Basic Components of Cognitive Structure. Final Report.

This study was designed to examine the relationship between associative clustering, creative potential, and the slope of associative hierarchies. It was predicted that people whose verbal associations are organized into neatly separated clusters will have lower creative potentials as measured by the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and steeper slopes for their associative hierarchies. Thirteen hypotheses were set forth, of which six were supported. However, close examination of the data by complex analysis of variance and posteriori comparisons raised serious question about the interpretability of the findings. Expectations about differential performances on an important subset of RAT items by people with neatly separated clusters vs. people with overlapping clusters were not supported. This may have been due either to errors in conceptualization or flaws in the classification of RAT items. However, the measure of associative clustering again proved highly reliable within persons and deserves further attention. (Author/DD)