The aim of the current study is threefold: to develop a creativity questionnaire based on the main criteria for creativity as determined by means of a comprehensive literature survey; to administer this questionnaire, in combination with the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) and the 16PF for the purpose of determining respondents’ level of creativity in relation to their personality constellation; to determine whether a typical 16PF profile can be obtained for the purpose of identifying a creative individual. The sample consisted of fourth-year Psychology students at the University of Pretoria. Identified problems that motivated the research include, amongst others, a lack of research in this domain, and therefore a need for a reliable and valid measuring instrument for creativity. Creative individuals are often misinterpreted or misunderstood by the community as the result of a lack of knowledge. The purpose of the research will also be to reduce misconceptions such as these, by informing the reader about creativity as well as the individuals who possess this unique characteristic. Creativity is, however, an extremely broad concept which is very difficult to define, and only the main criteria for creativity were applied in the development of the Creativity Questionnaire. According to Ryhammar&Brolin (1999), creative individuals can be described as being motivated, persevering, intellectually inquisitive, having a need for self-actualisation, independent in thought and deed, confident, self-aware, and open to external and internal stimulation. Operationalisation of such criteria formed the basis of the Creativity Questionnaire. The dissertation reports on the development of a Creativity Questionnaire which can be used in a variety of areas, but will need further revision and refinement in terms of items included, validity and reliability. Therefore the current study should be considered as a pilot study for the testing and development of this questionnaire. The results of this investigation confirm and extend previous research in demonstrating a close association between creativity and specific personality traits. Creative subjects (as measured by the ATTA) indicated that they perceive themselves to be significantly more independent in thought, open to experience, dominant, individualistic and competent, than less creative subjects. Both subjects with average and high creativity levels indicated that they tend to be more resourceful, self-sufficient, and prefer to make their own decisions. These subjects tend to be more abstract thinking and bright. Both subjects with low creativity levels and subjects with high creativity levels indicated that they tend to be more spontaneous, socially bold, uninhibited and venturesome than subjects with average creativity levels. The latter subjects tend to be more restrained, sensitive to threats, timid and shy. Subjects with low creativity levels on the other hand, indicated that they tend to be more outgoing, participating, warm-hearted and easy-going than subjects with an average creativity level. The latter subject group tends to be more critical, detached and reserved. Subjects with low creativity levels also seem to be joiners, sound followers and group-dependent. These subjects also indicated that they tend to be more concrete thinking and less intelligent, than subjects with average and high creativity levels. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / unrestricted

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The sound synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that has become commonplace in audio production for music, film, television and video games. Despite its widespread use, creating new sounds on a synthesizer - referred to as synthesizer programming - is a complex task that can impede the creative process. The primary aim of this thesis is to support the development of techniques to assist synthesizer users to more easily achieve their creative goals. One of the main focuses is the development and evaluation of algorithms for inverse synthesis, a technique that involves the prediction of synthesizer parameters to match a target sound. Deep learning and evolutionary programming techniques are compared on a baseline FM synthesis problem and a novel hybrid approach is presented that produces high quality results in less than half the computation time of a state-of-the-art genetic algorithm. Another focus is the development of intuitive user interfaces that encourage novice users to engage with synthesizers and learn the relationship between synthesizer parameters and the associated auditory result. To this end, a novel interface (Synth Explorer) is introduced that uses a visual representation of synthesizer sounds on a two-dimensional layout. An additional focus of this thesis is to support further research in automatic synthesizer programming. An open-source library (SpiegeLib) has been developed to support reproducibility, sharing, and evaluation of techniques for inverse synthesis. Additionally, a large-scale dataset of one billion sounds paired with synthesizer parameters (synth1B1) and a GPU-enabled modular synthesizer (torchsynth) are also introduced to support further exploration of the complex relationship between synthesizer parameters and auditory results. / Graduate

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Utifrån min egen skolgång och känslan av att musikskapande aktiviteter bortprioriterats för att skapa utrymme för sådana moment som ger ”mest kunskap” har jag med denna studie valt att undersöka just användandet av musikskapande aktiviteter i grundskolans musikundervisning. Den tidigare forskning som lyfts fram visar att kreativa arbetssätt och skapande aktiviteter främjar elevers musikaliska kunskaper och sociala färdigheter. Trots detta visar statliga utvärderingar av musikämnet att musikskapande aktiviteter är eftersatt på många skolor i landet samt att musiklärare saknar självförtroende och kompetens att undervisa i momentet. Genom en webbenkät som datainsamlingsmetod syftar föreliggande studie till att studera musiklärares arbete med musikskapande aktiviteter. Forskningsfrågorna som ligger till grund för arbetet berör musiklärares definition av musikskapande aktiviteter, attityd till och prioritering av momentet samt eventuella samband mellan olika faktorer och användandet av musikskapande aktiviteter i undervisning. Metodmässigt tar studien en medelväg och med avstamp i ett explorativt perspektiv kan studien anses ha sin grund i den kvantitativa ansatsen tillsammans med vissa kvalitativa tolkande inslag. Resultatet av studien visar att de medverkande informanterna har en övervägande positiv attityd till musikskapande aktiviteter samt enligt sin egen uppfattning prioriterar momentet i relativt hög grad i sin undervisning. Musikskapande som komposition, musikskapande som digital produktion och musikskapande som gestaltande kommunikation är tre övergripande innebörder av begreppet musikskapande som framträder ur resultatet, dock anser många informanter att begreppet är svårdefinierat och att det snarare är ett sammanfattande begrepp för flera moment i undervisningen. Ytterligare resultat visar att faktorer som kön, yrkeserfarenhet, attityder och vilken del av landet informanten undervisar i pekar på tydliga samband i förhållande till attityd och prioritering av musikskapande aktiviteter. Avslutningsvis förs en diskussion kring studiens resultat och huruvida musikskapande aktiviteter bör ses som ett genomsyrande förhållningssätt i musikundervisningen snarare än ett enskilt moment. / Based on my own schooling and the feeling that music-creating activities have been de-prioritized to create space for elements of music that provides "the most knowledge", I have with this study chosen to investigate the use of music-creating activities in primary school music education. Previous research that highlights shows that creative thinking and creative activities promote students' musical knowledge and social skills. Despite this, evaluations of Swedish music education shows that music-creating activities are neglected in many schools and that music teachers lack the self-confidence and competence to teach the element. Through a web survey as a collection method of data, this essay aims to study music teachers’ usage of music-creating activities in their practice. The research questions that form the basis of the study concern music teachers' definition of music-creating activities, attitudes to and inclusion of the element and possible connections between different factors. Methodologically, the study takes a middle ground and with a starting point in an exploratory perspective the study is considered to have its basis in the quantitative approach together with certain qualitative interpretive elements. The result of the study shows that the participating informants have a predominantly positive attitude towards music-creating activities as well as recurring use of it in their teaching. Music creation as composition, music creation as digital production and music creation as formative communication are three main definitions of the concept of music creation that emerges from the survey answers, however, many informants believe that the concept is difficult to define and that it is rather a summary concept for several moments in teaching. Further results show that factors such as gender, professional experience, attitude and which part of the country the informants teach point to clear connections in relation to the use of music-creating activities. Finally, there is a discussion about the results of the study and whether music-creating activities should be seen as a permeating approach in music teaching rather than an individual element.

Computational creativity seeks, in part, to develop autonomous agents that exhibit creativity. Language is an ideal creative domain for studying computer agents due to its rich interconnectedness and immense space of possible combinations. This dissertation explores the design, testing, and theory of creative computer systems that write microfiction and play the board game Codenames. The designs of these systems are all similarly based on building up creative artifacts from the underlying structure of the relationships between words. A critical component of the creative process is the ability to evaluate the quality of creative output. Human and automated assessment of our creative systems' outputs yields insights into the challenge of automated creative evaluation. Those insights are formalized into a novel paradigm for designing creative systems and theoretical analyses of the properties of creative domains that facilitate evaluation.

For businesses that rely on creativity for their success, its effective and thought-out management is necessary for the entity to thrive. The field of creativity management has emerged as a result, highlighting the employment of a ‘creative climate,’ motivational tools, and an appropriate organizational structure as essentials for the asset’s optimization (Dubina, 2013, Sternberg and Lubart, 2004, Tonnquist, 2018, Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe, 2014, Karambayya and Reid, 2009). However, the current literature fails to address how outside factors may influence the effectiveness of creativity management’s employment, such as the financial and organizational obligations of an operation (Knight and Harvey, 2015). Creative organizations, in particular, are affected by this issue, as the success of their end-product lies directly in their ability to harness creativity effectively (Jones et al., 2016). The aim of the study is therefore to understand how executives within creative organizations attempt to maximize creativity, while continuing to heed exterior business initiatives. The following investigation has attempted to tackle the subject by exploring it through the lens of the film production process. We pose the question: What are the conflicts that arise between an economic outlook and a creative outlook on a film, and how has this power struggle been managed? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with industry professionals, with producer and director pairs representing the two perspectives, respectively. We find that the two primary points of contention are the intrusive measures enforced by producers for ‘profitability’ and ‘scheduling & budget control,’ which often lie in direct contrast to a project’s creative vision (Bérubé & Demers, 2019, Knight and Harvey, 2015, Senge, 1990). We then identify three winning strategies employed by the consulted professionals to handle these conflicts: clear communication on financial and organizational boundaries from the planning phase, an established relationship of trust between the artistic and managerial leader, and a capacity for empathy with the competing perspective. These principles should support and contribute to the existing knowledge on creativity management, in identifying where it may be challenged, and suggesting methods for conflict minimization. It has laid the ground for future studies within this domain of creativity management, by opening up room for research in other creative industries that may share these same challenges, to confirm the findings.

The contemporary society of the United States of America is becoming an increasingly stressful environment to live in. Our rapid advances and developments in virtual, electronic, and high-speed technology have led us to a lifestyle that operates more quickly. However, our attachment to such a face-paced lifestyle has unfortunately led us towards an increasingly stressful lifestyle. This research focuses on identifying our current society's perceptual outlook and illustrating how the practice of mindfulness can help reduce the anxieties, struggles, and mental flaws which cloud our perception. The intent of this thesis is to show how the practice of mindfulness is beneficial towards our mental health. The practice of mindfulness originated within the Buddhist tradition and has evolved into a new area of interest in the fields of mental health, psychology, philosophy, and humanities. Also, the connection between the practice of mindfulness, and the practice of authentic creativity, as demonstrated in playing the piano, is illuminated within this research. Authentic creativity thus serves as an enlightening metaphor for the elusive practice of mindfulness, and creates a more vivid understanding of the concept of mindfulness. For this thesis I have conducted a literature review in the areas of philosophy, religion, aesthetics and cognitive science. Also, I am actively participating in my research by personally practicing mindfulness and piano. Part of my methodology involves critical thinking on the personal level as I am writing journal entries about my views and thoughts concerning these processes.

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