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How to enhance creativity, especially by applying new technologies to creativity methods, is a question posed continuously by researchers. One reason for this is that creativity is an important part of people's daily lives and an essential component of society. Therefore, many methods to enhance creativity have been created, especially brainstorming, which is one of the most popular and effective tools that inspire individuals to generate ideas, hence enhancing creativity. Moreover, technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), provide an opportunity for individuals and groups to be creative. In response, recent studies have adopted VR in brainstorming to enhance creativity. However, there is a lack of systematic analysis of experimental approaches and creativity measures employed in this context. Addressing this question, this study categorized existing articles on the topic related to categories of avatars, environments, interfaces, or applications. The findings elaborate on trends, measures employed to evaluate creativity and idea generation, identified categories, and results of these studies.

The analysis of conversations during design activity can facilitate deeper insights into design thinking and its relation to creativity. A semantic analysis approach was employed to explore the sem...

In less than a quarter, the time between two consecutive issues of IJDCI, the COVID-19 outbreak has suddenly revolutionized the life of almost every human being. The daily reports by the World Heal...

Analysing verbal data produced during the design activity is helpful to gain a better understanding of design creativity. To understand exchange of information in terms of creative outcomes, a semantic analysis approach was used to measure the semantic content of communications between students and teachers. The goal was to use this tool to analyse design conversations, and to investigate their relation to design creativity, assessed in terms of originality, usability, feasibility, aesthetics, elaboration, overall value and overall creativity. Abstraction, Polysemy, Information Content and Semantic Similarity were employed to explore 35 design conversations from the DTRS10 dataset. Main findings suggest that a significant relationship exists between Information Content and Originality, and between Information Content and Overall creativity of the produced design outcomes. Significant relations were also found between Abstraction, Polysemy, Information Content, and Feasibility, as well as between Semantic Similarity and Overall Value of the outcomes. Implications for the use of semantic measures for encouraging creativity in the design studio are discussed.

Human creativity generates novel ideas to solve real-world problems. This thereby grants us the power to transform the surrounding world and extend our human attributes beyond what is currently possible. Creative ideas are not just new and unexpected, but are also successful in providing solutions that are useful, efficient and valuable. Thus, creativity optimizes the use of available resources and increases wealth. The origin of human creativity, however, is poorly understood, and semantic measures that could predict the success of generated ideas are currently unknown. Here, we analyze a dataset of design problem-solving conversations in real-world settings by using 49 semantic measures based on WordNet 3.1 and demonstrate that a divergence of semantic similarity, an increased information content, and a decreased polysemy predict the success of generated ideas. The first feedback from clients also enhances information content and leads to a divergence of successful ideas in creative problem solving. These results advance cognitive science by identifying real-world processes in human problem solving that are relevant to the success of produced solutions and provide tools for real-time monitoring of problem solving, student training and skill acquisition. A selected subset of information content (IC S\'anchez-Batet) and semantic similarity (Lin/S\'anchez-Batet) measures, which are both statistically powerful and computationally fast, could support the development of technologies for computer-assisted enhancements of human creativity or for the implementation of creativity in machines endowed with general artificial intelligence., Comment: 42 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

The extent to which designers can understand users often determines the quality of design outcomes. A deep understanding of users allows the designers to focus on the right problem and make optimal design decisions, which encouraged designers to empathize with users. However, the current imagination-based empathizing strategy appears to be too susceptible to their previous experience and knowledge, which has been questioned concerning effectiveness and accuracy. On the other hand, Virtual Reality (VR) technology provides an opportunity for designers to gain experience-driven empathy by immersing them in a virtual environment that mimics the users' surroundings as if they are seeing the world from users' eyes. While abundant studies covered empathy VR and empathy for design, limited attention has been paid to the chance of bringing VR, empathy, and design research together. Addressing this gap, this study explored literature across domains, identified major concerns about this approach, synthesized the evidence, and discussed the feasibility and validity of the VR-based empathic design research approach.

Our access to computer-generated worlds changes the way we feel, how we think, and how we solve problems. In this review, we explore the utility of different types of virtual reality, immersive or non-immersive, for providing controllable, safe environments that enable individual training, neurorehabilitation, or even replacement of lost functions. The neurobiological effects of virtual reality on neuronal plasticity have been shown to result in increased cortical gray matter volumes, higher concentration of electroencephalographic beta-waves, and enhanced cognitive performance. Clinical application of virtual reality is aided by innovative brain–computer interfaces, which allow direct tapping into the electric activity generated by different brain cortical areas for precise voluntary control of connected robotic devices. Virtual reality is also valuable to healthy individuals as a narrative medium for redesigning their individual stories in an integrative process of self-improvement and personal development. Future upgrades of virtual reality-based technologies promise to help humans transcend the limitations of their biological bodies and augment their capacity to mold physical reality to better meet the needs of a globalized world.

Virtual reality (VR) technology has introduced a range of equipment, contexts, and stimuli with possible applications in the context of design creativity. In response, recent studies have investigated VR as a tool that can be applied to enhance creativity. As a part of such research, this paper reviews existing studies and provides a state-of-the-art literature review based on the componential theory of creativity. Based on studies that investigate the use VR to enhance creativity, we found that VR can be used to improve specific factors to enhance creativity, and a natural environment can be considered a positive factor for enhancing creativity. Therefore, we propose a hypothesis that VR technology could be a useful method to simulate nature for enhancing creativity; experimentation based on the hypothesis is expected to be conducted in the future.

Adopting immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology in the early stages of design appeals to designers, as research has shown that immersing people in a virtual environment can efficiently elicit empathy and facilitate deeper understanding of out-group members. However, after exploring and synthesis literature across the fields of design, psychology, and neuroscience, the present study found the opportunities VR opens to be accompanied by uncertainties. In this study, we (1) identified the benefits of adopting immersive VR in the early design stage, such as enhancing empathy and promoting design equity, (2) discovered previously unrealised problems that VR may bring to the design process, especially potential biases owing to emotional connections, and (3) determined a future direction for relevant research: gaining deeper knowledge about operators’ mental activities to mitigate biases and uncertainties.

In this study, we formulate a framework to evaluate open-ended projects related to digital fabrication. The framework consists of two dimensions, i.e. human intellect and technology. Human intellect is judged by three sub-dimensions – creativity, computational thinking, and skills. In order to study the technology dimension, the four sub-dimensions include process, outcome, development stage, and reproducibility. To test the proposed framework, a case study was applied on digital fabrication projects done in Fab Academy 2019. Final projects of students are selected to implement the framework since final projects exemplify most of the skills learned by a student of the digital fabrication course. In addition, the proposed framework is also assessed in the light of existing literature done to evaluate learning in similar types of projects. The results establish the relationship among different sub parameters of human intellect and technology, and present the open-ended project evaluation results.

The analysis of conversations maintained during the design activity can help to gain a better insight into design thinking and its relation to creativity. A semantic analysis approach was employed to inspect the content of communications and information exchange between students and instructors. The goal was to explore design conversations in terms of Abstraction, Polysemy, Information Content and Semantic Similarity measures, and analyse their relation to the creativity of final design outcomes. These were assessed according to their Originality, Usability, Feasibility, Overall Value and Overall Creativity. To this end, design conversations from the 10th Design Thinking Research Symposium (DTRS10) dataset were used. Main results show a significant relationship between Information Content and Originality and Overall Creativity. For instructors, Semantic measures were mainly related to Feasibility, whereas for students the focus was set on the Overall Value of the final solutions.

Maker educations and distributed educations are increasing in quantity and quality. This gives a possibility for academia to tap into interesting sources of knowledge outside the physical parameters of the institution, as well as outside formal education and traditional learning methods. However, academic recognition of such learning can be challenging. We explore Fab Academy in comparison with a current university course with the same topic; the amount of work by university standards and whether the assessment methods of Fab Academy are sufficient for academic recognition. The workload of Fab Academy is calculated based on the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). The contents are compared based on the range of subjects and the deliverables required to pass the courses. We find Fab Academy to be compatible with the university course. Hence, we consider it possible to include in university curriculum Fab Academy content accredited by different universities.

The research object of this study is the in-depth discourse on the sustainability transfer activities of higher education institutions (HEIs) and their contribution to a regional sustainable transformation. For this purpose, a heuristically-derived concept of sustainability transfer is empirically tested with a mixed-methods approach based on the example of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE). The empirical findings demonstrate that the realization of sustainability transfer depends mainly on the personal initiative of teachers and researchers. Major barriers are a lack of time and financial resources. The observed concept of sustainability transfer is applicable to all study and research areas of HNEE. Involvement in sustainability transfer can include the whole of society, from politics, enterprises, and civil society to education and research institutions. Overall, the empirical testing of the concept offered by this study illustrates its practical suitability to capturing specifically those sustainability transfer activities that are not tapped by third mission approaches. This opens up a novel dimension for transfer potential at universities and their role in regional sustainability transformation. It also highlights that the interdependencies between HEIs and practitioners need to be more contextualized with quality criteria such as the value of the transfer performance or level of ambition.

In this study, we discuss a structure for developing the skills and competencies required by the learning framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for future education. Given the broad range of skills and the numerous competencies required to meet the demands of future society, the proposed wider and higher-level framework is based on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and design, and mathematics) and addresses the limitations of conventional computational thinking by tackling some of the skills and competencies. This is done by proposing the enrichment of STEAM educational approach with art thinking, which may be defined as a creative human-centred discovery process. To explore such enrichment, we conducted a workshop on art thinking. The motivation of the workshop was to explore whether art thinking can overcome some of the limitations of computational thinking regarding future education in the OECD learning framework. We discuss STEAM as focusing on design creativity competency, and we outline the development of educational activities such as workshops to promote competencies in the perspective of OECD framework.

We discuss the design and initial evaluation of Gravity of Thought Waterfall, which is designed to be a surprising and creative prototype. Users can control the visual "gravity" effect of the waterfall with an EEG headset. The potentially surprising interactions with the prototype are evaluated through a set of questionnaires and a survey. Results show that the designed prototype is perceived to be surprising and creative; almost all participants were positively surprised when interacting with it.

Nowadays, we have plenty of channels where to share thoughts, experiences, ambitions, but most of these channels turn out to be ephemeral and evanescent. On the contrary, we believe that thoughts o...

Advances in virtual reality present opportunities to relive experiences in an immersive medium that can change the way we perceive our life stories, potentially shaping our realities for the better. This paper studies the role of virtual reality as a tool for the creation of stories with the concept of the self as a narrator and the life of the self as a storyline. The basis of the study is the philosophical notion of the self-narrative as an explanatory story of the events in one&rsquo, s life that constitutes the notion of one&rsquo, s self. This application is suitable for cases when individuals need to recreate their self, such as during recovery after traumatic events. The analysis of the effects of virtual reality shows that it enables a person to engage in a process of deeper self-observation to understand and explain adverse events and to give meaning to these events to form a new story, which can complement the therapeutic outcomes of exposure treatments. This study proposes concrete examples of immersive scenarios used to reconstruct personal stories. Several possible levels of experience are proposed to suggest that recovery can be achieved through the gradual retelling of the self-narrative, addressing all of the underlying narratives. Considering the ethical challenges that might arise, this paper explores the ways in which immersion in virtual reality can benefit a person&rsquo, s view toward life as a story and his or her self as its author, comparing this idea with previous research on the application of virtual reality for trauma treatment. The analysis also emphasizes the perception of narrative authorship in virtual reality as an essential method for recovering the self-narrative and improving a patient&rsquo, s mental health during self-actualization.

Here we propose an interactive system to augment creative design thinking using networks of concepts in a virtual reality environment. We discuss how to augment the human capacity to be creative through dynamic suggestions providing new and original ideas, based on specific semantic network characteristics. We outline directions to explore the structures of the concept network and their connection to creative concept generation. It is expected that augmented creative thinking will allow the user to have more original ideas and thus be more innovative.

Digital fabrication laboratories (FabLabs) influence how we think, ideate, do, make, and create. To enable the full capacity of materialization of the most creative ideas in the FabLab, a fundamental understanding of the processes in the FabLab is required. To accomplish this, we propose a framework for dynamically and ubiquitously capturing human-human (team) interactions, human-tool/machine interactions, and human-design-object interactions in the complex scenarios that occur in the paradigm of making in FabLabs. The framework elaborates three methods. The first method produces categories of creative spaces about activities and users in the FabLab. The second method identifies interactions between users and tools, and between users. Last, the third method identifies in-depth cognitive and thinking types of makers in the FabLab. The proposed framework can improve creative results and experiences of all stakeholders in the making process in the FabLab, and provide easy customization of the FabLab training for different audiences.

In this research, we studied the human dimensions of experience and knowledge, confidence, motivation, and fun with regard to four technological dimensions referring to a FabLab environment: 2D and 3D design, tools and machines, prototyping with electronics, and programming. An intensive, two-week training period for high school students in digital fabrication and design was utilized as a testbed to evaluate how the participants modified their perception of the four human dimensions during the training. We identified that prototyping with electronics and programming were the most significant obstacles. In addition, the perception of acquired knowledge and confidence had increased considerably after training except for the programming domain. FabLab trainers can utilize the trainees’ perceptions on different dimensions to emphasize the specific design aspects of the activity in order to achieve the training goals. We also expect that a detailed description of the experiment setup can be useful to other researchers and practitioners while organizing activities at FabLab.

This paper proposes a model of meta-reflection and in-depth analysis of the knowledge creation process (KCP). The authors focus on observation of the KCP in research on creative design. The new method of meta-reflection is applied both to reflection on ‘research about design creativity’ and object of research—‘design creativity’. One result of the applied method of meta-reflection was that the analysis of KCP in research on design involved different tacit forms of knowledge and creativity and included a wide spectrum of knowledge processes and knowledge types. The roots of creativity and imagination were identified, which then stemmed into certain parts of research activities, such as development of hypotheses and theory proposition. The authors produced a model of meta-reflection (MMR) and an in-depth analysis of the KCP. This study is a step that provides understanding of the role that human creativity and imagination play in research.

The gas pipeline infrastructure on the territory of Bulgaria currently has a total length in operation of about 2,650 km and consists of two main pipeline grids, national and transit ones, constructed from 1964 up to now. The expansion of both systems is continuing. Strategic purpose is construction of interconnectors of Bulgarian gas system with the neighboring countries, mainly with Greece (IGB) and Turkey (ITB). The Bulgarian gas transmission system with minimal investments can provide quick, safe, and the cheapest transport of natural gas in all directions that the gas market in the region determined.

Criticism is important for cultivating creativity. In this paper, we propose a method to enhance feedback to creators of creative works. We separate the explicit evaluation from the implicit evaluation. We pay particular attention to cases in which the viewer expresses a positive evaluation of a work but the actual implicit evaluation is rather negative. In such cases, the feedback of the implicit criticism is important for creativity. We describe a prototype system designed to deliver such feedback to the creator. The feedback interface is represented by the taste of green tea, directly delivered to the creator, thus motivating the creator.