Reports a psychiatrist's analysis of Einstein's personal account of how he developed the theory of relativity. The psychiatrist cites Janusian thinking, actively conceiving two or more opposite concepts simultaneously, as a characteristic of much creative thought in general. (MA)

Multiple regression analysis shows that both a response-production component and an evaluation component are involved in answers to a free-response synonym task by 299 Belgian college students. Format differences between the multiple choice evaluation task and the synonym task are explained in terms of verbal abilities measured. (SLD)

This review shows that mentally retarded children can produce problem-solving strategies if they comprehend the task requirements, share the experimenter's goal, and construct an optimal problem-solving representation. Instruction with multiple exemplars of a task can induce generalized strategy use, and nonvolitional mechanisms play a role in use…

The article discusses the concept of inspiration as a component of creativity, including environmental influences, affective self-awareness, effective verbal communication to preserve inspired experiences, and the role of humor. The creative problem-solving process is also addressed, with attention to divergent thinking strategies and the practice…

Recent research on learning in work situations has focused on concepts such as 'productive learning' and 'pedagogy of vocational learning'. In investigating what makes learning productive and what pedagogies enhance this, there is a tendency to take the notion of learning as unproblematic. This paper argues that much writing on workplace learning…

The notion that student generated questions or instructor generated questions of a recalled prose passage will better aid learning is examined. (DEP)

Explores how thinking is organized, drawing upon the development of Darwin's thought from varying time perspectives. The struggle for coherence and identity in theory construction is seen as a dual process: that of an intutitive contact with the material and an abstract purposefulness and perspective. (Author/AM)

This document was written for junior and senior high school students to help them learn to cope more effectively with their problems. It is intended as a quide for helping adolescents explore and solve problems through constructive critical thinking. Ten steps in the process of constructive critical thinking are presented with personal and social…

An annotated bibliography of recently-indexed ERIC documents on the topic. (CH)

The concept of creativity is present in the thinking of all cultures. The idea of bringing new order out of non-order and new form out of the formless is basic to the concept of creativity. Despite the efforts of numerous researchers, defining giftedness or creativity appears to be a timeless problem. Presently there is still no universally…

The results of this study, investigating cross sex-typing as a possible correlate of creative thought and productive thinking, indicated that creative performance was associated with high masculine and low feminine interests. These findings support the idea that creativity and problem solving development are related to sex-role orientation.…

In two experiments, judges evaluated fictitious protocols that varied in the number and uniqueness of the answers. Criteria for judgments were creativity, intelligence and gender. (Author/DEP)

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHER CHARACTERISTICS AND THE DEGREE OF CHANGE SHOWN BY GIFTED ELEMENTARY PUPILS IN CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT THINKING AREAS WAS INVESTIGATED. CHARACTERISTICS WERE ASSESSED BY MEASURES OF INTELLIGENCE, PERSONALITY FACTORS, AND A PERSONAL INFORMATION QUESTIONNAIRE. SIX PRE- AND POST-TESTS OF CONVERGENT AND 4 TESTS OF…

A theory of the nature of mental abilities is presented. In this theory, mental abilities are hierarchically organized into four progressively deeper levels--the levels of composite tasks, subtasks, information-processing components, and information-processing metacomponents. Composite tasks can be decomposed into subtasks, subtasks into…