Commonality search shares processes with alternative categorization
- Mayu Yamakawa, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
- Sachiko Kiyokawa, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
AbstractWe investigated how people find commonalities between unrelated objects as a basis of generating creative ideas by examining the relationship between performances on commonality search and alternative categorization tasks. We predicted a positive correlation between performances on the two tasks because one needs to focus on some obscure features of objects to do both tasks well. Thirty-one undergraduates were asked to engage in both commonality search and alternative categorization tasks. They were asked to list as many as commonalities between nine unrelated object pairs for 90 seconds for each pair. They were then asked to list as many categories as possible that each of five objects belong to for 60 seconds per object. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the performances on these tasks. We concluded that commonality search and alternative categorization both focus on obscure features of objects.