here knows how to drive a boat, and sputtering through a harbor trying not to take out a row of motors was a really interesting learning experience. It forced me to be open to any and all feedback from all kinds of people. It forced me to seek out advice and assistance from people outside of my everyday circle of friends and co-workers. It made me pay attention to tides and weather in ways I hadn't needed to before. In short, it made me feel like I was looking at the world with new eyes again. That experience made me look for experiences every few years that are new enough that I have to see the world as a kid does again. Not in the wide-eyed wonder way, but in a way where I have to learn a whole new skill set. This year it's been learning how to drive a truck with a boat trailer. I thought I knew it intellectually, and I knew what I needed to make the trailer do, but I couldn't figure out how to make the back of the truck go where I needed it to. My neighbor was cracking up as he was helping me, and I think it was bringing him back into the mindset of looking at this kind of task from a beginner's perspective as well. I have a 6 year old son, and I love sharing these learning experiences with him. I want him to know that adults don't know everything, and that you really can spend your whole life learning new skills.

rothbardrand 9y ago
Oh, man, boats will humble anyone. I managed to go overboard from mine the first day I had it... had to get fished out by some nearby fisherman, who thought it was hilarious.
- hodgesrm 9y ago
  No kidding. The basic principles at the place where I sail are: * Keep the water out of the boat * Keep the people in the boat * Don't hit anything * If possible look good while doing the previous three It's harder than it looks.
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QAPereo 9y ago

I'm yet to hear a really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition of Creativity in the first place.

codingdave 9y ago
People over-think it -- creativity is simply taking an idea, and making that idea happen. Most people can be creative. The trick is for your creativity to be unique and original.
- paganel 9y ago
  > creativity is simply taking an idea, and making that idea happen. Most people can be creative Maybe in the context of the HN audience (mostly people interested in writing computer programs), but for me being "creative" means being someone like Stanislaw Lem or Kafka, i.e. people who actually create new (in this case literary) worlds which are really, really interesting to navigate through, so much so that sometimes you don't want to come back into the real world.
- flamedoge 9y ago
  a lot of times, new idea is just merger of two
coldtea 9y ago
Why do you need a "really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition of Creativity"? People know it when they see it, and instinctively know what it is even if they can't phrase it "rigorously". Not all things have a "really good, rigorous, and reproducible definition" -- especially "family resemblance" notions. What is a game, for example? You can use all kinds of words and rules to describes the notion of "game" but you can always find counter-examples ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance ).
roceasta 9y ago
When we hear that we'll know how to program AGI.

hellofunk 9y ago

I've always found it interesting that "creative activity" as relates to age is apparently quite different depending on the discipline. It's well-known that mathematicians (usually) get their most life-altering ideas quite early in life, while artists often create their most unique impacts much later in life.

Kuiper 9y ago
Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive) teaches a writing class where one of his lectures focuses on the notion that writing is more about skill/craftsmanship rather than ideas/inspiration: I want to disabuse you of a few notions. Writing is not about inspiration. Writing is not about ideas. Writing, or more specifically, getting published, is not about luck. What is writing about, then? Writing is about skill. And today I want to try and prove this to you. When someone sits down to play piano for you, how quickly can you tell if they're a good pianist or not? Basically everybody in this room can judge a pianist's level of skill within a minute or two of play. Not exactly, but you can know if this is someone who's good at piano, or if this is someone who's still an amateur at the piano. You can probably tell if this is a master versus someone who's just pretty good. Editors, published writers, people who know what they're doing, can do the same thing with one page of your writing in the exact same way. That is why it's not about inspiration, ideas or luck, because in one page I can judge how good a writer you are. People wonder why can editors reject manuscripts or, in this new age, where we're sometimes bypassing editors, how come the readers just put something down after one page when they haven't given it a real shot. You guys can judge this too. You've read enough, you know enough, you can judge if something is going to work for you pretty quickly. Perhaps not as quickly as most editors can, but you'll know. You'll read a chapter and you'll know if that person is a master, if they're in that medium grade where they've got some good things going on (it's still readable, but they're obviously not a master), or if this is someone's first novel they wrote when they were 12. You can tell all these things. So how do you develop this skill? Practice. He goes on to note that ideas/inspiration are important, but not the most central part of what makes writing effective. Many "creative" disciplines like writing, sculpting, and film are more about practiced and skilled craftsmanship than inspiration and ideas, whereas in some other fields, like maths and scientific discovery, breakthroughs really are about inspiration and ideas.

rothbardrand 9y ago

This is average people in a statistically (hopefully) relevant study.... average people are not creatives. Average people get locked into world views and ideology as they become adults. Average people don't take creative jobs. Creative people-- that would be an interesting group to study. As an older engineer, I'm not less creative. I'm slower at writing code, but I need to write a lot less code. In the end I execute at the same speed or faster than younger engineers (Who often seem to take off writing code before they've thought thru the problem and end up shooting themselves in the foot more often than coming up with an idea I hadn't considered. Not that there's anything wrong with them on the balance, just not a slam dunk that younger programmers are more productive.) I don't see this declining with aging, though my patience with people who can't respond to logic and facts is declining rapidly.

jarsin 9y ago
> I don't see this declining with aging, though my patience with people who can't respond to logic and facts is declining rapidly I have no patience for management either..aka people who can't respond to logic and facts
madengr 9y ago
Yep, I tolerate less and less BS either. Probably cost me my job someday.
paulcole 9y ago
>Average people don't take creative jobs. Hi! Average person with a creative job here. I'm good at my work (writing) but am otherwise not creative at all. I do it for money, stop thinking about it at 5PM, and that's it. I come home, watch TV, and exercise. I have no interest in creativity except that people will pay me for it.
- roceasta 9y ago
  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/samueljohn170103.html https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/samueljohn170103...
9y ago

alphonsegaston 9y ago

The thing that I've found as an artist is that, as one's skill grows, the management of that corresponding complexity can overtake one's creative capacity. At higher levels, the methods and structure required for competent execution are a cognitive load that crowds out other impulses. I think this is why you see a lot of older artists create works that are proficient, but repetitive, the habitual overtaking the innovative. But I don't think this is an unavoidable trajectory. Instead, one has to cultivate "creative thinking" in the same way that they do other skills. The thing that I've found most useful are arbitrary constraints derived from things like word association games. They encourage all kinds of divergent thinking.

rdiddly 9y ago

What you lose in creativity, you gain in knowing "not eating vegetables" is a fucking stupid idea!

coldtea 9y ago
What you gain in knowing "'not eating vegetables' is a fucking stupid idea" you lose in the youthful ability to easily digest any crap you like to eat, and still be healthy and fit eating it.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  And by crap we mean alcohol.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  I'm not giving out health advice. Did you read the article? The kid thinks Grandpa can go back in time by not eating vegetables.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I'm not giving out health advice. I'm not saying you do. I'm just pointing out that the wisdom of better eating we get at an older age is counterbalanced by the fact that we could eat much worse and not get sick or even out of shape when we were younger.

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tchaffee 9y ago

This is similar to old companies compared to startups. The two together give a nice balance between stability (and efficiency) to experimentation. I wonder if the analogy extends to the article's observations about teens. Are "teen" companies fairly well established with what they are making but still willing to explore various relationship or management models?

gt_ 9y ago

Speak for yourself haha. This is a matter of trajectory. As you get older, you'll follow the trajectory you maintain. I exercise creativity more than fitness and I feel incredible hahahaha. Here's the key: Balance practice with theory. It's very sad to see so many people correlate creativity with childishness. What a farce! Kids are an amazing source of inspiration, and I make a point to cherish every moment around them. But, as you grow, you will probably develop more rigid understandings of the world and society. There's little there that means you are less creative; quite the contrary. But, maybe it's less likely you are exercising it. There are a lot of misnomers out there these days, and the understandings are not found where they should be (like art school). The point about process is one of the hardest parts these days. Rare alternative art histories offer radically different interpretations of creativity, and they are usually more archaeologically/anthropologically sound as well. Either way, our hurdles are related to many modern cultural trends like habitual idolization, genius fantasies, missed relationships with time and presence. It's a hard one and I have struggled with it a lot, so know you're not alone. The reality is that art is so rarely abstracted in the mind devoid of medium and time. Art is an interaction with materials and process BUT NOT an obsession with them. Obsess on other things. The gap in the middle harbors what we call the creativity. If you don't maintain the boundaries, you won't maintain the gap. Or, if you focus on creativity, you're missing the point and just getting older. Good luck!!! Oh and put yourself into art history because it's all interpreted anyhow. "We don't know! Let's find out!"

snapcracklebach 9y ago
What an interesting perspective. Beautifully said.
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coldtea 9y ago
>Speak for yourself haha. This is a matter of trajectory. As you get older, you'll follow the trajectory you maintain. I exercise creativity more than fitness and I feel incredible hahahaha. https://www.thehairpin.com/2017/07/men-you-dont-have-to-write-haha-at-the-end-of-statements/ https://www.thehairpin.com/2017/07/men-you-dont-have-to-writ...

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

Before we get into the nitty gritty, did anyone else notice how dumb this article was? It presupposed some things without evidence: "we lose creativity" and then creates a convoluted study to support this notion. then creates a second convoluted study that undermines the presented presupposition and didn't discuss that at all. just right back to the conclusion that writer already had.

avip 9y ago
It's offensive to call cognitive science dumb.
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago
  "cognitively negligent" if you like synonyms
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ilamont 9y ago

I've wondered a lot about the relationship between creative output and age in terms of musicians. Across all genres, it seems that many talented musicians lose their ability to compose or take part in creative works as they get older. Sting talked about this (1); at some point in his mid-40s after writing and releasing new albums every few years the creative well seemed to dry up (he got it back later, and recently helped write and score a play). Other musicians shift to performance mode or give up creating new works altogether. However, with many well-known authors it seems to be more mixed. At one end of the spectrum you have people like Walter M. Miller Jr. and Harper Lee who write a great work and then seem to stop publishing by the time they reach their early 40s, and then at the other, there are people like Ursula K. LeGuin and Stephen King who are machines for more than 50 years. 1. http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351545257/how-do-you-get-over-writer-s-block http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351545257/how-do-you-get-over-...

gt_ 9y ago
Sharp observation. See my comment above. This general takeaway makes fine sense when you calculate the scope of the lifestyle differences. Here's my loose take: Music is a unique beast; especially these days. It remains the most scientifically fleeting artforms. The reasons why are sensory/media based for the most part, and usually entail a long-winded conversation because of the sheer abstraction of where the power lies in the medium. The conversations a musician has with it's audience actually seems to correlate more with what we consider childishness. In short, it's highly intuitive. Having this type of conversation briefly with rooms full of fans does not quite exercise the 'theory' end. Older musicians whose flame is still burning will usually have a deep and nuanced relationship with their art and practice that only those close to them can begin to understand. Maintaining that is rare.
sliverstorm 9y ago
We need artists who started older, to compare. Alternative hypothesis- many artists come to prominence with one great contribution, but they can't do it repeatedly. Not because they are getting older but because they had one grand idea and failed to deliver another. See, one-hit wonders if all ages. See, The Beatles and Eric Clapton, both famous for continuous reinvention.

nemo44x 9y ago

I've always sort of thought about it as you get older and learn more about things you're interested in you lose the ability to misunderstand something and possibly come across something novel. Creativity becomes less of a coping mechanism as you begin to refine your mastery of your interests and have fewer chances of a misinterpretation taking you down a road of creative explosion. Which is why I find it important to try and learn new things and find new interests when you can. But even then, "creativity" so often results in a dead end since the chance of discovering something new, effective and possibly better is slim in the first place. But hopefully experience helps in sussing out obvious bad ideas - like not eating vegetables to grow young again.

interfixus 9y ago

I'm ancient (late fifties), but even so, I'm struck by the somewhat creakingly defensive tone of several comments in this thread - stolid narratives on the virtues of middle age experience and perspective. Fourty years younger me would be shaking my head. Present day me still is, a little bit. I try to keep up. I am not necessarily very good at it, but I try. I have sort of given up on quite a few of my contemporary friends who seem to have sort of given up on trying. But all too clearly, ideas and crazy angles just aren't coming the way they used to. I was probably at my creative peak when I was sixteen. Didn't really know shit about anything, but my writings and drawings from that time are still holding up, as fresh and inspired as anything I ever did.

carbocation 9y ago
Replying to you is quite arbitrary. But, at some point, I have to at least raise my point. I'm a cardiologist. I see patients every day. Anyone below 70, to me, is young. It's important to me that they feel the same way: it's easy to get old if you feel old. There's nothing factual or evidence based here. It's just my view. I understand that the running joke in the Valley is that you're old if you're out of your 20s. But, in my reality, 50s is extremely young.
- BatFastard 9y ago
  I am in my 50's and I find the vast majority of adult I know at this age range are very uncreative in their thinking. Not sure why, maybe corporate life has beat it out of them.
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    If you look really closely at the 20 to 30 age group, much of their creativity is a rehash of old ideas, many of which were shown to be lacking when they first came up. They are successful now not because they are good ideas but because those who support them don't know their history and the consequences thereof. In addition many in that age group has less creativity than those who are older. Following trends and fashions is a common failure amongst people. Just because something has become fashionable doesn't mean that it is good.

jv22222 9y ago

For examples that go against this idea, check out the work of Maurice Sendak, Julia Donoldson or the cartoon Sarah & Duck, all of which can give any kids imagination a run for its money!

technobabble 9y ago

If you are concerned about your creativity, I highly recommend looking into improvisation. Although I am on the young side, I have devoted an evening a week to take improv classes. One of my previous professors did his Phd on how improvisational techniques can help with product design [1]. P.S. Spaghetti !?! Maybe tomorrow... [1]https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/61610 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/61610

Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago

The first example of the article is completely flawed though. It's not a matter of creativity, it's that the adult knows that aren't vegetables making you an adult, so he might be thinking a better, more efficient approach (doing something that forces you to learn). Sure there are creative things kids can do, but the first one is an example of ignorance, not creativity.

agumonkey 9y ago

In my twenties I had a very large drive, but of shallow conceptual level. Since my brain slowed a lot, but I can grasp much larger problems and still progress. It's a smoother exploration process rather than youth random rush through unknown space.

bryanrasmussen 9y ago

well one thing that's happened for me is that I have maybe an hour to work on things a night, therefore I can only be creative in my chosen field, but creativity as a general rule for me happens most when exploring the new, less exploration of the new less creation. The other thing is that while I might have great ideas I only have an hour a night to work on them, therefore I will not be implementing them and the end result is if someone would be trying to analyze my creative output now as opposed to my youth when I had more time they would say ah, there has been a precipitous drop in Bryan's creativity.

shams93 9y ago

It gets better and better if you don't quit your creative practice. Lets look at Nels Cline, the guitarist for Wilco. Now he is very successful,but for most of his life, up until he was over 50 he was a starving jazz guitarist. He never gave up his practice. For some musicians they suffer injuries or health issues that end their career. But as long as you stay healthy and limber and keep up your practice you don't start having issues until you're starting to get close to 80.

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Powerofmene 9y ago

I too am in my 40s and I think that my creativity is still active. The main difference is now I have the experience to know when an idea is worth acting on and when it is just an "wow, wouldn't that be great." Even if something would be great, that does not mean that an idea that you have is one that ignites your passion. If you are not passionate about an idea it is not an idea that you should pursue, at least not as a founder, inventor, etc. I think creativity is simply the way you think. For me, when I see something that I like I always ask myself several questions such as : 1. I wonder why ...... 2. What would be the outcome of .... 3. What if..... 4. Wouldn't it be/function/look/inspire if 5. How can I make this..... These are not the only questions I ask, but if the answers keep me excited about something, I continue asking myself questions to see if the resulting answers create something worthy of further pursuit. If so, then I approach a couple of trusted people and ask them 'what if this did this or if you had this available to you' would you use it? Would you use it often? Would you tell others about it? What would make it better' etc. If you are lucky an idea or two or five are worth putting all of your energy behind. I have felt that way about a couple of ideas in my life but they did not always come at times that my life allowed me to pursue the idea with all my time and attention, until now. I liken it to finding your significant other, they have to challenge you, ignite your passion and the timing has to be right. But overall, I believe that Creativity is not about age as much as it is developing your own way of seeing things and then arriving at something new. Not everybody questions most things they see, hear, touch, etc but for those of us that do, well age is just a number.

crehn 9y ago

Just dropping by to say I really appreciate the HN community. I have learned a ton through this concentration of (mostly) smart, well-rounded and diverse bunch of people. Thank you. <3

senatorobama 9y ago

Something has happened to me. I'm 28. I used to have a shit tonne of ideas, ready to execute. Now that I'm approaching 3 years since graduation at a job that continually seems to demotivate me, all of them have gone. I wanted to be something special, now I have nothing to show. Don't ever take a job which you don't consider to have a meaningful impact on society.

ak39 9y ago
You're being unfairly hard on yourself. Too harsh. :-) here is what is mostly likely the scenario: 1. You've executed many "crazy ideas" but the projects haven't really mattered much. 2. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, every idea is tempered with merciless cost-benefit evaluation before you get started. You do this subconsciously. Many times you instantly conclude that the payoff for investing in new creative projects is not worth your time. This energy saving subconscious filter is a good thing most times. As you grow older your social responsibilities increase so you cannot be too frivolous with your time. But ... you keep imagining, you keep dabbling and when the balance for benefit vs cost tips differently you'll most likely go in with the same gusto and energy. The best part is all those years of dead end projects become a treasure trove of experience and components for your new project! Keep dabbling!
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hyperdunc 9y ago
Most jobs don't have a particularly meaningful impact on society - but they keep people busy and food on the table. It's a sad situation to work a job that demotivates, but it beats being destitute.

crunkykd 9y ago

Creativity comes in various flavors - exploiting the latest technical advances into something new. Favors recent academic grads ==> youth - ideas that require lots of hours of work to create ==> youth with more energy and productive work hours - connecting things from unrelated fields together to create something new and unexpected. Favors those with larger, broader experiences ==> age

z3t4 9y ago

When young everything was easy, because you knew so little.

sigi45 9y ago

naive is not the same as creative.

yodsanklai 9y ago

(only) 41, I don't think I've ever been particularly creative, but I've never been as enthusiastic about learning new things than now. If anything, it seems my short-term memory isn't as good as before.

dmichulke 9y ago

What the article doesn't touch is how to stay creative. One of computer scientific ways is to be epsilon-greedy, meaning everytime you have an action to take, you do (1-epsilon) (so 90% if epsilon = .1) times what you think is best and epsilon times something completely random. Of course, that is a heuristic that doesn't really make sense without a context because you wouldn't want to do it in your job interview or your marriage proposal. The other extreme is following the following quote which I find quite inspiring: If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough (attributed to Alan Key but who knows) While that's quite a high bar I personally do something quite different: When I see something strange happening, e.g. a bird landing right in front of you and looking at you, or you have a deja-vu or you see somewhere some strange reference that looks like a message that only you can understand because it's something that happened in your past, then I'm going to take the other choice. It happens a few times in a year and mostly biases explorative actions towards when I have a congnitive surplus anyway cause otherwise I wouldn't perceive the strange event in the first place.

6stringmerc 9y ago

I preserve creativity by allowing my internal disobedience to flourish and question things. Creativity is about seeing things differently. A lot of the "aging process" can be seen, at least from my perspective, as a grinding down into conformity in a lot of ways. YMMV.

known 9y ago

As we age we succumb to our prejudices.

plastroltech 9y ago

My feeling is that as an adult I have the ability to "think creatively" when I want to. I don't feel like a study of this nature really takes that into account. I'd be curious what would happen if they added a segment of the test where they ask the subjects to intentionally come up with a creative response.

gehwartzen 9y ago

It seems to me that we would naturally become less "creative" as we age because we are emmasing knowledge and experience. As we do so we have a much larger bank of solutions to new problems we face. When we are young we have to come up with creative solutions because we can't draw on past experience and accumulated knowledge. This is probably why we seem more creative when we try something new and novel. We now again have to come up with creative solutions because we have no other reference to go by.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
> become less "creative" as we age because we are emmasing knowledge and experience. As we do so we have a much larger bank of solutions to new problems we face. I don't think this makes any sense. Drawing on knowledge and experience, and a larger bank of solutions, to solve new problems is creativity. > This is probably why we seem more creative when we try something new and novel. We now again have to come up with creative solutions because we have no other reference to go by. I don't think makes any sense. When we older more experienced people try something new and novel our experience and knowledge and solutions from other fields doesn't suddenly evaporate. There is a lot of crossover in accumulated experience and knowledge.

SZJX 9y ago

I'd say this idea itself is already quite controversial and far from settled. Old people are not necessarily worse off in their abilities to think or their "creativity" or whatnot. Children might come up with a load of ideas because their knowledge has not been trained/structured in the same way as the adults have yet. But that doesn't mean their ideas would be particularly useful in solving real problems, since they tend to be far less reality-based. Also there are psycholinguistic researches at my university that suggest old people don't actually learn more slowly, they have just pruned some nonsensical connections and consolidated knowledge based on real world experience, and are thus worse at learning invented examples that might not make much sense.