Creativity research is a fast growing area of research. In our modern society there is recognition that creativity is becoming more and more important (Adobe Survey, 2012). David Bohm and David Peat applied a universal approach to explaining creativity. Peat and Bohm explain the movement that occurs in the creative process by way of intrinsic and generative orders. They also highlight the importance of ‘state of being’ and an interaction both externally and internally of a person in the creative process. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is a well-respected modern researcher of creativity, also includes aspects of state of being in his flow concept, as well as pointing out the importance of interaction and feedback from an external world. This doctoral research series is based on three main factors - my 15-year self-study as a practising artist, an analysis of contemporary creativity and mind theories and empirically testing the key propositions that arise from these analyses in eight seperate studies. The research explores whether there is a relationship between ‘state of being’, ‘dynamic movement’ and creativity. The contribution to knowledge are clear definitions of ‘state of being’ and ‘dynamic movement’ and a practical application of these terms in the context of creativity. The methodology used to empirically explore the relationship of these propositions could also be regarded as a contribution to knowledge as it extends the triangulation metholology to include ‘dynamic movement’. The results from the eight studies start to show a relationship between ‘state of being’, ‘dynamic movement’ and creativity.

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This thesis traces the roles and valences of incommunicable, perception-like thought - what I call an ‘inner image’ - in art’s reception. Recent artistic practice and its contextualisations are beholden to a critique of interiority that programmatically outlaws anything like the phantasmata that were central to pre-modern thought or the mental imagery of modern psychology and philosophy of mind. I argue that in the context of these prohibitions an inner image – as both experienced in engagement and facilitated in practice - has a critical-utopian function: critical in its evasion of communicative rationality and naturalized externality, utopian in its non-realization and incongruity with the immediate. The argument proceeds by conducting close readings of a wide range of art historical situations in which the notion of such an image is problematized: G E Lessing’s Laokoon essay; the plays of Villiers de L’Isle-Adam; Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida; the relations between text and materiality in the work of Marcel Broodthaers and Robert Barry. An instructive contrast is provided by examining the role of ‘inner images’ in scientific practice, specifically their utilisation in recent neuroscientific attempts via brain-imaging to communicate with humans in a vegetative state. Findings are framed by a critique of positivistic thought, and its relation to the utopian, derived from the Frankfurt School body of theory. It is shown that the excision from the art encounter of inner images - as a taboo on that which is not sensuously realized, which retains a halo of indeterminacy, which does not yet exist - resigns the subject to circumstance. An inner image is then the expression of the subject’s capacity as a subject to resist circumstance, if only by turning away.

The aims of this thesis were twofold: the first was to develop a reliable and valid measure of the control of mental imagery, second was to explore the links between imagery, creativity and schizotypy. The Image Control and Recognition Task (ICRT) was developed because a reliable and objective measure of mental imagery control was lacking in the field. Two trend analyses (n = 29 and 31) found the tool to effectively measure individual differences in imagery control and the ability to reinterpret mental images. A series of related studies using over 300 participants investigated the construct validity and reliability of the ICRT and found that it provided an accurate measure of both mental imagery control and image recognition, and revealed these to be related, yet distinct dimensions of mental imagery. The tool may be used to indicate abilities on a number of imagery control abilities which appear to be related to enhanced creative performance, such as evocation, rotation, maintenance and transformation. An investigation with 96 psychology students looked into interrelationships between performance-based imagery control (ICRT), self-reported mental imagery abilities (vividness and control) and four dimensions of schizotypy (unusual experiences, cognitive disorganisation, introvertive anhedonia and impulsive nonconformity). A multiple regression found that mental imagery control, unusual experiences and cognitive disorganisation scores together predicted 28% of variance in creativity scores. The final study, which recruited 40 visual artists and 56 psychology students, investigated relationships between mental imagery control, incommodious schizotypal traits, and creative performance as measured by battery of creativity tasks and a self-report measure of creative achievement. Significant differences were revealed between the artist and non-artist groups in their creativity scores, but no significant differences were found between these groups on any index of schizotypy. Independent groups t tests showed that the visual artists had significantly more controlled mental imagery and enhanced recognition abilities when compared to the non-artist group. Multiple linear regression found that mental imagery control and unusual experiences scores, which included associated ratings of distress, distraction, and frequency, both explained variance in levels of creative achievement, suggesting that, together, magical ideation, unusual imaginal and perceptual experiences, and fantasy proneness, as well as the ability to control, manipulate, recombine, reinterpret and “play with” mental images is implicated in achieving “real-world” success in creative domains. Imagery control predicted 8% of the variance in the ability to conceive of conceptually unusual, and strikingly original alien creatures when assessed in experimental settings. The ability to control mental imagery shared predictive power with impulsive nonconformity in generating alternative uses for household objects explaining 10% of the variance. It appears that mental imagery abilities are implicated in creativity as the abilities required to control mental imagery were strongly related to higher performance on measures of divergent thinking, creative strengths, conceptual expansion, and creative achievement. The results support assertions that all constructs are multidimensional and related in differential ways, and tentatively point to the possibility that the associations between unusual experiences, mental imagery and enhanced creative achievement may be explained in terms of controlled and uncontrolled imagery, for indices of unusual experiences may indirectly represent levels of schizotypal imagery.

It is currently widely accepted that there are at least two types of visual representation used for remembering objects; a viewpoint-dependent representation linked to a specific encounter with an object (exemplar), and a viewpoint-independent representation linked to the category to which an object belongs (generic). Much research has focused on establishing the conditions under which viewpoint-independence is and is not observed, with the underlying assumption being that only one type of visual representation exists for remembering. This thesis presents four experiments in which drawing from memory tasks were used to investigate the conditions under which participants use generic and exemplar visual representations for remembering objects, with the underlying assumption that given both types of visual representations coexist in memory participants have the option regarding which type of visual representation to use for remembering. The combined results of four experiments demonstrate that when both types of visual representation are available participants prefer to use a generic representation for remembering. However, the exemplar visual representation is still available, if required. Furthermore, when an exemplar representation is used for remembering, it is not only more likely to preserve an object's seen orientation but is also more likely to preserve episodic details from the specific encounter with the object.

In 1976 Michael Kirton introduced Adaptation-Innovation Theory, a theory of individual cognitive style that embraces problem solving, decision making and creativity. Individual cognitive style falls along a continuum from Adaptor to Innovator. Adaptors prefer to actualize their creativity in crafting better solutions by working efficiently within the current structure, whereas, Innovators prefer to actualize their creativity in crafting different solutions, by working discontinuously often changing the current structure. This study is an exploratory design addressing the questions (1) What is the relationship between cognitive style, organisational climate for change and outcomes such as creative performance and job satisfaction? (2) Do people of different cognitive style prefer different climates for creativity and change? And if so, what are the differences? A theoretical model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) based on the theoretical frameworks and related measures of Kirton (1976), Ekvall (1991), Isaksen, Lauer & Ekvall (1999), Besemer & O'Quin (1987), Puccio (1990) and Cooper, Sloan & Williams (1988). A qualitative design was used to identify specific differences in preferred climates for clusters of individuals along the KAI continuum. Results indicate that Ekvall's dimensions of organisational climate and the current measure, the Situational Outlook Questionnaire, relate more to a climate preferred by those of innovative cognitive style than those of adaptive cognitive style. Additionally, when the discrepancy between observed and preferred climate is small, job satisfaction increases. This suggests that cognitive style impacts outcome through preferred climate. The climate for creativity and change is different for those of Adaptive style through to Innovative style as measured by the KAI. Generally, Adaptors prefer a relationship centered climate whereas Innovators prefer an idea-centered climate. It is reasonable to consider that the climate construct is a continuum just as the Adaption - Innovation construct is a continuum. The groundwork has been done for the creation of a style neutral measure of both incremental and radical change. This study is of interest to creativity researchers, creativity practitioners and individuals.

The principal aim of my thesis is to provide a unified theory of imagining, that is, a theory which aspires to capture the common nature of all central forms of imagining and to distinguish them from all paradigm instances of non-imaginative phenomena. The theory which I intend to put forward is a version of what I call the Agency Account of imagining and, accordingly, treats imaginings as mental actions of a certain kind. More precisely, it maintains that imaginings are mental actions that aim at the formation of episodic representations, the content of which is directly determined by what we want them to represent. My defence of this version of the Agency Account happens in two stages. On the one hand, I try to show that it is both extensionally adequate and explanatorily illuminating with respect to those mental states or projects which are clear instances of either imaginative or nonimaginative phenomena. And on the other hand, I seek to demonstrate that the most plausible alternative to the Agency Account - namely the Cognitive Account according to which it is distinctive of imaginings that they are non-cognitive phenomena and thus to be contrasted with perceptions, judgements, and so on - is bound to fail as a unified theory of imagining. The dissertation contains five main parts. In the first, I specify in more detail what a unified account of imagining has to achieve and, in particular, which phenomena it is supposed to capture. The second part presents the Cognitive Account, thereby focussing on Brian O'Shaughnessy's sophisticated version of it; while the third part is reserved for the evaluation and rejection of the Cognitive Account. In the fourth part, I develop my version of the Agency Account of imagining. And the fifth and last part is concerned with the accommodation of potential counterexamples to it.

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The main aim of this thesis is to analyse the nature and function of Spatio-Temporal Imagination (STIm) under an imagination-as-simulation framework. STIm is defined as any imaginative act that allows you to consider a location and/or a time other than the one you are currently experiencing. I will focus on the phenomenal visual imagery aspect of this mental phenomenon and hence will not discuss other potential versions of STIm in any detail. Part I will explore the current simulation literature to get an idea of what imagination-as-simulation may mean and to see how it dovetails with other researchers who have a similar style of approach (Chapter 2). I will then defend the Kosslyn Model of visual imagery, which I will argue is ameneable to being interpreted as an imagination-as-simulation process (Chapters 3&4). Part II will look at what different perceptual theories may say about the imagination-as-simulation debate. Using the Selective vs. Generative Approach distinction as a guide, we will look at two theories that are obviously examples of each respectively: Naïve Realism (Chapter 5) and my own theory of STIm (Chapter 7). We will also look at Tye’s (1995) PANIC theory, as a related approach that will also be used to illustrate other points relevant to the debate about the relation between perception and imagery (Chapter 6). I will argue that visual STIm has much in common with visual perception in that they are both: locally generated visual style phenomenal representational mental states. This is even though there are some other crucial differences in how they are caused and experienced. The thesis will also describe a way that these images can be labeled with different spatial and temporal contexts. This is what allows STIm to be used to consider alternative possibilities both temporally and spatially and to function as a way to plan our actions in the present and to have an extended spatial and temporal awareness of our environment.