Section 1 Creativity in Humans

**3**

process [5].

**Chapter 1**

Machine

*Sílvio Manuel da Rocha Brito*

**1. Considerations and trends**

mind, the men, and the machines.

Introductory Chapter: Super

Creativity—Mind, Men, and

Creativity is a much-requested attitude nowadays that anything and anyone can pass without it. More than this, it turns in a way of life, fundamentally in investigation tasks, in the business procedures, in the family environment, in the learning processes and health diagnosis, and in all aspects of our daily routines. Thus, to increase this, there is the necessity to conjugate synergies of three elements: the

Over the mind, since the concept has undergone several evolutions, its considerations constitute a unique basis for understanding creativity, pointing to emotional orientation and triggering mental activities particularly a threat to the use of com-

The mind experiences are free and transmit us how versatile the mind is; it considers construction and reconstruction of their presuppositions and the way that generate and self-generate their thoughts in a dual kind of wandering: novelty

This relationship has been expressed in learning processes, mainly in idea creations, decision-making, problem-solving, lateral thinking, and thought movement [3]. This kind of movement is essentially cultural, an extended process that

But the same relationship represents critical thinking, a form to understand different cultural contexts, an association between thinking measures, like fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, and creativity, but only during a performance

Incidentally, this is confirmed in two experiences where the activity is funda-

domains. Between an emotional complex form and a thinking way [7], and by another hand, enhanced by our mind wandering [2] constituting a strong ability to make connections in our whole brain with the purpose of empowering relationships

About a person, we can transform a subject into a creative person, to learn and acquiring personalities such as curiosity, cognition, soft skills, feelings, and motivation; to develop a humanistic vision and to develop personal qualities [9] like research and development [10], working in what he or she views as a challenge and

Furthermore, if we specify abstract concepts, probably we do the lateral thinking [12] in many domains better, and some of them are in verbal expressions [13],

in several domains and activities namely creativity achievements [11].

This can be enhanced by an unbelieving process, developing creativity in several

mon sense. So, creativity appears in a relationship experiences' board [1].

and utility. So, the creator is the wonder-minded subject [2].

comports kinetic behavior with mind and culture [4].

mental to develop a creative mind [6].

reinforcing the creativity [8].

### **Chapter 1**

## Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine

*Sílvio Manuel da Rocha Brito*

### **1. Considerations and trends**

Creativity is a much-requested attitude nowadays that anything and anyone can pass without it. More than this, it turns in a way of life, fundamentally in investigation tasks, in the business procedures, in the family environment, in the learning processes and health diagnosis, and in all aspects of our daily routines. Thus, to increase this, there is the necessity to conjugate synergies of three elements: the mind, the men, and the machines.

Over the mind, since the concept has undergone several evolutions, its considerations constitute a unique basis for understanding creativity, pointing to emotional orientation and triggering mental activities particularly a threat to the use of common sense. So, creativity appears in a relationship experiences' board [1].

The mind experiences are free and transmit us how versatile the mind is; it considers construction and reconstruction of their presuppositions and the way that generate and self-generate their thoughts in a dual kind of wandering: novelty and utility. So, the creator is the wonder-minded subject [2].

This relationship has been expressed in learning processes, mainly in idea creations, decision-making, problem-solving, lateral thinking, and thought movement [3]. This kind of movement is essentially cultural, an extended process that comports kinetic behavior with mind and culture [4].

But the same relationship represents critical thinking, a form to understand different cultural contexts, an association between thinking measures, like fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, and creativity, but only during a performance process [5].

Incidentally, this is confirmed in two experiences where the activity is fundamental to develop a creative mind [6].

This can be enhanced by an unbelieving process, developing creativity in several domains. Between an emotional complex form and a thinking way [7], and by another hand, enhanced by our mind wandering [2] constituting a strong ability to make connections in our whole brain with the purpose of empowering relationships reinforcing the creativity [8].

About a person, we can transform a subject into a creative person, to learn and acquiring personalities such as curiosity, cognition, soft skills, feelings, and motivation; to develop a humanistic vision and to develop personal qualities [9] like research and development [10], working in what he or she views as a challenge and in several domains and activities namely creativity achievements [11].

Furthermore, if we specify abstract concepts, probably we do the lateral thinking [12] in many domains better, and some of them are in verbal expressions [13],

innovation tactics [14], environment [15], teamwork [16], leadership expectations [17], and organizational [18] and approach-oriented [19] performances.

If we use the positive mind, we develop creativity, in an equal form, as a man, a person, and a sameness, with positive thinking, and develop and increase creativity by regulating creative emotions [20], but we use also the awe, and by using it, we enhance the creative thinking and control several emotions by positively stimulating the creativity in many perspectives [7]. This will impulse to increase one of the most important personality factors to be creative, present in most studies in this area [21].

But the creativity as a human, personal, and intimate human attitude depends essentially on the will. New theories approach this reality, and one of them is a "triangular theory," where creative subjects challenge other common people's beliefs and share an unconscious and conscious reality vision and, in face of this, there originates different combinations of challenge types, creativity materialized examples [22].

According to all this, any human is a creative person [23].

About a machine, with the fast technological development in a brief future, we suppose, there will be difficulty in dating a man from a machine and vice versa. Thus, artificial intelligence is the mainly example in moral decisions, which helps us in making ethical decisions about our expectations; for example, being a part of a platform that helps us to make decisions on the use of autonomous vehicles [24] and health preservation where certain human body organs are changed by bionic devices [25] such as legs, tissues, bones, exoskeletons, and much more.

So, this symbiosis [26] is intense and very creative in such a way that, increases the development of human performance at work, as well as occupational health and individual behavior in general, and artificial intelligence is living in ourselves either [27]. In many aspects, especially in a culture, that we can say that we are living an authentic cyberculture paradigm [28]. As mankind progresses with the machine, it also progresses in the new competencies' acquisition, the ignition competence being the creativity attitude [29].

Therefore, the psychological concept of creativity is daily changing, since it is a non-rational and inflexible concept, on the contrary, it rests in intervisibility and in a world where the intellectual heritage belongs to machines; the last word in creative actions belongs to humans [30].

The definition of creative activity is *any kind of creativity that creates something new, be it anything from the outside world, a product of the creative activity, or an organization of thought or feeling that acts and is present in man himself* [31].

Creativity activity is not the same as "creative thinking"; it means interaction between a sociocultural context and the mind of people. It is a systemic phenomenon, more than individual [32]; this is seen as the production of anything new that has a significant impact on a given field and is widely recognized and valued through the demonstration of its social usefulness. In the lower case or in superior case [33], the social significance of the materialized idea depends on what people can do with it.

So, creativity is a systemic process that arises from the relationship between different kinds of actions (individual, field, and domain) that are in different contexts (personal background, society and culture, economy, and globalization) that affect them, as shown in **Figure 1** [34].

According to **Figure 1**, from the "individual" point of view, it is necessary to analyze the cultural and social contexts in which this individual operates. The interaction between the individual domains favours the communication transmission, and the interaction between the individual field stimulates the result occurrence with the original potential, producing and stimulating novelty, where the interaction between "field" and "domain" selects novelty by judgment and selection of creative results.

**5**

present.

**Figure 1.**

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine*

contribute for developing the creative cognition [36].

*Creativity Systemic Process. Source: Adapted from Csikszentmihalyi [34].*

climate, management, and knowledge strategy [37].

nies and customers, in a crowdsourcing operation.

**2. Challenges and proposals**

unpredictable impact.

machine interaction.

This triangulation of perspectives and interpretations reflects the senses of what can search to be faced as "new" trough a confrontation os questions and answers between creativity researchers and participants [35] where the active mind is always

Some models mean the presence of the man and the machine, where the computational reports contribute to human insights and establish the relationship with the human neural system to quantify the creativity quality levels and the divergence or convergence of creative thinking, giving an integrative perspective of creativity and

All this have the aim to empower creativity in the work conditions on high-tech

Following these purposes, this single book reveals itself in an interesting vision in how the relational trilogy between humanity, its knowledge, and the use of the machine responds to the challenges placed before it, with respect to the own fears and preoccupations, to the human nature and to its social purpose, as well as to the synergy strategic management between man and machine, and to the results'

Like the trilogy mind, men, and machine, this book proposes three moments: the first moment deals with the creativity in humans that suggest what they can do and what they do by doing this. The second moment deals with the creativity in the machines, that is to say, the way in which they propose to the man to develop their capacities. The third moment deals with the collaboration between man and

Therefore, we begin with a spectacular article from Prof. Wesley Carpenter that talks about the power of a special cognitive moment, which conducts a cognitive mutation that will result in creativity, especially on problem-solving and critical solutions. Next, we have an article no less interesting, by Dr Luigi Nasta and Dr Luca Pirolo, who moves us to the fashion world, in a curious form of innovation to increase and improve the commercial relationship form, between fashion compa-

environments and the collaborator's health, through the optimization of work dimensions as work atmosphere, vertical collaboration, autonomy and freedom, respect, alignment, and lateral collaboration, so creativity emerges from a good

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

**Figure 1.**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

[17], and organizational [18] and approach-oriented [19] performances.

According to all this, any human is a creative person [23].

devices [25] such as legs, tissues, bones, exoskeletons, and much more.

the creativity attitude [29].

creative actions belongs to humans [30].

innovation tactics [14], environment [15], teamwork [16], leadership expectations

If we use the positive mind, we develop creativity, in an equal form, as a man, a person, and a sameness, with positive thinking, and develop and increase creativity by regulating creative emotions [20], but we use also the awe, and by using it, we enhance the creative thinking and control several emotions by positively stimulating the creativity in many perspectives [7]. This will impulse to increase one of the most important personality factors to be creative, present in most studies in this area [21]. But the creativity as a human, personal, and intimate human attitude depends essentially on the will. New theories approach this reality, and one of them is a "triangular theory," where creative subjects challenge other common people's beliefs and share an unconscious and conscious reality vision and, in face of this, there originates different combinations of challenge types, creativity materialized examples [22].

About a machine, with the fast technological development in a brief future, we suppose, there will be difficulty in dating a man from a machine and vice versa. Thus, artificial intelligence is the mainly example in moral decisions, which helps us in making ethical decisions about our expectations; for example, being a part of a platform that helps us to make decisions on the use of autonomous vehicles [24] and health preservation where certain human body organs are changed by bionic

So, this symbiosis [26] is intense and very creative in such a way that, increases the development of human performance at work, as well as occupational health and individual behavior in general, and artificial intelligence is living in ourselves either [27]. In many aspects, especially in a culture, that we can say that we are living an authentic cyberculture paradigm [28]. As mankind progresses with the machine, it also progresses in the new competencies' acquisition, the ignition competence being

Therefore, the psychological concept of creativity is daily changing, since it is a non-rational and inflexible concept, on the contrary, it rests in intervisibility and in a world where the intellectual heritage belongs to machines; the last word in

The definition of creative activity is *any kind of creativity that creates something new, be it anything from the outside world, a product of the creative activity, or an organization of thought or feeling that acts and is present in man himself* [31].

Creativity activity is not the same as "creative thinking"; it means interaction between a sociocultural context and the mind of people. It is a systemic phenomenon, more than individual [32]; this is seen as the production of anything new that has a significant impact on a given field and is widely recognized and valued through the demonstration of its social usefulness. In the lower case or in superior case [33], the social significance of the materialized idea depends on what people

So, creativity is a systemic process that arises from the relationship between different kinds of actions (individual, field, and domain) that are in different contexts (personal background, society and culture, economy, and globalization) that affect

According to **Figure 1**, from the "individual" point of view, it is necessary to analyze the cultural and social contexts in which this individual operates. The interaction between the individual domains favours the communication transmission, and the interaction between the individual field stimulates the result occurrence with the original potential, producing and stimulating novelty, where the interaction between "field" and "domain" selects novelty by judgment and selection

**4**

can do with it.

of creative results.

them, as shown in **Figure 1** [34].

*Creativity Systemic Process. Source: Adapted from Csikszentmihalyi [34].*

This triangulation of perspectives and interpretations reflects the senses of what can search to be faced as "new" trough a confrontation os questions and answers between creativity researchers and participants [35] where the active mind is always present.

Some models mean the presence of the man and the machine, where the computational reports contribute to human insights and establish the relationship with the human neural system to quantify the creativity quality levels and the divergence or convergence of creative thinking, giving an integrative perspective of creativity and contribute for developing the creative cognition [36].

All this have the aim to empower creativity in the work conditions on high-tech environments and the collaborator's health, through the optimization of work dimensions as work atmosphere, vertical collaboration, autonomy and freedom, respect, alignment, and lateral collaboration, so creativity emerges from a good climate, management, and knowledge strategy [37].

### **2. Challenges and proposals**

Following these purposes, this single book reveals itself in an interesting vision in how the relational trilogy between humanity, its knowledge, and the use of the machine responds to the challenges placed before it, with respect to the own fears and preoccupations, to the human nature and to its social purpose, as well as to the synergy strategic management between man and machine, and to the results' unpredictable impact.

Like the trilogy mind, men, and machine, this book proposes three moments: the first moment deals with the creativity in humans that suggest what they can do and what they do by doing this. The second moment deals with the creativity in the machines, that is to say, the way in which they propose to the man to develop their capacities. The third moment deals with the collaboration between man and machine interaction.

Therefore, we begin with a spectacular article from Prof. Wesley Carpenter that talks about the power of a special cognitive moment, which conducts a cognitive mutation that will result in creativity, especially on problem-solving and critical solutions. Next, we have an article no less interesting, by Dr Luigi Nasta and Dr Luca Pirolo, who moves us to the fashion world, in a curious form of innovation to increase and improve the commercial relationship form, between fashion companies and customers, in a crowdsourcing operation.

Through the second moment, Dr. Teboho Pitso presents us a wonderful study about the influence of intelligent machines' capacities versus the human's cognition and the use of both in creating value.

The last moment is marked by a special and critical work by Dr. Ikkena Onwuegbuna on the machine incidence in musical creation, and how it can be productive if it interacts with the subject with regard to a process of analysis.

Finally, we finish with a wonderful proposal by Dr. Niki Lambaropoulos, who brings us an innovative project—an adaptive virtual reality brain-computer interfaces, which is very useful for the search of new solutions and for learning new tasks.

In conclusion, this book helps us to understand the union of the real with the virtual, through the connecting link that leads to change and evolve: creativity at its best! Surely, it will be a friend, really good, to have in the pocket or on the head table, which opens the vision for a new time, a new place, and a new world scenario!

### **Author details**

Sílvio Manuel da Rocha Brito1,2,3

1 Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal

2 Entrepreneurship Promotion and Development Association (EPDA), Spain

3 Psique-Ex, Extremadura University, Spain

\*Address all correspondence to: silvio.brito@ipt.pt

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**7**

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine*

of the National Academy of Sciences. 2019;**115**(5):1087-1092. DOI: 10.1073/

[9] Richards R. Everyday creativity and the healthy mind. In: Creative Person, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018. pp. 135-152. DOI:

[10] Hazak A, Ruubel R, Virkebau M. When would creative R&D employees like to work? International Journal of Organizational Analysis. 2019. DOI: 10.1108/ijoa-04-2018-1409. Downloaded by 81.22.47.68 At 21:12 13

[11] Diedrich J, Jauk E, Silvia PJ, Gredlein

[12] Ezzat H, Agogué M, Le Masson P, Weil B, Cassotti M. Specificity and abstraction of examples: Opposite effects on fixation for creative ideation. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 2018;**0**(0):1-8. DOI: 10.1002/jocb.349

[13] Piirto J. The creative process in writers. The Creative Process, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**6**:89-121. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-50563-7\_4

[14] Nilsson ÅW, Jahnke M. Tactics for norm-creative innovation. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. 2018;**4**(4):375-391. DOI:

[15] Richards R. Everyday creativity and the healthy mind. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**7**:153-170. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7\_10

[16] Fong PSW, Men C, Luo J, Jia R. Knowledge hiding and team

10.1016/j.sheji.2018.11.002

JM, Neubauer AC, Benedek M. Assessment of real-life creativity: The Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements (ICAA). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7\_9

pnas.1713532115

January 2019 (PT)

2018;**12**(3):304-316

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

[1] Spearman C. Creative Mind. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

[3] Molaei S, Fini S, Rahmani MN. The role of creative minds (creativity) in the process of academic achievement. Iranian Journal of Positive Psychology. 2018;**4**(1):27-31. ISSN: 2423-6985

[4] Glăveanu VP. The cultural basis of the creative process: A dualmovement framework. The Creative Process, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**4**:297-316. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-50563-7\_12

[5] Wechsler SM, Saiz C, Rivas SF, Vendramini CMM, Almeida LS,

10.1016/j.tsc.2017.12.003

jocb.373

Mundim MC, et al. Creative and critical thinking: Independent or overlapping components? Thinking Skills and Creativity. 2018;**27**:114-122. DOI:

[6] Main KJ, Aghakhani H, Labroo AA, Greidanus NS. Change it up: Inactivity and repetitive activity reduce creative thinking. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 2018;**0**(0):1-12. DOI: 10.1002/

[7] Chirico A, Glaveanu VP, Cipresso P, Riva G, Gaggioli A. Awe enhances creative thinking: An experimental

Journal. 2018;**30**(2):123-131. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2018.1446491

[8] Beaty RE, Kenett YN, Christensen AP, Rosenberg MD, Benedek M, Chen Q, et al. Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity. Proceedings

study. Creativity Research

December 1931;**74**(6):783

[2] Fox KC, Beaty RE. Mindwandering as creative thinking: Neural, psychological, and theoretical considerations. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2019;**27**:123-130. DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.10.009

**References**

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

### **References**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

and the use of both in creating value.

tasks.

Through the second moment, Dr. Teboho Pitso presents us a wonderful study about the influence of intelligent machines' capacities versus the human's cognition

Finally, we finish with a wonderful proposal by Dr. Niki Lambaropoulos, who brings us an innovative project—an adaptive virtual reality brain-computer interfaces, which is very useful for the search of new solutions and for learning new

In conclusion, this book helps us to understand the union of the real with the virtual, through the connecting link that leads to change and evolve: creativity at its best! Surely, it will be a friend, really good, to have in the pocket or on the head table, which opens the vision for a new time, a new place, and a new world scenario!

The last moment is marked by a special and critical work by Dr. Ikkena Onwuegbuna on the machine incidence in musical creation, and how it can be productive if it interacts with the subject with regard to a process of analysis.

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

2 Entrepreneurship Promotion and Development Association (EPDA), Spain

**6**

**Author details**

Sílvio Manuel da Rocha Brito1,2,3

1 Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal

3 Psique-Ex, Extremadura University, Spain

\*Address all correspondence to: silvio.brito@ipt.pt

provided the original work is properly cited.

[1] Spearman C. Creative Mind. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. December 1931;**74**(6):783

[2] Fox KC, Beaty RE. Mindwandering as creative thinking: Neural, psychological, and theoretical considerations. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2019;**27**:123-130. DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.10.009

[3] Molaei S, Fini S, Rahmani MN. The role of creative minds (creativity) in the process of academic achievement. Iranian Journal of Positive Psychology. 2018;**4**(1):27-31. ISSN: 2423-6985

[4] Glăveanu VP. The cultural basis of the creative process: A dualmovement framework. The Creative Process, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**4**:297-316. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-50563-7\_12

[5] Wechsler SM, Saiz C, Rivas SF, Vendramini CMM, Almeida LS, Mundim MC, et al. Creative and critical thinking: Independent or overlapping components? Thinking Skills and Creativity. 2018;**27**:114-122. DOI: 10.1016/j.tsc.2017.12.003

[6] Main KJ, Aghakhani H, Labroo AA, Greidanus NS. Change it up: Inactivity and repetitive activity reduce creative thinking. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 2018;**0**(0):1-12. DOI: 10.1002/ jocb.373

[7] Chirico A, Glaveanu VP, Cipresso P, Riva G, Gaggioli A. Awe enhances creative thinking: An experimental study. Creativity Research Journal. 2018;**30**(2):123-131. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2018.1446491

[8] Beaty RE, Kenett YN, Christensen AP, Rosenberg MD, Benedek M, Chen Q, et al. Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity. Proceedings

of the National Academy of Sciences. 2019;**115**(5):1087-1092. DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.1713532115

[9] Richards R. Everyday creativity and the healthy mind. In: Creative Person, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018. pp. 135-152. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7\_9

[10] Hazak A, Ruubel R, Virkebau M. When would creative R&D employees like to work? International Journal of Organizational Analysis. 2019. DOI: 10.1108/ijoa-04-2018-1409. Downloaded by 81.22.47.68 At 21:12 13 January 2019 (PT)

[11] Diedrich J, Jauk E, Silvia PJ, Gredlein JM, Neubauer AC, Benedek M. Assessment of real-life creativity: The Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements (ICAA). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. 2018;**12**(3):304-316

[12] Ezzat H, Agogué M, Le Masson P, Weil B, Cassotti M. Specificity and abstraction of examples: Opposite effects on fixation for creative ideation. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 2018;**0**(0):1-8. DOI: 10.1002/jocb.349

[13] Piirto J. The creative process in writers. The Creative Process, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**6**:89-121. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-50563-7\_4

[14] Nilsson ÅW, Jahnke M. Tactics for norm-creative innovation. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. 2018;**4**(4):375-391. DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2018.11.002

[15] Richards R. Everyday creativity and the healthy mind. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. 2018;**7**:153-170. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7\_10

[16] Fong PSW, Men C, Luo J, Jia R. Knowledge hiding and team

creativity: The contingent role of task interdependence. Management Decision. 2018;**56**(2):329-343. DOI: 10.1108/md-11-2016-0778

[17] Adil MS, Hamid KBA. The relationships between leader creativity expectations, intrinsic motivation, and creative performance. SEISENSE Journal of Management. 2019;**2**(2):58-68. DOI: 10.33215/sjom.v2i2.123

[18] Kaufman JC. Uniquely creative: Developing a new outline for positive outcomes. Creativity. Theories - Research - Applications. 2019;**5**(2):188- 196. DOI: 10.1515/ctra-2018-0018

[19] Li H, Li F, Chen T. Do performance approach-oriented individuals generate creative ideas? The roles of outcome instrumentality and task persistence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2018;**48**(3):117-127. DOI: 10.1111/ jasp.12495

[20] Chiu F-C, Hsu C-C, Lin Y-N, Liu C-H, Chen H-C, Lin C-H. Effects of creative thinking and its personality determinants on negative emotion regulation. Psychological Reports: 003329411877597. 2018;**0**(0):1-28. DOI: 10.1177/0033294118775973

[21] Unsworth K. Creativity in the context of multiple goals. In: Martin L, Wilson N, editors. The Palgrave Handbook of Creativity at Work. 2018. pp. 23-41. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6\_2

[22] Sternberg RJ. A triangular theory of creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. 2018;**12**(1):50- 67. DOI: 10.1037/aca0000095

[23] Kronfeldner M. Explaining creativity. In: Gaut B, Kieran M, editors. Routledge Handbook on Creativity and Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 213-229

[24] Awad E, Dsouza S, Kim R, Schulz J, Henrich J, Shariff A, et al. The

moral machine experiment. Nature. 2018;**563**:59-64. DOI: 10.1038/ s41586-018-0637-6

[25] Pagaduan JV, Bhatta A, Romer LH, Gracias DH. 3D hybrid small scale devices. Small. 2018;**14**(27):1702497. DOI: 10.1002/smll.201702497

[26] Mourad S, Tewfik A. Machine assisted human decision making. In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP); 2018. DOI: 10.1109/ icassp.2018.8462087

[27] Nagao K. Symbiosis between humans and artificial intelligence. In: Artificial Intelligence Accelerates Human Learning. Springer; 2019. pp. 135-151. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-6175-3\_6

[28] Pereira LM. Cyberculture, symbiosis, and syncretism. AI & SOCIETY. 2018;**33**(3):447-452. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-017-0715-6

[29] Leigh S, Agrawal H, Maes P. Robotic symbionts: Interweaving human and machine actions. IEEE Pervasive Computing. 2018;**17**(2):34-43. DOI: 10.1109/mprv.2018.022511241

[30] Richards R. Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind: Dynamic New Paths for Self and Society. Oakland: Palgrave/McMillan. 2018. pp. 1-377. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7

[31] Lindqvist G. Vygotsky's theory of creativity. Creativity Research Journal. 2003;**15**(2-3):245-251. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2003.9651416

[32] Janesick VJ. Intuition and creativity: A pas de deux for qualitative researchers. Qualitative Inquiry. 2001;**7**(5):531-540. DOI: 10.1177/107780040100700501

[33] Boden M. The Creative Mind. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. 2002. 344p. ISBN: 0-203-34008-6

**9**

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

[35] Lebuda I, Glăveanu VP. Researching the social in creativity, past, present and future: An introduction to the palgrave handbook of social creativity research. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research. 2018. pp. 1-9. DOI:

10.1007/978-3-319-95498-1\_1

cobeha.2018.09.008

10.1111/1467-8691.00263

[36] Mekern V, Hommel B, Sjoerds Z. Computational models of creativity: A review of single-process and multi-process recent approaches to demystifying creative cognition. Current Opinion in Behavioral

Sciences. 2019;**27**:47-54. DOI: 10.1016/j.

[37] Lapierre J, Giroux V-P. Creativity and work environment in a high-tech context. Creativity and Innovation Management. 2003;**12**(1):11-23. DOI:

[34] Csikszentmihalyi M. Stalking a new world order. New Literary History. 2004;**35**(2):339-348. DOI: 10.1353/ nlh.2004.0029. Project MUSE

*Introductory Chapter: Super Creativity—Mind, Men, and Machine DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86358*

[34] Csikszentmihalyi M. Stalking a new world order. New Literary History. 2004;**35**(2):339-348. DOI: 10.1353/ nlh.2004.0029. Project MUSE

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

moral machine experiment. Nature. 2018;**563**:59-64. DOI: 10.1038/

[25] Pagaduan JV, Bhatta A, Romer LH, Gracias DH. 3D hybrid small scale devices. Small. 2018;**14**(27):1702497.

DOI: 10.1002/smll.201702497

(ICASSP); 2018. DOI: 10.1109/

[27] Nagao K. Symbiosis between humans and artificial intelligence.

[28] Pereira LM. Cyberculture, symbiosis, and syncretism. AI & SOCIETY. 2018;**33**(3):447-452. DOI:

10.1007/s00146-017-0715-6

[29] Leigh S, Agrawal H, Maes P. Robotic symbionts: Interweaving human and machine actions. IEEE Pervasive Computing. 2018;**17**(2):34-43. DOI: 10.1109/mprv.2018.022511241

[30] Richards R. Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind: Dynamic New Paths for Self and Society. Oakland: Palgrave/McMillan. 2018. pp. 1-377. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7

[31] Lindqvist G. Vygotsky's theory of creativity. Creativity Research Journal. 2003;**15**(2-3):245-251. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2003.9651416

[33] Boden M. The Creative Mind. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. 2002. 344p.

[32] Janesick VJ. Intuition and creativity: A pas de deux for qualitative researchers. Qualitative Inquiry. 2001;**7**(5):531-540. DOI: 10.1177/107780040100700501

ISBN: 0-203-34008-6

icassp.2018.8462087

In: Artificial Intelligence Accelerates Human Learning. Springer; 2019. pp. 135-151. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-6175-3\_6

[26] Mourad S, Tewfik A. Machine assisted human decision making. In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing

s41586-018-0637-6

creativity: The contingent role of task interdependence. Management Decision. 2018;**56**(2):329-343. DOI:

10.1108/md-11-2016-0778

10.33215/sjom.v2i2.123

jasp.12495

[17] Adil MS, Hamid KBA. The

relationships between leader creativity expectations, intrinsic motivation, and creative performance. SEISENSE Journal of Management. 2019;**2**(2):58-68. DOI:

[18] Kaufman JC. Uniquely creative: Developing a new outline for positive outcomes. Creativity. Theories - Research - Applications. 2019;**5**(2):188- 196. DOI: 10.1515/ctra-2018-0018

[19] Li H, Li F, Chen T. Do performance approach-oriented individuals generate creative ideas? The roles of outcome instrumentality and task persistence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2018;**48**(3):117-127. DOI: 10.1111/

[20] Chiu F-C, Hsu C-C, Lin Y-N, Liu C-H, Chen H-C, Lin C-H. Effects of creative thinking and its personality determinants on negative emotion regulation. Psychological Reports: 003329411877597. 2018;**0**(0):1-28. DOI:

10.1177/0033294118775973

[21] Unsworth K. Creativity in the context of multiple goals. In: Martin L, Wilson N, editors. The Palgrave Handbook of Creativity at Work. 2018. pp. 23-41. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6\_2

[22] Sternberg RJ. A triangular theory of creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. 2018;**12**(1):50-

creativity. In: Gaut B, Kieran M, editors. Routledge Handbook on Creativity and Philosophy. New York: Routledge.

[24] Awad E, Dsouza S, Kim R, Schulz J,

67. DOI: 10.1037/aca0000095

[23] Kronfeldner M. Explaining

Henrich J, Shariff A, et al. The

**8**

pp. 213-229

[35] Lebuda I, Glăveanu VP. Researching the social in creativity, past, present and future: An introduction to the palgrave handbook of social creativity research. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research. 2018. pp. 1-9. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-95498-1\_1

[36] Mekern V, Hommel B, Sjoerds Z. Computational models of creativity: A review of single-process and multi-process recent approaches to demystifying creative cognition. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2019;**27**:47-54. DOI: 10.1016/j. cobeha.2018.09.008

[37] Lapierre J, Giroux V-P. Creativity and work environment in a high-tech context. Creativity and Innovation Management. 2003;**12**(1):11-23. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8691.00263

**11**

**Chapter 2**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

them to consciousness.

*Wesley Carpenter*

The Aha! Moment: The Science

Insight, often referred to as an "aha moment," has been defined as a sudden, conscious change in a person's representation of a stimulus, situation, event, or problem. Recent advances in neuroimaging technology and neurophysiological techniques have allowed researchers an opportunity to hone in on the neural circuitry that governs insight, a phenomenon that has been theorized about by cognitive psychologists for over a century. Studies show that insight is not a sudden flash that comes from nowhere, but in fact is the result of the unconscious mind piecing together loosely connected bits of information stemming from prior knowledge and experiences and forming novel associations among them. This conceptualization of insight naturally gives rise to comparisons between insight and creativity. Creativity, however, involves many cognitive processes, occurring in many regions of the brain and thus cannot be laterally localized as insight can. Thus, creativity is not considered synonymous with insight; however, insight can certainly result in

**Keywords:** insight, Aha! moment, eureka, creativity, analytical problem solving,

Undoubtedly, we have all had them, that moment of extraordinary clarity in which the solution to a difficult problem suddenly seems to just "pop in there." Or perhaps it is a punchline to a joke that you all of a sudden get, or the perfect metaphor that suddenly comes into awareness. Where do these whiffs of inspiration come from? Do they just magically pop in there, as if given to us by some muse? Or is there perhaps a more scientific explanation? Insight, or an "Aha!" moment as it is commonly referred to, is not mysterious at all. In fact, recent advances in neuroimaging technology have made it seem less mysterious than ever. Insight has been defined as any sudden comprehension, realization, or problem solution that involves a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation, or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation. Insights may appear suddenly, but are preceded by incremental unconscious processing. Research by cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists has shown that moments of insight are merely the result of the brain making connections between weakly and strongly activated bits of information, and then bringing

Behind Creative Insights

creative solutions during creative problem solving.

creative problem solving, functional fixedness

### **Chapter 2**

## The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights

*Wesley Carpenter*

### **Abstract**

Insight, often referred to as an "aha moment," has been defined as a sudden, conscious change in a person's representation of a stimulus, situation, event, or problem. Recent advances in neuroimaging technology and neurophysiological techniques have allowed researchers an opportunity to hone in on the neural circuitry that governs insight, a phenomenon that has been theorized about by cognitive psychologists for over a century. Studies show that insight is not a sudden flash that comes from nowhere, but in fact is the result of the unconscious mind piecing together loosely connected bits of information stemming from prior knowledge and experiences and forming novel associations among them. This conceptualization of insight naturally gives rise to comparisons between insight and creativity. Creativity, however, involves many cognitive processes, occurring in many regions of the brain and thus cannot be laterally localized as insight can. Thus, creativity is not considered synonymous with insight; however, insight can certainly result in creative solutions during creative problem solving.

**Keywords:** insight, Aha! moment, eureka, creativity, analytical problem solving, creative problem solving, functional fixedness

### **1. Introduction**

Undoubtedly, we have all had them, that moment of extraordinary clarity in which the solution to a difficult problem suddenly seems to just "pop in there." Or perhaps it is a punchline to a joke that you all of a sudden get, or the perfect metaphor that suddenly comes into awareness. Where do these whiffs of inspiration come from? Do they just magically pop in there, as if given to us by some muse? Or is there perhaps a more scientific explanation? Insight, or an "Aha!" moment as it is commonly referred to, is not mysterious at all. In fact, recent advances in neuroimaging technology have made it seem less mysterious than ever. Insight has been defined as any sudden comprehension, realization, or problem solution that involves a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation, or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation. Insights may appear suddenly, but are preceded by incremental unconscious processing. Research by cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists has shown that moments of insight are merely the result of the brain making connections between weakly and strongly activated bits of information, and then bringing them to consciousness.

### **2. Insight versus analytical problem-solving**

Some of the earliest research on insight sought to conclude whether there really was a difference between solving a problem via insight versus solving a problem via a heuristic driven type of problem solving methodology. Firstly, there are definitional differences between the two. Insight, commonly referred to as an "aha moment," has been defined as a sudden, conscious change in a person's representation of a stimulus, situation, event, or problem [1]. It should be noted that insights, while they do suddenly merge into one's stream of consciousness, are proceeded by unconscious processing to arrive at the insight. This is in contrast to analytical problem solving which involves the use of a systematic process or simply logical reasoning to arrive at a solution to a problem. It is deliberate and conscious, and often involves the use of some type of strategy which allow the individual to progress incrementally toward a solution. Because this type of methodology involves storing and manipulating information in the prefrontal cortex utilizing the individuals working memory capacity, individuals can typically fully explain the steps taken to arrive at the solution [2], whereas with insight, individuals cannot readily reconstruct the procedure followed to reach the solution. Albert Einstein summarized the unconscious nature of insight when he said, "At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason" [3].

Differences between the two problem solving methods vary beyond differences in definition and accuracy of solutions, neuroimaging studies suggest that patterns of brain activity during and prior to solving by insight versus analysis are fundamentally different as well [4–6]. This suggests different cognitive strategies are being employed depending upon whether the solution arrives via insight or analytical means. Studies have shown that the brain actually predicts in advance whether the problem will be solved analytically or by insight [6, 7]. For example, Salvi et al. [8] showed that people blink and move their eyes differently prior to solving by insight versus solving analytically.

Other findings using the compound remote associates (CRA) test have provided additional support for the notion that insight processing is qualitatively different from analysis type problem solving. Compound remote associate problems are similar to items on the remote associates test developed by Mednick in 1962. Subjects must produce a solution word (e.g., sweet) that can form compounds with each of three problem words (e.g., tooth, potato, and heart). This type of test, while not considered a classic insight test, often give rise to Aha! moments. They are frequently used when studying creativity, problem solving, and insight.

Bowden and Jung-Beeman [9] presented compound remote associates test problems to participants followed by a single word that they were instructed to verbalize as quickly as possible. This known as cognitive priming. For unsolved problems, following verbalization participants indicated whether the word was the solution to the problem they had just been given. If it was, subjects had to indicate whether this realization had come to them suddenly, which would indicate insight, or incrementally, which would indicate an analytical solution strategy was employed.

Another type of cognitive priming was used to induce abstract thinking in subjects as opposed to concrete thinking by asking subjects to thinking about distant ideas (past or future), remote locations or other's perspectives versus asking subjects to think about ideas related to the here and now. According to construal level theory, increasing the psychological distance, that is, thinking about things that are increasingly far away in space or time or about people that are different from oneself tends to engage abstract thinking [10], which in turn is hypothesized to produce more creative and insightful ideas. Subjects who were primed to think in the abstract by considering ideas at far psychological distances performed better

**13**

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

ness), etc., as a looming deadline approaches [7].

omission (i.e., incorrect responses).

**3. The neuroscience of insight**

ing and electrophysiological studies.

trials per condition in a short time period [7].

**2.1 Differences in cognitive strategies**

ing analysis [11].

on insight related tasks whereas those primed to think concretely by considering ideas at short psychological distances did considerably better on problems requir-

A study by Salvi et al. [8] suggest additional evidence that there are differences between insight and analysis problem solving wherein it was revealed that solutions provided by insight were correct more often that solutions garnered by analysis. A possible explanation of this is that insights are typically all or nothing, i.e., there is no intermediate opportunity to alter one's information or solution strategy, ideas, thought processes, etc., when there is a looming deadline whereas analytical problem solving, due to its conscious nature, allows for individuals to make errors of commission, becoming fixated on irrelevant information (i.e., functional fixed-

A pattern of errors made by subjects using either of the two methods suggests differences in cognitive strategies for problem solving via insight and analysis. They found that participants who solve predominantly by insight tend to make errors of omission (i.e., time outs) rather than errors of commission, whereas participants who tend to solve analytically make errors of commission rather than errors of

Recent technological advances have allowed neuroscientists to begin getting closer to understanding the complex neural underpinnings of the Aha! moment, i.e., insight. Neuroimaging studies on the insight phenomenon typically involve the use of either electroencephalography (EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), or commonly a combination of both to investigate the temporal dynamics and neural correlates of insight. Electroencephalography affords the researcher high temporal resolution which provides highly precise time measurements which are necessary to capture the rapidly changing electrical activity in the brain when subjected to stimulation. A disadvantage of EEG, however, is poor spatial resolution. Thus, functional magnetic resonance imaging is commonly used to provide high spatial resolution for precise localization of brain activity. Together these techniques

are able to isolate the neural correlates of insight in both space and time.

As discussed above, the development of short compound remote associates problems readily solvable by insight by Bowden and Jung-Beeman has proved useful in neuroscientific studies as well. Early studies of insight typically posed a small number of complex problems to participants. Most participants take many minutes to solve such problems, when they are able to solve them at all. However, neuroimaging and electrophysiological methods require many trials to accurately record brain activity. Compound remote associates problems are well suited to neuroimag-

These types of problems afford the researcher two primary advantages. First, they can be solved via insight or through analysis. Furthermore, each problem presented, whether solved with insight or analysis, does not differ in complexity or solving duration [2, 12]. Essentially, this test controls for all confounding variables for the actual cognitive strategy used, therefore whether insight or analysis was used can be more easily identified without error. Secondly, a response utilizing either method can be given relatively quickly, thereby allowing a large number of

on insight related tasks whereas those primed to think concretely by considering ideas at short psychological distances did considerably better on problems requiring analysis [11].

### **2.1 Differences in cognitive strategies**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

Some of the earliest research on insight sought to conclude whether there really was a difference between solving a problem via insight versus solving a problem via a heuristic driven type of problem solving methodology. Firstly, there are definitional differences between the two. Insight, commonly referred to as an "aha moment," has been defined as a sudden, conscious change in a person's representation of a stimulus, situation, event, or problem [1]. It should be noted that insights, while they do suddenly merge into one's stream of consciousness, are proceeded by unconscious processing to arrive at the insight. This is in contrast to analytical problem solving which involves the use of a systematic process or simply logical reasoning to arrive at a solution to a problem. It is deliberate and conscious, and often involves the use of some type of strategy which allow the individual to progress incrementally toward a solution. Because this type of methodology involves storing and manipulating information in the prefrontal cortex utilizing the individuals working memory capacity, individuals can typically fully explain the steps taken to arrive at the solution [2], whereas with insight, individuals cannot readily reconstruct the procedure followed to reach the solution. Albert Einstein summarized the unconscious nature of insight when he said, "At times I feel certain I am right while

Differences between the two problem solving methods vary beyond differences in definition and accuracy of solutions, neuroimaging studies suggest that patterns of brain activity during and prior to solving by insight versus analysis are fundamentally different as well [4–6]. This suggests different cognitive strategies are being employed depending upon whether the solution arrives via insight or analytical means. Studies have shown that the brain actually predicts in advance whether the problem will be solved analytically or by insight [6, 7]. For example, Salvi et al. [8] showed that people blink and move their eyes differently prior to solving by

Other findings using the compound remote associates (CRA) test have provided

Bowden and Jung-Beeman [9] presented compound remote associates test problems to participants followed by a single word that they were instructed to verbalize as quickly as possible. This known as cognitive priming. For unsolved problems, following verbalization participants indicated whether the word was the solution to the problem they had just been given. If it was, subjects had to indicate whether this realization had come to them suddenly, which would indicate insight, or incremen-

additional support for the notion that insight processing is qualitatively different from analysis type problem solving. Compound remote associate problems are similar to items on the remote associates test developed by Mednick in 1962. Subjects must produce a solution word (e.g., sweet) that can form compounds with each of three problem words (e.g., tooth, potato, and heart). This type of test, while not considered a classic insight test, often give rise to Aha! moments. They are

frequently used when studying creativity, problem solving, and insight.

tally, which would indicate an analytical solution strategy was employed.

Another type of cognitive priming was used to induce abstract thinking in subjects as opposed to concrete thinking by asking subjects to thinking about distant ideas (past or future), remote locations or other's perspectives versus asking subjects to think about ideas related to the here and now. According to construal level theory, increasing the psychological distance, that is, thinking about things that are increasingly far away in space or time or about people that are different from oneself tends to engage abstract thinking [10], which in turn is hypothesized to produce more creative and insightful ideas. Subjects who were primed to think in the abstract by considering ideas at far psychological distances performed better

**2. Insight versus analytical problem-solving**

not knowing the reason" [3].

insight versus solving analytically.

**12**

A study by Salvi et al. [8] suggest additional evidence that there are differences between insight and analysis problem solving wherein it was revealed that solutions provided by insight were correct more often that solutions garnered by analysis. A possible explanation of this is that insights are typically all or nothing, i.e., there is no intermediate opportunity to alter one's information or solution strategy, ideas, thought processes, etc., when there is a looming deadline whereas analytical problem solving, due to its conscious nature, allows for individuals to make errors of commission, becoming fixated on irrelevant information (i.e., functional fixedness), etc., as a looming deadline approaches [7].

A pattern of errors made by subjects using either of the two methods suggests differences in cognitive strategies for problem solving via insight and analysis. They found that participants who solve predominantly by insight tend to make errors of omission (i.e., time outs) rather than errors of commission, whereas participants who tend to solve analytically make errors of commission rather than errors of omission (i.e., incorrect responses).

### **3. The neuroscience of insight**

Recent technological advances have allowed neuroscientists to begin getting closer to understanding the complex neural underpinnings of the Aha! moment, i.e., insight. Neuroimaging studies on the insight phenomenon typically involve the use of either electroencephalography (EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), or commonly a combination of both to investigate the temporal dynamics and neural correlates of insight. Electroencephalography affords the researcher high temporal resolution which provides highly precise time measurements which are necessary to capture the rapidly changing electrical activity in the brain when subjected to stimulation. A disadvantage of EEG, however, is poor spatial resolution. Thus, functional magnetic resonance imaging is commonly used to provide high spatial resolution for precise localization of brain activity. Together these techniques are able to isolate the neural correlates of insight in both space and time.

As discussed above, the development of short compound remote associates problems readily solvable by insight by Bowden and Jung-Beeman has proved useful in neuroscientific studies as well. Early studies of insight typically posed a small number of complex problems to participants. Most participants take many minutes to solve such problems, when they are able to solve them at all. However, neuroimaging and electrophysiological methods require many trials to accurately record brain activity. Compound remote associates problems are well suited to neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies.

These types of problems afford the researcher two primary advantages. First, they can be solved via insight or through analysis. Furthermore, each problem presented, whether solved with insight or analysis, does not differ in complexity or solving duration [2, 12]. Essentially, this test controls for all confounding variables for the actual cognitive strategy used, therefore whether insight or analysis was used can be more easily identified without error. Secondly, a response utilizing either method can be given relatively quickly, thereby allowing a large number of trials per condition in a short time period [7].

As described above, each compound-remote-associates problem consists of three words (e.g., potato, tooth, heart). Participants are instructed to think of a single word that can form a compound or familiar two-word phrase with each of the three problem words (e.g., sweet can join with potato, tooth, and heart to form sweet potato, sweet tooth, and sweetheart). The instant subjects think of the word that can combine with all three, they press a button as quickly as possible. Subjects are instructed to not take any time to analyze the solution, simply press the button as soon as they become aware of the solution. They are then prompted to verbalize the solution and then to press a button to indicate whether that solution had popped into awareness suddenly (insight) or whether the solution had resulted from a more methodical hypothesis-testing approach.

When participants indicated that the solution had popped into awareness suddenly, thus indicating insight, the EEG showed a burst of high-frequency gamma waves over the right temporal lobe (just above the right ear in the right hemisphere) as shown in **Figure 1**, and the fMRI showed a corresponding change in blood flow in the medial aspect of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) [4]. No gamma wave activity was reported in the left hemisphere. This activity in the right hemisphere (RH) is interpreted as the sudden availability of the solution coming into consciousness, i.e., the Aha! moment.

The spatial and temporal correspondence of the EEG and fMRI signals suggests they were triggered by the same underlying neural event [13]. Activity was also reported in the bilateral hippocampus, para-hippocampal gyri and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, but further studies suggest activity in these areas were relatively weak compared to the strong signals produced in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus. Moreover, the signal produced in the right temporal region of the brain occurred nearly the same time as when subjects realized the solution to each of the problems; the same region that is implicated in other tasks requiring semantic integration [14]. Furthermore, high frequency gamma-wave signals have been proposed to be a mechanism for assimilating and ultimately making connections among information as it emerges into consciousness [15].

**Figure 2** highlights differences in EEG power just before, during and after the solution to the problem was given by the individual. The figure clearly shows

**15**

**Figure 3.**

**Figure 2.**

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

distant, weakly activated ideas to come to consciousness.

a distinct difference in EEG power when the participant reported a solution via insight whereas virtually no change in EEG power when a solution was arrived at via an analysis type of problem solving method. Thus, clear differences in neural activity just before a solution comes to consciousness validates distinct differences between solution by insight and solution by analysis. It should be noted that one of the advantages of problem solving via insight is that sometimes it brings nonobvious solutions to problems to conscious awareness. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is thought to prepare the brain for the integration of weakly activated ideas and solutions [5]. When a problem is presented, one's attention is typically dominated by obvious solutions to a given problem, however, if there exists inconsistent or competing information, the ACC is can become activated, and thus allow more

In addition to the increase in gamma wave activity, **Figure 3** shows a sudden increase in power in the alpha-band frequency occurred about 1.5 s before insight solutions, suggesting a decrease in neural activity within the right visual cortex. These effects are not attributable to emotional responses, because the neural activity preceded the solutions. Alpha waves reflect cortical deactivation or inhibition of certain brain areas [5], thus the increase in alpha waves just before solution is analogous to looking away, closing one's eyes, or looking up at the ceiling, all of

*Time course of insight- and analysis-related gamma-band EEG power. Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [38].*

*Graph showing large increase of power in the alpha-band frequency just prior to increase in gamma band* 

*activity, known as the alpha insight effect. Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [38].*

#### **Figure 1.**

*The image on the left shows a topographic distribution of gamma-band activity during the insight solutions and the image on the right shows area of activation corresponding to insight effect during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [13].*

### *The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

methodical hypothesis-testing approach.

into consciousness, i.e., the Aha! moment.

tions among information as it emerges into consciousness [15].

As described above, each compound-remote-associates problem consists of three words (e.g., potato, tooth, heart). Participants are instructed to think of a single word that can form a compound or familiar two-word phrase with each of the three problem words (e.g., sweet can join with potato, tooth, and heart to form sweet potato, sweet tooth, and sweetheart). The instant subjects think of the word that can combine with all three, they press a button as quickly as possible. Subjects are instructed to not take any time to analyze the solution, simply press the button as soon as they become aware of the solution. They are then prompted to verbalize the solution and then to press a button to indicate whether that solution had popped into awareness suddenly (insight) or whether the solution had resulted from a more

When participants indicated that the solution had popped into awareness suddenly, thus indicating insight, the EEG showed a burst of high-frequency gamma waves over the right temporal lobe (just above the right ear in the right hemisphere) as shown in **Figure 1**, and the fMRI showed a corresponding change in blood flow in the medial aspect of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) [4]. No gamma wave activity was reported in the left hemisphere. This activity in the right hemisphere (RH) is interpreted as the sudden availability of the solution coming

The spatial and temporal correspondence of the EEG and fMRI signals suggests they were triggered by the same underlying neural event [13]. Activity was also reported in the bilateral hippocampus, para-hippocampal gyri and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, but further studies suggest activity in these areas were relatively weak compared to the strong signals produced in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus. Moreover, the signal produced in the right temporal region of the brain occurred nearly the same time as when subjects realized the solution to each of the problems; the same region that is implicated in other tasks requiring semantic integration [14]. Furthermore, high frequency gamma-wave signals have been proposed to be a mechanism for assimilating and ultimately making connec-

**Figure 2** highlights differences in EEG power just before, during and after the solution to the problem was given by the individual. The figure clearly shows

*The image on the left shows a topographic distribution of gamma-band activity during the insight solutions and the image on the right shows area of activation corresponding to insight effect during functional magnetic* 

*resonance imaging (fMRI). Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [13].*

**14**

**Figure 1.**

a distinct difference in EEG power when the participant reported a solution via insight whereas virtually no change in EEG power when a solution was arrived at via an analysis type of problem solving method. Thus, clear differences in neural activity just before a solution comes to consciousness validates distinct differences between solution by insight and solution by analysis. It should be noted that one of the advantages of problem solving via insight is that sometimes it brings nonobvious solutions to problems to conscious awareness. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is thought to prepare the brain for the integration of weakly activated ideas and solutions [5]. When a problem is presented, one's attention is typically dominated by obvious solutions to a given problem, however, if there exists inconsistent or competing information, the ACC is can become activated, and thus allow more distant, weakly activated ideas to come to consciousness.

In addition to the increase in gamma wave activity, **Figure 3** shows a sudden increase in power in the alpha-band frequency occurred about 1.5 s before insight solutions, suggesting a decrease in neural activity within the right visual cortex. These effects are not attributable to emotional responses, because the neural activity preceded the solutions. Alpha waves reflect cortical deactivation or inhibition of certain brain areas [5], thus the increase in alpha waves just before solution is analogous to looking away, closing one's eyes, or looking up at the ceiling, all of

**Figure 2.** *Time course of insight- and analysis-related gamma-band EEG power. Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [38].*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Graph showing large increase of power in the alpha-band frequency just prior to increase in gamma band activity, known as the alpha insight effect. Adapted from Kounios and Beeman [38].*

which are common tactics employed by individuals to minimize visual distractions when solving problems. The burst of alpha waves and then gamma waves suggest before insight solutions suggest the brain is changing the focus of its efforts to limit visual distractions thereby facilitating the integration of remote semantic elements and allowing a pathway for it to emerge into conscious awareness. This is in contrast to solutions produced via analysis which shows increased neural activity (i.e., decreased alpha-band activity) in the visual cortex. A decrease in alpha waves indicates a response to demands on one's attention, thus the decrease in alpha waves suggests subjects were focusing on the external environment while solving problems rather than making attempts to minimize distractions.

The primary take-away appears to be that a subject's neural activity during resting state, i.e., task-free state, prior to each compound remote associates problem suggest that distinct patterns of neural activity precede problems that people eventually solve by insight versus those solved by analysis. These changes in the brains resting state prior to solving insight problems suggest it is possible to predict a priori whether a subject is likely to use insight to solve a problem rather than analysis.

### **4. The psychology of insight**

The neuroscientific view of insight allows to understand the neurological processes that underpin the moment of insight, but what exactly is insight from a cognitive psychology point of view? Indeed, Aha! moments are one of the most intriguing and unexplained processes of the human mind [16]. From a cognitive psychology perspective, attempting to place the insight phenomena into a proper theoretical framework to provide scientifically valid explanations of why the insight phenomena occurs has been difficult.

Famous American psychologist William James [17] put forth the first psychological theory of insight known as the associationist theory of insight which proposed that new ideas are combinations of existing ideas, that sudden insights are merely the result of having a lot of information in being able to make connections between fax. These connections are made during a suitable incubation period, an unguided, unconscious process whereby individuals simply take time off from the problem. A competing view of insight was put forth by the German Gestaltist Karl Duncker who was attempting to explain the psychology of insight and thus put forth proper definition of insight [18]. The Gestalt view of insight described it as "a process based on reconstructing the core of a problem, rethinking its basic assumptions and originating a new and creative solution, a process usually occurring in an unexpected and unpredictable manner" [19, 20].

The Gestalt view of insight differed in that they believed insight problems are solved suddenly and therefore no chain of connections could explain the discovery. This view suggests that insights occur while performing an analysis of the problem in which you are drawn to a potential solution, but then realize it cannot work. This is referred to as an impasse in which your mind becomes fixated on a particular solution and you therefore become incapable of exploring the problem from other angles. The solution arrives not by making incremental associations but by overcoming the fixation thus allowing a restructuring of a problem that allows you to eventually arrive at a solution. Restructuring is conceptualizing the problem differently, essentially seeing the problem in a whole new way, hence the solution is sudden and surprising. Individuals are not consciously aware of how they overcame the problem.

Other theories have been proposed to provide theoretical framework to explain insight. For example, The Progress Monitoring Theory by MacGregor et al. [21],

**17**

can be reached [23, 25].

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

is based on the hill-climbing idea that problem solving proceeds with the problem solver seeking to minimize the gap between the current state of the problem and the goal state. Individuals begin attempting to solve a problem by putting forth what they believe is an informed solution, which is then subsequently altered by making incremental improvements to the solution thereby getting closer and closer to the correct solution. When such incremental improvements do not result in the correct solution, the individual reaches an impasse, often likely due to the individual becoming fixated on an incorrect strategy or incomplete information. Now the individual must search for a new approach to solve the problem. This theory implies that individuals constantly monitor their own progress in order to promptly switch to a different problem-solving strategy in case the current one is not successful. This theory suggests that the Aha! moment may be achieved with an incremental approach, with constant monitoring of one's own cognitive processes as a pivotal feature, making the Aha! moment more like a conscious epiphenomenon of a general problem-solving

process rather than a burst of uncommon cognitive processes [22, 23].

In contrast to the Progress Monitoring Theory, Knoblich and colleagues introduced the Representational Change Theory [24] which offered an alternative explanation of how an impasse is overcome, that is, through a reorganization of a problem's representation. Representation can be thought of as the distribution of activation across pieces of knowledge in memory [25]. This theory suggests that the problem is first represented using information or knowledge that is not relevant for the solution, hence an impasse is reached. Once this impasse is reached, the representation is altered such that relevant information becomes active and a viable solution merges into consciousness. Knoblich et al. [24, 26] suggest that the main issue of problem-solving is an individual's tendency to set unnecessary constraints through a very restricted representation of the problem, which is a function of limited, incomplete or ambiguous prior knowledge. Once the impasse is reached, by relaxing the unnecessary constraints that have been placed on the problem by deactivating the recalled knowledge linked to the problem or decomposing elements of the task by dividing it into perceptual chunks, a new representation of the problem

Progress Monitoring Theory and Representational Change Theory differs primarily in how one deals with an eventual impasse that impedes a solution. Bowden and Beeman have proposed another theoretical framework to explain insight by attempting to link a cognitive psychological model to actual neurological processes within particular regions of the brain. The theory proposes that insights occur when the initial representation of the problem initiates a strong semantic activation of information that allows for the generation of obvious solutions to a problem and a weak (unconscious) semantic activation of remote, alternative information important for the generation of non-obvious solutions to a problem. The weak semantic activation which is responsible for allowing remote associations to be made is thought to be produced in the right hemisphere whereas the strong semantic activation is thought to be produced in the left hemisphere [22]. Initially, solvers may be unable to take advantage of weak solution activation because it is weak, and therefore might be blocked by stronger, more focused, but misdirected semantic activations [22]. A new restructured representation of the problem emerges when integration of weakly activated information and subsequent associations made therein are reinforced, strengthened, and ultimately emerge into consciousness. It is important to recognize that both hemispheres of the brain involve complimentary processes that work synergistically to produce a solution. Information is shared between the two hemispheres, it is the presence of this laterality that allows the solution to merge into consciousness. However, it is thought that the right hemisphere s predominantly responsible for the generation of non-obvious solutions

### *The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

lems rather than making attempts to minimize distractions.

which are common tactics employed by individuals to minimize visual distractions when solving problems. The burst of alpha waves and then gamma waves suggest before insight solutions suggest the brain is changing the focus of its efforts to limit visual distractions thereby facilitating the integration of remote semantic elements and allowing a pathway for it to emerge into conscious awareness. This is in contrast to solutions produced via analysis which shows increased neural activity (i.e., decreased alpha-band activity) in the visual cortex. A decrease in alpha waves indicates a response to demands on one's attention, thus the decrease in alpha waves suggests subjects were focusing on the external environment while solving prob-

The primary take-away appears to be that a subject's neural activity during resting state, i.e., task-free state, prior to each compound remote associates problem suggest that distinct patterns of neural activity precede problems that people eventually solve by insight versus those solved by analysis. These changes in the brains resting state prior to solving insight problems suggest it is possible to predict a priori whether a subject is likely to use insight to solve a problem rather than

The neuroscientific view of insight allows to understand the neurological processes that underpin the moment of insight, but what exactly is insight from a cognitive psychology point of view? Indeed, Aha! moments are one of the most intriguing and unexplained processes of the human mind [16]. From a cognitive psychology perspective, attempting to place the insight phenomena into a proper theoretical framework to provide scientifically valid explanations of why the insight

Famous American psychologist William James [17] put forth the first psychological theory of insight known as the associationist theory of insight which proposed that new ideas are combinations of existing ideas, that sudden insights are merely the result of having a lot of information in being able to make connections between fax. These connections are made during a suitable incubation period, an unguided, unconscious process whereby individuals simply take time off from the problem. A competing view of insight was put forth by the German Gestaltist Karl Duncker who was attempting to explain the psychology of insight and thus put forth proper definition of insight [18]. The Gestalt view of insight described it as "a process based on reconstructing the core of a problem, rethinking its basic assumptions and originating a new and creative solution, a process usually occurring in an

The Gestalt view of insight differed in that they believed insight problems are solved suddenly and therefore no chain of connections could explain the discovery. This view suggests that insights occur while performing an analysis of the problem in which you are drawn to a potential solution, but then realize it cannot work. This is referred to as an impasse in which your mind becomes fixated on a particular solution and you therefore become incapable of exploring the problem from other angles. The solution arrives not by making incremental associations but by overcoming the fixation thus allowing a restructuring of a problem that allows you to eventually arrive at a solution. Restructuring is conceptualizing the problem differently, essentially seeing the problem in a whole new way, hence the solution is sudden and surprising. Individuals are not consciously aware of how they overcame the problem. Other theories have been proposed to provide theoretical framework to explain insight. For example, The Progress Monitoring Theory by MacGregor et al. [21],

**16**

analysis.

**4. The psychology of insight**

phenomena occurs has been difficult.

unexpected and unpredictable manner" [19, 20].

is based on the hill-climbing idea that problem solving proceeds with the problem solver seeking to minimize the gap between the current state of the problem and the goal state. Individuals begin attempting to solve a problem by putting forth what they believe is an informed solution, which is then subsequently altered by making incremental improvements to the solution thereby getting closer and closer to the correct solution. When such incremental improvements do not result in the correct solution, the individual reaches an impasse, often likely due to the individual becoming fixated on an incorrect strategy or incomplete information. Now the individual must search for a new approach to solve the problem. This theory implies that individuals constantly monitor their own progress in order to promptly switch to a different problem-solving strategy in case the current one is not successful. This theory suggests that the Aha! moment may be achieved with an incremental approach, with constant monitoring of one's own cognitive processes as a pivotal feature, making the Aha! moment more like a conscious epiphenomenon of a general problem-solving process rather than a burst of uncommon cognitive processes [22, 23].

In contrast to the Progress Monitoring Theory, Knoblich and colleagues introduced the Representational Change Theory [24] which offered an alternative explanation of how an impasse is overcome, that is, through a reorganization of a problem's representation. Representation can be thought of as the distribution of activation across pieces of knowledge in memory [25]. This theory suggests that the problem is first represented using information or knowledge that is not relevant for the solution, hence an impasse is reached. Once this impasse is reached, the representation is altered such that relevant information becomes active and a viable solution merges into consciousness. Knoblich et al. [24, 26] suggest that the main issue of problem-solving is an individual's tendency to set unnecessary constraints through a very restricted representation of the problem, which is a function of limited, incomplete or ambiguous prior knowledge. Once the impasse is reached, by relaxing the unnecessary constraints that have been placed on the problem by deactivating the recalled knowledge linked to the problem or decomposing elements of the task by dividing it into perceptual chunks, a new representation of the problem can be reached [23, 25].

Progress Monitoring Theory and Representational Change Theory differs primarily in how one deals with an eventual impasse that impedes a solution. Bowden and Beeman have proposed another theoretical framework to explain insight by attempting to link a cognitive psychological model to actual neurological processes within particular regions of the brain. The theory proposes that insights occur when the initial representation of the problem initiates a strong semantic activation of information that allows for the generation of obvious solutions to a problem and a weak (unconscious) semantic activation of remote, alternative information important for the generation of non-obvious solutions to a problem. The weak semantic activation which is responsible for allowing remote associations to be made is thought to be produced in the right hemisphere whereas the strong semantic activation is thought to be produced in the left hemisphere [22]. Initially, solvers may be unable to take advantage of weak solution activation because it is weak, and therefore might be blocked by stronger, more focused, but misdirected semantic activations [22]. A new restructured representation of the problem emerges when integration of weakly activated information and subsequent associations made therein are reinforced, strengthened, and ultimately emerge into consciousness.

It is important to recognize that both hemispheres of the brain involve complimentary processes that work synergistically to produce a solution. Information is shared between the two hemispheres, it is the presence of this laterality that allows the solution to merge into consciousness. However, it is thought that the right hemisphere s predominantly responsible for the generation of non-obvious solutions

to a given problem, i.e., creative problem solving. Psychological studies of insight suggest that the good gestalt theory is largely false. The consensus among scholars is that insight is primarily a function of previous experience and acquired knowledge [27]. Rather than a sudden restructuring, the mind seems to gradually get closer to the correct solution. And that's pretty consistent with the association theory and the Bowden and Beeman theory that creativity occurs when existing ideas combine together. The existing ideas on the new metal structure our new, they're familiar ideas and Conventions that are already in the domain and then have been internalized by the creator.

### **5. The relationship between insight and creativity**

One of the most enduring theories of creativity is the Wallas [28] model of creativity. It begins with a preparation stage where the individual properly identifies and defines the problem, and then proceeds to gather information necessary to solve the problem. Next comes incubation which involves taking some time away from a problem to allow the unconscious mind to process the information to produce a solution. This is the state where information is assimilated, and remote associations are thought to be formed [29].

The third stage in the Wallas model is illumination, or more commonly referred to as insight because it results in the familiar Aha! experience. During this stage, a solution suddenly emerges into consciousness, light a lightbulb being turned on. This sudden illumination is still controversial however. Weisberg [30] wrote, "there seems very little reason to believe that solutions to novel problems come about in leaps of insight. At every step of the way, the process involves small movements away from what is known" (p. 50). Perhaps we only perceive it as sudden because the processing that led up to the insight is below conscious awareness [31]. Prominent creativity researcher Sawyer [27] suggests insights only seem sudden because we didn't notice the many incremental steps, or mini-insights, that immediately preceded it. He suggests rather than the familiar light bulb turning on metaphor, perhaps the tip of an iceberg or final brick in the wall is more appropriate.

The final stage was verification. At that point, the individual tests the idea or applies the solution. Although the four stages of the creative process included in the Wallas model are generally accepted to be accurate, it is generally accepted that the creative process is much more recursive than the linear Wallas model is depicted as being. It is worth noting that while other models have dissected the four stages of the Wallas model into further stages, the fundamental four of the Wallas model still remain.

With respect to the second stage of the Wallas stage model of creativity, namely incubation, one of the oldest observations in the psychology of creativity is that a creative idea is often preceded by a period of unconscious incubation [17, 32]. There is much research studying the incubation effect and its relationship with creative insight [16, 33–35]. It is generally agreed upon that there exists an incubation effect, although the exact nature of the associated unconscious processes remains uncertain. Hypotheses include mental relaxation, selective forgetting, random subconscious recombination, and spreading activation.

The relationship between insight and creativity is still a controversial one. Whether insight is a component of creativity (or a component of the creative process), simply a form of problem solving that may or may not produce a creative solution to a given problem [36], or something else entirely is as yet unanswered. Experimental and theoretical work support conflicting views regarding this

**19**

problem solving.

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

of the problem [39].

creativity.

**6. Conclusion**

question [37]. Sternberg and Davidson [16] conceptualized creativity as the ability to change existing thinking patterns, producing something that is useful, novel and generative. One cannot help but notice similarities between this conception of creativity and the generally accepted definition of insight, namely "a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation" [38]. Thus, it is likely that both conceptions are correct. We know from experience that insight is not always involved in creative problem solving and therefore must not be a necessary component of it. Creative solutions can also arise through a conscious, deliberate analysis

Creativity and insight have similar neurological correlates as well. Deliberate creativity that results from analysis is primarily controlled by the prefrontal cortex. However, creativity that comes as a sudden flash of insight involves three brain regions, namely the temporal, occipital, and parietal (TOP). Moreover, a prominent view of creativity is that it is based on the processing of remote or loose connections between ideas [40]. Research suggests the brain's right hemisphere is primarily responsible for the processing of remote associations and the brains left hemisphere is responsible for the processing of close or obvious associations [4]. Research suggests it is this rightward asymmetry that allows for weak activation of a broad semantic field, thus allowing for nondominant, remote associations between disparate ideas to take place. Hence the Bowden and Beeman theory seems to provide a neurological basis for Mednick's theory of

Insight is any sudden comprehension, realization, or problem solution that involves a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation, or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation. Insight is sudden, but it is preceded by incremental unconscious processing, sometimes referred to as mini-insights [27]. This unconscious processing appears to involve the integration of information contained within a weakly activated broad semantic field thus allowing remote associations of knowledge to stream into consciousness culminating in what we often refer to as an insight. It comes to consciousness suddenly, thus giving rise to the familiar Aha! moment. Such activation of remote associates naturally gives rise to comparisons to creativity, and the

Insights are considered simply another way individuals produce creative solutions to problems. Neuroimaging studies suggest insights emanate predominantly from the right anterior superior temporal gyrus region of the brain, thus our understanding of the neural correlates involved in insight has increased considerably. It is generally accepted however, that creativity cannot be localized to a single region of the brain. Creativity appears to be highly lateralized in that several regions of the brain are active simultaneously. This makes sense, creativity involves many cognitive abilities, each of which involve many regions of the brain. Thus, creativity is not a moment of insight; however, insight can produce creativity if creativity happens to be the desired output [27]. In addition, it is worth noting that while the weak activation of a broad semantic field involved in insight is thought to be localized to the right hemisphere, thus perhaps giving rise to the popular myth that creative individuals are right-brained, there is no evidence to support such distinct brain lateralization, both hemispheres are active and contribute equally to creative

potential relationship between insight and creativity.

### *The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

question [37]. Sternberg and Davidson [16] conceptualized creativity as the ability to change existing thinking patterns, producing something that is useful, novel and generative. One cannot help but notice similarities between this conception of creativity and the generally accepted definition of insight, namely "a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation" [38]. Thus, it is likely that both conceptions are correct. We know from experience that insight is not always involved in creative problem solving and therefore must not be a necessary component of it. Creative solutions can also arise through a conscious, deliberate analysis of the problem [39].

Creativity and insight have similar neurological correlates as well. Deliberate creativity that results from analysis is primarily controlled by the prefrontal cortex. However, creativity that comes as a sudden flash of insight involves three brain regions, namely the temporal, occipital, and parietal (TOP). Moreover, a prominent view of creativity is that it is based on the processing of remote or loose connections between ideas [40]. Research suggests the brain's right hemisphere is primarily responsible for the processing of remote associations and the brains left hemisphere is responsible for the processing of close or obvious associations [4]. Research suggests it is this rightward asymmetry that allows for weak activation of a broad semantic field, thus allowing for nondominant, remote associations between disparate ideas to take place. Hence the Bowden and Beeman theory seems to provide a neurological basis for Mednick's theory of creativity.

### **6. Conclusion**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

**5. The relationship between insight and creativity**

associations are thought to be formed [29].

ized by the creator.

appropriate.

Wallas model still remain.

scious recombination, and spreading activation.

to a given problem, i.e., creative problem solving. Psychological studies of insight suggest that the good gestalt theory is largely false. The consensus among scholars is that insight is primarily a function of previous experience and acquired knowledge [27]. Rather than a sudden restructuring, the mind seems to gradually get closer to the correct solution. And that's pretty consistent with the association theory and the Bowden and Beeman theory that creativity occurs when existing ideas combine together. The existing ideas on the new metal structure our new, they're familiar ideas and Conventions that are already in the domain and then have been internal-

One of the most enduring theories of creativity is the Wallas [28] model of creativity. It begins with a preparation stage where the individual properly identifies and defines the problem, and then proceeds to gather information necessary to solve the problem. Next comes incubation which involves taking some time away from a problem to allow the unconscious mind to process the information to produce a solution. This is the state where information is assimilated, and remote

The third stage in the Wallas model is illumination, or more commonly referred to as insight because it results in the familiar Aha! experience. During this stage, a solution suddenly emerges into consciousness, light a lightbulb being turned on. This sudden illumination is still controversial however. Weisberg [30] wrote, "there seems very little reason to believe that solutions to novel problems come about in leaps of insight. At every step of the way, the process involves small movements away from what is known" (p. 50). Perhaps we only perceive it as sudden because the processing that led up to the insight is below conscious awareness [31]. Prominent creativity researcher Sawyer [27] suggests insights only seem sudden because we didn't notice the many incremental steps, or mini-insights, that immediately preceded it. He suggests rather than the familiar light bulb turning on metaphor, perhaps the tip of an iceberg or final brick in the wall is more

The final stage was verification. At that point, the individual tests the idea or applies the solution. Although the four stages of the creative process included in the Wallas model are generally accepted to be accurate, it is generally accepted that the creative process is much more recursive than the linear Wallas model is depicted as being. It is worth noting that while other models have dissected the four stages of the Wallas model into further stages, the fundamental four of the

With respect to the second stage of the Wallas stage model of creativity, namely incubation, one of the oldest observations in the psychology of creativity is that a creative idea is often preceded by a period of unconscious incubation [17, 32]. There is much research studying the incubation effect and its relationship with creative insight [16, 33–35]. It is generally agreed upon that there exists an incubation effect, although the exact nature of the associated unconscious processes remains uncertain. Hypotheses include mental relaxation, selective forgetting, random subcon-

The relationship between insight and creativity is still a controversial one. Whether insight is a component of creativity (or a component of the creative process), simply a form of problem solving that may or may not produce a creative solution to a given problem [36], or something else entirely is as yet unanswered. Experimental and theoretical work support conflicting views regarding this

**18**

Insight is any sudden comprehension, realization, or problem solution that involves a reorganization of the elements of a person's mental representation of a stimulus, situation, or event to yield a nonobvious or nondominant interpretation. Insight is sudden, but it is preceded by incremental unconscious processing, sometimes referred to as mini-insights [27]. This unconscious processing appears to involve the integration of information contained within a weakly activated broad semantic field thus allowing remote associations of knowledge to stream into consciousness culminating in what we often refer to as an insight. It comes to consciousness suddenly, thus giving rise to the familiar Aha! moment. Such activation of remote associates naturally gives rise to comparisons to creativity, and the potential relationship between insight and creativity.

Insights are considered simply another way individuals produce creative solutions to problems. Neuroimaging studies suggest insights emanate predominantly from the right anterior superior temporal gyrus region of the brain, thus our understanding of the neural correlates involved in insight has increased considerably. It is generally accepted however, that creativity cannot be localized to a single region of the brain. Creativity appears to be highly lateralized in that several regions of the brain are active simultaneously. This makes sense, creativity involves many cognitive abilities, each of which involve many regions of the brain. Thus, creativity is not a moment of insight; however, insight can produce creativity if creativity happens to be the desired output [27]. In addition, it is worth noting that while the weak activation of a broad semantic field involved in insight is thought to be localized to the right hemisphere, thus perhaps giving rise to the popular myth that creative individuals are right-brained, there is no evidence to support such distinct brain lateralization, both hemispheres are active and contribute equally to creative problem solving.

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

### **Author details**

Wesley Carpenter The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: wac1@uakron.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**21**

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

> [10] Trope Y, Liberman N. Construallevel theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review. 2010;**117**:440-463

[11] Forster J, Friedman RS, Liberman N. Temporal construal effects on abstract and concrete thinking: Consequences for insight and creative cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2004;**87**:177-189

[12] Sheth BR, Sandkuhler S, Bhattacharya J. Posterior beta and anterior gamma oscillations predict cognitive insight. Journal Cognitive Neuroscience. 2008;**21**:1269-1279

[13] Kounios J, Beeman M. The Aha! moment: The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2009;**18**(4):210-216. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01638.x

[14] St George M, Kutas M, Martinez A, Sereno MI. Semantic integration in reading: Engagement of the right hemisphere during discourse processing. Brain. 1999;**122**:1317-1325

[15] Tallon-Baudry C, Bertrand O. Oscillatory gamma activity in humans and its role in object representation. Trends in Cognitive

[16] Sternberg RJ, Davidson J. The Nature of Insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT

[17] James W. Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment (Lecture Delivered Before the Harvard Natural History Society). Boston, MA:

[18] Dietrich A, Kanso R. A review of EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies of creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin. 2010;**136**(5):822-848. DOI:

Science. 1999;**3**:151-162

Atlantic Monthly; 1880

10.1037/A0019749

Press; 1995

[1] Kaplan CA, Simon HA. In search of insight. Cognitive Psychology.

[2] Aziz-Zadeh L, Kaplan JT, Iacoboni M. "Aha!": The neural correlates of verbal insight solutions. Human Brain

Mapping. 2009;**30**:908-916

Chicago: Open Court; 1979

PLoS Biology. 2004;**2**(4):97

[3] Schilpp PA. Albert Einstein: Autobiographical Notes (Centennial).

[4] Jung-Beeman M, Bowden EM, Haberman J, Frymiare JL, Arambel-Liu S, et al. Neural activity when people solve verbal problems with insight.

[5] Kounios J, Frymiare J, Bowden E, Fleck J, Subramaniam K, Parrish T, et al. The prepared mind: Neural activity prior to problem presentation predicts subsequent solution by sudden insight. Psychological Science. 2006;**17**:882-891. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01798.x

[6] Subramaniam K, Kounios J, Parrish TB, Jung-Beeman M. A brain mechanism for facilitation of insight by positive affect. Journal of Cognitive

Neuroscience. 2009;**21**:415-432

[7] Kounios J, Fleck JI, Green DL, Payne L, Stevenson JL. The origins of insight in resting-state brain activity. Neuropsychologia. 2008;**46**(1):281-291

[8] Salvi C, Bricolo E, Kounios J, Bowden E, Beeman M. Insight solutions are correct more often than analytic solutions. Thinking and Reasoning. 2016;**22**(4):443-460. DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2016.1141798

[9] Bowden EM, Jung-Beeman M. Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2003;**10**(3):730-737. DOI:

10.3758/bf03196539

**References**

1990;**22**:374-419

### **References**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

**20**

**Author details**

Wesley Carpenter

provided the original work is properly cited.

The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: wac1@uakron.edu

[1] Kaplan CA, Simon HA. In search of insight. Cognitive Psychology. 1990;**22**:374-419

[2] Aziz-Zadeh L, Kaplan JT, Iacoboni M. "Aha!": The neural correlates of verbal insight solutions. Human Brain Mapping. 2009;**30**:908-916

[3] Schilpp PA. Albert Einstein: Autobiographical Notes (Centennial). Chicago: Open Court; 1979

[4] Jung-Beeman M, Bowden EM, Haberman J, Frymiare JL, Arambel-Liu S, et al. Neural activity when people solve verbal problems with insight. PLoS Biology. 2004;**2**(4):97

[5] Kounios J, Frymiare J, Bowden E, Fleck J, Subramaniam K, Parrish T, et al. The prepared mind: Neural activity prior to problem presentation predicts subsequent solution by sudden insight. Psychological Science. 2006;**17**:882-891. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01798.x

[6] Subramaniam K, Kounios J, Parrish TB, Jung-Beeman M. A brain mechanism for facilitation of insight by positive affect. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009;**21**:415-432

[7] Kounios J, Fleck JI, Green DL, Payne L, Stevenson JL. The origins of insight in resting-state brain activity. Neuropsychologia. 2008;**46**(1):281-291

[8] Salvi C, Bricolo E, Kounios J, Bowden E, Beeman M. Insight solutions are correct more often than analytic solutions. Thinking and Reasoning. 2016;**22**(4):443-460. DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2016.1141798

[9] Bowden EM, Jung-Beeman M. Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2003;**10**(3):730-737. DOI: 10.3758/bf03196539

[10] Trope Y, Liberman N. Construallevel theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review. 2010;**117**:440-463

[11] Forster J, Friedman RS, Liberman N. Temporal construal effects on abstract and concrete thinking: Consequences for insight and creative cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2004;**87**:177-189

[12] Sheth BR, Sandkuhler S, Bhattacharya J. Posterior beta and anterior gamma oscillations predict cognitive insight. Journal Cognitive Neuroscience. 2008;**21**:1269-1279

[13] Kounios J, Beeman M. The Aha! moment: The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2009;**18**(4):210-216. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01638.x

[14] St George M, Kutas M, Martinez A, Sereno MI. Semantic integration in reading: Engagement of the right hemisphere during discourse processing. Brain. 1999;**122**:1317-1325

[15] Tallon-Baudry C, Bertrand O. Oscillatory gamma activity in humans and its role in object representation. Trends in Cognitive Science. 1999;**3**:151-162

[16] Sternberg RJ, Davidson J. The Nature of Insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1995

[17] James W. Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment (Lecture Delivered Before the Harvard Natural History Society). Boston, MA: Atlantic Monthly; 1880

[18] Dietrich A, Kanso R. A review of EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies of creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin. 2010;**136**(5):822-848. DOI: 10.1037/A0019749

[19] Kohler W. The Mentality of Apes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1925

[20] Kohler W. The Task of Gestalt Psychology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1969

[21] MacGregor JN, Ormerod TC, Chronicle EP. Information processing and insight: A process model of performance on the nine-dot and related problems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2001;**27**:176-201

[22] Bowden EM, Jung-Beeman M, Fleck J, Kounios J. New approaches to demystifying insight. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2005;**9**(7):322-328. DOI: 10.1016/J.TICS.2005.05.012

[23] Sprugnoli G, Rossi S, Emmendorfer A, Rossi A, Liew S-L, Tatti E, et al. Neural correlates of Eureka moment. Intelligence. 2017;**62**:99-118

[24] Knoblich G, Ohlsson S, Haider H, Rhenius D. Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 1999;**25**:1534-1555

[25] Jones G. Testing two cognitive theories of insight. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2003;**29**(5):1017-1027. DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.29.5.1017

[26] Knoblich G, Ohlsson S, Raney GE. An eye movement study of insight problem solving. Memory and Cognition. 2001;**29**:1000-1009

[27] Sawyer K. The cognitive neuroscience of creativity: A critical review. Creativity Research Journal. 2011;**23**(2):137-154. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2011.571191

[28] Wallas G. The Art of Thought. New York: Harcourt Brace; 1926

[29] Runco MA. Creativity: Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic Press; 2015

[30] Weisberg RW. Creativity: Genius and Other Myths. New York: W. H. Freeman; 1986

[31] Bowers KS, Farvolden P, Mermigis L. Intuitive antecedents of insight. In: Smith SM, Ward TB, Finke RA, editors. The Creative Cognition Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1995. pp. 27-51

[32] Hadamard J. The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1945

[33] Ellwood S, Pallier G, Snyder A, Gallate J. The incubation effect: Hatching a solution? Creativity Research Journal. 2009;**21**:6-14

[34] Kohn N, Smith SM. Partly versus completely out of your mind: Effects of incubation and distraction on resolving fixation. Journal of Creative Behavior. 2009;**43**:102-118

[35] Patrick AS. The role of ability in creative "incubation.". Personality and Individual Differences. 1986;**7**(2):169-174

[36] Weisberg RW. Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius. New York: W. H. Freeman; 1993

[37] Schooler JW, Melcher J. The ineffability of insight. In: Smith SM, Ward TB, Finke RA, editors. The Creative Cognition Approach. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; 1995. pp. 97-133

[38] Kounios J, Beeman M. The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology. 2014;**65**(1):71-93. DOI: 10.1146/ annurev-psych-010213-115154

**23**

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

[39] Mumford MD, Whetzel DL. Insight,

[40] Mednick SA. The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological

creativity, and cognition: On Sternberg and Davidson's the nature of insight. Creativity Research Journal.

1996;**9**(1):103-107

Review. 1962;**69**:220-232

*The Aha! Moment: The Science Behind Creative Insights DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84973*

[39] Mumford MD, Whetzel DL. Insight, creativity, and cognition: On Sternberg and Davidson's the nature of insight. Creativity Research Journal. 1996;**9**(1):103-107

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

[29] Runco MA. Creativity: Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic

[30] Weisberg RW. Creativity: Genius and Other Myths. New York: W. H.

[31] Bowers KS, Farvolden P, Mermigis L. Intuitive antecedents of insight. In: Smith SM, Ward TB, Finke RA, editors. The Creative Cognition Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1995.

[32] Hadamard J. The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

[33] Ellwood S, Pallier G, Snyder A, Gallate J. The incubation effect: Hatching a solution? Creativity Research

[34] Kohn N, Smith SM. Partly versus completely out of your mind: Effects of incubation and distraction on resolving fixation. Journal of Creative Behavior.

[35] Patrick AS. The role of ability in creative "incubation.". Personality and Individual Differences.

[36] Weisberg RW. Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius. New York: W. H.

[37] Schooler JW, Melcher J. The ineffability of insight. In: Smith SM, Ward TB, Finke RA, editors. The Creative Cognition Approach. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; 1995.

[38] Kounios J, Beeman M. The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology. 2014;**65**(1):71-93. DOI: 10.1146/ annurev-psych-010213-115154

Journal. 2009;**21**:6-14

2009;**43**:102-118

1986;**7**(2):169-174

Freeman; 1993

pp. 97-133

Press; 2015

Freeman; 1986

pp. 27-51

Press; 1945

[19] Kohler W. The Mentality of Apes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1925

[20] Kohler W. The Task of Gestalt Psychology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

[21] MacGregor JN, Ormerod TC, Chronicle EP. Information processing and insight: A process model of

Cognition. 2001;**27**:176-201

Intelligence. 2017;**62**:99-118

[22] Bowden EM, Jung-Beeman M, Fleck J, Kounios J. New approaches to demystifying insight. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2005;**9**(7):322-328. DOI: 10.1016/J.TICS.2005.05.012

[23] Sprugnoli G, Rossi S, Emmendorfer A, Rossi A, Liew S-L, Tatti E, et al. Neural correlates of Eureka moment.

[24] Knoblich G, Ohlsson S, Haider H, Rhenius D. Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem

solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 1999;**25**:1534-1555

[25] Jones G. Testing two cognitive theories of insight. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

[26] Knoblich G, Ohlsson S, Raney GE. An eye movement study of insight problem solving. Memory and Cognition. 2001;**29**:1000-1009

[28] Wallas G. The Art of Thought. New York: Harcourt Brace; 1926

2003;**29**(5):1017-1027. DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.29.5.1017

[27] Sawyer K. The cognitive neuroscience of creativity: A critical review. Creativity Research Journal. 2011;**23**(2):137-154. DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2011.571191

performance on the nine-dot and related problems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and

University Press; 1969

**22**

[40] Mednick SA. The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review. 1962;**69**:220-232

**25**

**Chapter 3**

**Abstract**

Industry

business model innovation

**fashion industry**

*Luigi Nasta and Luca Pirolo*

Crowdsourcing in the Fashion

In today's cutthroat competitive world of fashion, flexibility and adaptability are essential elements for a company to survive in this industry. As such, there is a growing interest for open innovation and crowdsourcing as tools that might boost the competitiveness in the industry. By embracing open innovation, the use of external knowledge to emphasize internal creativity and expand market influence, industries can reach beyond their own internal resources and develop better ideas, faster and at a lower cost. The fashion industry is no exception. Specifically, crowdsourcing is lowering the fashion industry's barriers to entry and giving the public an opportunity to not just shape a brand but also determine the trends of an entire sector. This chapter aims at analyzing the features, the pros, and the cons of crowdsourcing in the fashion industry focusing on the perspectives of both the companies and the customers.

**Keywords:** crowdsourcing, open innovation, co-creation, fashion industry,

submitting it to an extremely broad public and with the most varied skills.

by organizational constraints and usually strangers to each other.

From an etymological point of view, the term "crowdsourcing" was coined by Jeff Howe in an article entitled The Rise of Crowdsourcing and published in the Wired magazine in the June 2006 edition. Howe combines the words "crowd," i.e., crowd/common people, and "sourcing," intended as assignment or procurement, to describe the act performed by a company or an institution consisting in outsourcing an activity, normally carried out by its members, to a network of people not linked

**1. Crowdsourcing: from its origins to the recent implementations in the** 

At a first glance, crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept in (and not only) the management studies. Actually, Howe [1] traced the very first example of crowdsourcing to 1714, when the British government announced a competition on the idea of a way to establish the longitude of a sailing ship during navigation, offering a reward of 20,000 pounds to anyone who managed to find a solution. The Royal Navy and the greatest scientists, among them Isaac Newton, had failed in trying to develop a tool capable of calculating longitude and it was a cabinetmaker named John Harrison to devise a watch able to find this measurement with great precision even during trips to the open sea. Thus, a subject who had not received any specific training in the field won the award by designing the first model of marine chronometer, an effective solution to the problem of the British government, reached by

### **Chapter 3**

## Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry

*Luigi Nasta and Luca Pirolo*

### **Abstract**

In today's cutthroat competitive world of fashion, flexibility and adaptability are essential elements for a company to survive in this industry. As such, there is a growing interest for open innovation and crowdsourcing as tools that might boost the competitiveness in the industry. By embracing open innovation, the use of external knowledge to emphasize internal creativity and expand market influence, industries can reach beyond their own internal resources and develop better ideas, faster and at a lower cost. The fashion industry is no exception. Specifically, crowdsourcing is lowering the fashion industry's barriers to entry and giving the public an opportunity to not just shape a brand but also determine the trends of an entire sector. This chapter aims at analyzing the features, the pros, and the cons of crowdsourcing in the fashion industry focusing on the perspectives of both the companies and the customers.

**Keywords:** crowdsourcing, open innovation, co-creation, fashion industry, business model innovation

### **1. Crowdsourcing: from its origins to the recent implementations in the fashion industry**

At a first glance, crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept in (and not only) the management studies. Actually, Howe [1] traced the very first example of crowdsourcing to 1714, when the British government announced a competition on the idea of a way to establish the longitude of a sailing ship during navigation, offering a reward of 20,000 pounds to anyone who managed to find a solution. The Royal Navy and the greatest scientists, among them Isaac Newton, had failed in trying to develop a tool capable of calculating longitude and it was a cabinetmaker named John Harrison to devise a watch able to find this measurement with great precision even during trips to the open sea. Thus, a subject who had not received any specific training in the field won the award by designing the first model of marine chronometer, an effective solution to the problem of the British government, reached by submitting it to an extremely broad public and with the most varied skills.

From an etymological point of view, the term "crowdsourcing" was coined by Jeff Howe in an article entitled The Rise of Crowdsourcing and published in the Wired magazine in the June 2006 edition. Howe combines the words "crowd," i.e., crowd/common people, and "sourcing," intended as assignment or procurement, to describe the act performed by a company or an institution consisting in outsourcing an activity, normally carried out by its members, to a network of people not linked by organizational constraints and usually strangers to each other.

The two macro-phenomena that led to the birth of crowdsourcing according to Pellegrini [2] are the crisis of the industrial economic system, which has stimulated the search for new ways of finding and organizing resources and creating value, whose primary source has become knowledge, and the incessant development of networks that allow the connection and communication between people more or less close to each other, primarily of the Web. About the Web, the most significant evolutionary step of the Internet is that from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, which is traced back to 2004, when the American publisher O'Reilly Media organized a series of conferences on new user network opportunities. While the Web 1.0 made it possible to simply browse through the pages of static sites and without interaction methods, or the only acquisition and dissemination of encoded knowledge (information), Web 2.0 is characterized by the interactive aspect, which allows user no longer just to enjoy, but also to create content. Today, therefore, the Internet allows us to enhance human intelligence, provides a means for the creation of new knowledge, considering the difficulty and inadequacy of codification in environmental complexity, and encourages sharing and participation in projects and innovations. Moreover, the development of the Web, as a production tool free from logistic constraints, has contributed to creating a growing number of intangible assets, further increasing the value attributed to knowledge.

Therefore, crowdsourcing is a product of the knowledge society. As described by Pellegrini [2], the knowledge economy is characterized by the search for forms of collaboration and sharing to strength the ability of interpretation and action of organizations in a highly dynamic reference environment, and by the desire of consumers to assume a growing awareness and to become an active part of the creative and productive processes.

Considering a more micro level of analysis, and therefore evaluating in detail the origins of crowdsourcing, the main phenomena that have prepared fertile ground and influenced its development are the activities of innovation and user customization. These phenomena are attributable to the logic of prosumerism and to the movement of open source software, to which are added, feeding them, the democratization of information, of the means of production and distribution and the evolution of networks and of online communities.

These trends seem to affect every economic sector in a huge number of industries. Nevertheless, the most significant and fruitful implications are coming out from those industries where the active involvement of external stakeholders in the decision-making processes, during the ideation and all prior stages of the production activity, can generate a meaningful and substantial reduction in cost function and risk management. To achieve this efficiency goal, among all firm's stakeholders, a special focus has to be addressed toward customers. Transforming current and potential customers from mere buyers to actors with a voice in the firm's decisions is a strategic way to motivate them and build a bond of trust sustainable over time.

For a long period of time, the textile industry, the apparel industry, and the accessories industry, or—more in general—the fashion world, have based their businesses on the ability to predict (and in the same case to impose) what people wanted [3]. Marketing departments, as well as style and creative directions acting in the main fashion companies, are characterized for a huge apparatus for selecting what is going to be popular in the next future. Based on these expectations, they create new collections available in the market. Nonetheless, the democratization process that worldwide is affecting every industry has recently occurred also in the fashion system, where potentially anyone could be a designer, a creator, or a manufacturer. Moreover, the symbolic value attributed to fashion products calls for a more active role of the customer, which becomes part of the key successful factors on which the brand equity has to be built.

**27**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

**1.1 Prosumerism, user innovation, and customization**

organization, and products created in a complete and personal way.

product and often also through the creative action itself.

development elements to this model of joint problem solving.

by Howe [1] as "the fuel for the crowdsourcing engine."

The profound awareness of one's own needs and the tendency to privilege the symbolic meaning of goods as an expression of one's own identity have increasingly encouraged consumers of the knowledge society to manipulate the outputs of enterprises, both on the semantic level, through the attribution of meaning, and on the one related to tangible characteristics and components, giving life to the idea of prosumerism [4]. Some subjects, that for their particular and innovative skills take the name of "lead user", have come to develop into solutions that meet their needs and, in some industrial sectors, are even the architects of most new products and services [5]. The innovations created by users, defined "user driven innovation" (or simply "user innovation"), include changes made directly to the goods produced by a company, proposals for changes in design and/or in properties submitted to an

Seizing this trend, some companies, Nike and Levi's among the first, decided to involve customers in their creative activities on their own initiative, allowing them to customize standard articles through a platform on the company Website [6, 7]. This first step taken by organizations toward the possibility of voluntarily involving consumers in production cycles is described as "mass customization" and consists of the attempt to combine mass production with customization, maintaining cost efficiency and developing greater flexibility and ability to meet the specific needs of individuals. One aspect of the customization activity performed by customers, that is particularly significant and apparently paradoxical, is its free nature, considerable as an emblem of the main motivation that pushes consumers to do their job, that is the satisfaction obtainable through the subsequent consumption of the personalized

Over time, the collaboration of companies with users has intensified, in particular addressing the co-creation of new offers together with the lead users, which are in fact recognized of the features that can be advantageously exploited in the problem-solving processes of the organizations and above all in innovation projects. Specifically, Von Hippel [8] identified two distinctive elements of these consumers: the ability to predict market trends, experiencing first of the needs that will emerge in the future in the entire population of which they are part, and the great motivation to identify a solution that satisfies them, determined by the high benefit they can derive from it. These two aspects are strongly correlated with the likelihood that lead users to engage in the development of new products or in the modification of existing ones, further increased by their significant degree of expertise. As a result, as it has been demonstrated by several studies, most of the user innovations are carried out by subjects belonging to the category of lead users, and even the attractiveness they exert toward the companies and the intention of the latter to translate them into commercial products increase proportionally compared to the extent to which the designers have this connotation. These dynamics are the prelude to open innovation, of which crowdsourcing is sometimes defined as one of the key techniques [9], and which in any case provides many collaborative ideas and

In close connection with the ambition of consumers to become producers, the phenomenon of amateurs has arisen, who realize by passion and without receiving a form of income the same tasks that other specialized subjects perform by profession. The amateur rebirth, which stimulates, among other things, the collaboration between people with professional backgrounds and very different skills, is defined

One factor that has greatly influenced the rise of amateur activities, and consequently also the development of crowdsourcing, is the search for rewarding *Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

increasing the value attributed to knowledge.

the evolution of networks and of online communities.

on which the brand equity has to be built.

and productive processes.

The two macro-phenomena that led to the birth of crowdsourcing according to Pellegrini [2] are the crisis of the industrial economic system, which has stimulated the search for new ways of finding and organizing resources and creating value, whose primary source has become knowledge, and the incessant development of networks that allow the connection and communication between people more or less close to each other, primarily of the Web. About the Web, the most significant evolutionary step of the Internet is that from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, which is traced back to 2004, when the American publisher O'Reilly Media organized a series of conferences on new user network opportunities. While the Web 1.0 made it possible to simply browse through the pages of static sites and without interaction methods, or the only acquisition and dissemination of encoded knowledge (information), Web 2.0 is characterized by the interactive aspect, which allows user no longer just to enjoy, but also to create content. Today, therefore, the Internet allows us to enhance human intelligence, provides a means for the creation of new knowledge, considering the difficulty and inadequacy of codification in environmental complexity, and encourages sharing and participation in projects and innovations. Moreover, the development of the Web, as a production tool free from logistic constraints, has contributed to creating a growing number of intangible assets, further

Therefore, crowdsourcing is a product of the knowledge society. As described by Pellegrini [2], the knowledge economy is characterized by the search for forms of collaboration and sharing to strength the ability of interpretation and action of organizations in a highly dynamic reference environment, and by the desire of consumers to assume a growing awareness and to become an active part of the creative

Considering a more micro level of analysis, and therefore evaluating in detail the origins of crowdsourcing, the main phenomena that have prepared fertile ground and influenced its development are the activities of innovation and user customization. These phenomena are attributable to the logic of prosumerism and to the movement of open source software, to which are added, feeding them, the democratization of information, of the means of production and distribution and

These trends seem to affect every economic sector in a huge number of industries. Nevertheless, the most significant and fruitful implications are coming out from those industries where the active involvement of external stakeholders in the decision-making processes, during the ideation and all prior stages of the production activity, can generate a meaningful and substantial reduction in cost function and risk management. To achieve this efficiency goal, among all firm's stakeholders, a special focus has to be addressed toward customers. Transforming current and potential customers from mere buyers to actors with a voice in the firm's decisions is a strategic way to motivate them and build a bond of trust sustainable over time. For a long period of time, the textile industry, the apparel industry, and the accessories industry, or—more in general—the fashion world, have based their businesses on the ability to predict (and in the same case to impose) what people wanted [3]. Marketing departments, as well as style and creative directions acting in the main fashion companies, are characterized for a huge apparatus for selecting what is going to be popular in the next future. Based on these expectations, they create new collections available in the market. Nonetheless, the democratization process that worldwide is affecting every industry has recently occurred also in the fashion system, where potentially anyone could be a designer, a creator, or a manufacturer. Moreover, the symbolic value attributed to fashion products calls for a more active role of the customer, which becomes part of the key successful factors

**26**

### **1.1 Prosumerism, user innovation, and customization**

The profound awareness of one's own needs and the tendency to privilege the symbolic meaning of goods as an expression of one's own identity have increasingly encouraged consumers of the knowledge society to manipulate the outputs of enterprises, both on the semantic level, through the attribution of meaning, and on the one related to tangible characteristics and components, giving life to the idea of prosumerism [4]. Some subjects, that for their particular and innovative skills take the name of "lead user", have come to develop into solutions that meet their needs and, in some industrial sectors, are even the architects of most new products and services [5]. The innovations created by users, defined "user driven innovation" (or simply "user innovation"), include changes made directly to the goods produced by a company, proposals for changes in design and/or in properties submitted to an organization, and products created in a complete and personal way.

Seizing this trend, some companies, Nike and Levi's among the first, decided to involve customers in their creative activities on their own initiative, allowing them to customize standard articles through a platform on the company Website [6, 7]. This first step taken by organizations toward the possibility of voluntarily involving consumers in production cycles is described as "mass customization" and consists of the attempt to combine mass production with customization, maintaining cost efficiency and developing greater flexibility and ability to meet the specific needs of individuals. One aspect of the customization activity performed by customers, that is particularly significant and apparently paradoxical, is its free nature, considerable as an emblem of the main motivation that pushes consumers to do their job, that is the satisfaction obtainable through the subsequent consumption of the personalized product and often also through the creative action itself.

Over time, the collaboration of companies with users has intensified, in particular addressing the co-creation of new offers together with the lead users, which are in fact recognized of the features that can be advantageously exploited in the problem-solving processes of the organizations and above all in innovation projects. Specifically, Von Hippel [8] identified two distinctive elements of these consumers: the ability to predict market trends, experiencing first of the needs that will emerge in the future in the entire population of which they are part, and the great motivation to identify a solution that satisfies them, determined by the high benefit they can derive from it. These two aspects are strongly correlated with the likelihood that lead users to engage in the development of new products or in the modification of existing ones, further increased by their significant degree of expertise. As a result, as it has been demonstrated by several studies, most of the user innovations are carried out by subjects belonging to the category of lead users, and even the attractiveness they exert toward the companies and the intention of the latter to translate them into commercial products increase proportionally compared to the extent to which the designers have this connotation. These dynamics are the prelude to open innovation, of which crowdsourcing is sometimes defined as one of the key techniques [9], and which in any case provides many collaborative ideas and development elements to this model of joint problem solving.

In close connection with the ambition of consumers to become producers, the phenomenon of amateurs has arisen, who realize by passion and without receiving a form of income the same tasks that other specialized subjects perform by profession. The amateur rebirth, which stimulates, among other things, the collaboration between people with professional backgrounds and very different skills, is defined by Howe [1] as "the fuel for the crowdsourcing engine."

One factor that has greatly influenced the rise of amateur activities, and consequently also the development of crowdsourcing, is the search for rewarding experiences outside the work environment, prompted in turn by the high rate of job dissatisfaction, caused by demand from the world of work of ever greater levels of specialization and the resulting impossibility of many individuals to feel fulfilled, despite the quality of their training and the variety of interests and knowledge.

Thanks to the increasing degree of education of the company, to the ease of access to information, favored by the dissemination of news and knowledge through the Web, and to a sort of democratization of the production instruments, extremely cheaper and easier to use, the heritage of knowledge and skills, that both consumers and amateurs are in possession of, is increasingly richer and allows them to compete with professionals substantially in all fields of knowledge (information technology, journalism, science, etc.). This leads to the emergence of the figure of the prosumer and that of the Pro-Am, identified by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller [10] and resumed by Howe [1], which shares the quantity and quality of the commitment lavished by the amateur, such as to compare it to professional work. The appearance and the emergence of these subjects have certainly played an important role in the development of crowdsourcing, but the people that make up the crowd, and to which the organizations can therefore turn for a collaborative problem-solving action, not necessarily can be qualified as prosumers and Pro-Am according to their precise definition. In fact, crowdsourcing can involve individuals potentially endowed with any degree of specialization and professionalism (experts in the field, scientists of the discipline, fans of the subject, consumers of the product, etc.), but generally united by the desire to participate and lend their own work in a specific project mainly not for an economic return but for reasons related to pleasure, interest, leisure, and personal satisfaction. Crowdsourcing can provide for forms of material compensation, i.e., prizes and rewards of various entities, which can encourage participation, but these do not prevail over amateur reasons.

### **1.2 Open innovation and crowdsourcing**

Another influential phenomenon on crowdsourcing is open innovation. Specifically, open innovation emerges from the extension of the collaborative approach of an organization with consumers, and in particular with lead users, to a wider variety of partners, also welcoming the ideas of wisdom of crowd and transparency that can be found in the open source model. The concept was introduced for the first time by Henry Chesbrough, the author of the book Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology [11], and is based in particular on the need for an organization to open up to cooperation with external actors at its own boundaries in research and development activities, to obtain technological and above all cognitive resources, taking up the key points of the approach of collaborative networks regarding interorganizational relations, but naturally referring to all the possible relations of the company with external subjects. In fact, open innovation is also born as an answer to the environmental uncertainty, to the complexity of innovative processes, and to the increasing diffusion of knowledge in society and is realized in a growing degree of permeability of organizational boundaries and in the connected adoption of more open interaction methods with an ever-wider range of stakeholders, including consumers, suppliers, competitors, and universities [12–14]. Chesbrough [15] underlined the need to overcome the closed innovation approach, especially in sectors such as information technology, where the life cycle of products is very short, and it is not possible to exercise sufficient control over the dynamics of the market. In particular, in these circumstances, it would be more effective to increase transparency and to share resources and opportunities among the actors present in the environment.

**29**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

resort to crowdsourcing.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

source platforms, and development communities [14].

current conception of an effective problem-solving activity.

for all the people involved in the innovation process [17].

**2. Structure and declinations of crowdsourcing**

Gassmann and Enkel [16] identified three possible models of open innovation: the outside-in model, which favors an enrichment of the skills of a company, thanks to the integration of external sources of knowledge in the processes of knowledge creation; the model inside-out, which involves an inverse process, i.e., the outsourcing of internally generated ideas and innovations making them available for exploitation by other subjects in the reference environment, an alliance model between different partners that consists of a combination of the two previous approaches. How the logic of open innovation is implemented includes contestations and competitions of various kinds, alliances, joint ventures, licensing agreements, open

Seltzer and Mahmoudi [9], considering the natural dependence of the effectiveness of open innovation processes from the contributions of external actors in terms of innovative ideas and new knowledge for an organization, listed a series of management and implementation practices. First and foremost, an open company should attract a large group of collaborators, grasping the teaching of open source experiences, define the expectations on the level of partner participation, and identify ways to profit from open innovation, balancing the aspects of creation and appropriation of value through a real open strategy. As for the implementation methods, the company can decide, for example, to draw up a contract of various types with competitors or not, to commission the development of ideas to key customers, to create partnerships with suppliers, and to

Therefore, crowdsourcing can be seen as a strategy of implementing open innovation, but, according to another possible perspective, also as an independent problem-solving technique that intersects with the practice of open innovation if the problems faced are linked precisely to innovative processes. However, the distinction between these interpretations tends to fade if one examines the meaning attributed to the term "innovation", as a creative and efficient recombination of existing inputs to produce new value outputs [14], substantially coinciding with the

In any case, crowdsourcing finds both the need for an organization to open up to the flow of external knowledge as well as the idea of creating the value of the philosophy of open innovation as integration and transformation of internal and external resources and skills. Consequently, in addition to the management techniques introduced a little above, there are several measures that can be implemented for open innovation activities that can also be validly used in the organization of crowdsourcing. These include an accurate description of the problem to be solved, without revealing the possible solution options developed by the organization, so as not to influence and therefore fully exploit the thinking and the potential for reflection of the subjects involved from the outside; a careful definition of the context in which the problem is placed, so that the issue to be addressed is clear; a complete illustration of the concepts, without taking their knowledge for granted; the exposure of the limits of the company in applying a possible solution, so as to limit the research to the feasible options; sharing all available knowledge; and finally an orientation toward quality results that, even under different aspects, have a value

Zhao and Zhu [18] defined crowdsourcing as a "collective intelligence system" and identified three constituent components of the model, i.e. the crowd, the organization that uses this problem-solving mode and therefore benefits from the work of

### *Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

experiences outside the work environment, prompted in turn by the high rate of job dissatisfaction, caused by demand from the world of work of ever greater levels of specialization and the resulting impossibility of many individuals to feel fulfilled, despite the quality of their training and the variety of interests and knowledge. Thanks to the increasing degree of education of the company, to the ease of access to information, favored by the dissemination of news and knowledge through the Web, and to a sort of democratization of the production instruments, extremely cheaper and easier to use, the heritage of knowledge and skills, that both consumers and amateurs are in possession of, is increasingly richer and allows them to compete with professionals substantially in all fields of knowledge (information technology, journalism, science, etc.). This leads to the emergence of the figure of the prosumer and that of the Pro-Am, identified by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller [10] and resumed by Howe [1], which shares the quantity and quality of the commitment lavished by the amateur, such as to compare it to professional work. The appearance and the emergence of these subjects have certainly played an important role in the development of crowdsourcing, but the people that make up the crowd, and to which the organizations can therefore turn for a collaborative problem-solving action, not necessarily can be qualified as prosumers and Pro-Am according to their precise definition. In fact, crowdsourcing can involve individuals potentially endowed with any degree of specialization and professionalism (experts in the field, scientists of the discipline, fans of the subject, consumers of the product, etc.), but generally united by the desire to participate and lend their own work in a specific project mainly not for an economic return but for reasons related to pleasure, interest, leisure, and personal satisfaction. Crowdsourcing can provide for forms of material compensation, i.e., prizes and rewards of various entities, which can encourage participation, but these do

Another influential phenomenon on crowdsourcing is open innovation. Specifically, open innovation emerges from the extension of the collaborative approach of an organization with consumers, and in particular with lead users, to a wider variety of partners, also welcoming the ideas of wisdom of crowd and transparency that can be found in the open source model. The concept was introduced for the first time by Henry Chesbrough, the author of the book Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology [11], and is based in particular on the need for an organization to open up to cooperation with external actors at its own boundaries in research and development activities, to obtain technological and above all cognitive resources, taking up the key points of the approach of collaborative networks regarding interorganizational relations, but naturally referring to all the possible relations of the company with external subjects. In fact, open innovation is also born as an answer to the environmental uncertainty, to the complexity of innovative processes, and to the increasing diffusion of knowledge in society and is realized in a growing degree of permeability of organizational boundaries and in the connected adoption of more open interaction methods with an ever-wider range of stakeholders, including consumers, suppliers, competitors, and universities [12–14]. Chesbrough [15] underlined the need to overcome the closed innovation approach, especially in sectors such as information technology, where the life cycle of products is very short, and it is not possible to exercise sufficient control over the dynamics of the market. In particular, in these circumstances, it would be more effective to increase transparency and to share resources and opportunities among the actors present in the environment.

**28**

not prevail over amateur reasons.

**1.2 Open innovation and crowdsourcing**

Gassmann and Enkel [16] identified three possible models of open innovation: the outside-in model, which favors an enrichment of the skills of a company, thanks to the integration of external sources of knowledge in the processes of knowledge creation; the model inside-out, which involves an inverse process, i.e., the outsourcing of internally generated ideas and innovations making them available for exploitation by other subjects in the reference environment, an alliance model between different partners that consists of a combination of the two previous approaches. How the logic of open innovation is implemented includes contestations and competitions of various kinds, alliances, joint ventures, licensing agreements, open source platforms, and development communities [14].

Seltzer and Mahmoudi [9], considering the natural dependence of the effectiveness of open innovation processes from the contributions of external actors in terms of innovative ideas and new knowledge for an organization, listed a series of management and implementation practices. First and foremost, an open company should attract a large group of collaborators, grasping the teaching of open source experiences, define the expectations on the level of partner participation, and identify ways to profit from open innovation, balancing the aspects of creation and appropriation of value through a real open strategy. As for the implementation methods, the company can decide, for example, to draw up a contract of various types with competitors or not, to commission the development of ideas to key customers, to create partnerships with suppliers, and to resort to crowdsourcing.

Therefore, crowdsourcing can be seen as a strategy of implementing open innovation, but, according to another possible perspective, also as an independent problem-solving technique that intersects with the practice of open innovation if the problems faced are linked precisely to innovative processes. However, the distinction between these interpretations tends to fade if one examines the meaning attributed to the term "innovation", as a creative and efficient recombination of existing inputs to produce new value outputs [14], substantially coinciding with the current conception of an effective problem-solving activity.

In any case, crowdsourcing finds both the need for an organization to open up to the flow of external knowledge as well as the idea of creating the value of the philosophy of open innovation as integration and transformation of internal and external resources and skills. Consequently, in addition to the management techniques introduced a little above, there are several measures that can be implemented for open innovation activities that can also be validly used in the organization of crowdsourcing. These include an accurate description of the problem to be solved, without revealing the possible solution options developed by the organization, so as not to influence and therefore fully exploit the thinking and the potential for reflection of the subjects involved from the outside; a careful definition of the context in which the problem is placed, so that the issue to be addressed is clear; a complete illustration of the concepts, without taking their knowledge for granted; the exposure of the limits of the company in applying a possible solution, so as to limit the research to the feasible options; sharing all available knowledge; and finally an orientation toward quality results that, even under different aspects, have a value for all the people involved in the innovation process [17].

### **2. Structure and declinations of crowdsourcing**

Zhao and Zhu [18] defined crowdsourcing as a "collective intelligence system" and identified three constituent components of the model, i.e. the crowd, the organization that uses this problem-solving mode and therefore benefits from the work of

the crowd, called client company, and the place, physical or virtual, which allows the connection between these two protagonists and hosts all the activities of the process.

Considering the various categories, we can see the flexible nature of crowdsourcing, which can in fact take many activities into its logic, revealing a model that can be applied in a variety of situations and even not only in the economic but also scientific, political, social, and many other sectors. Brabham [19] noted that crowdsourcing, with the diversity of its possible applications in a plurality of industries, stands as a model for solving both daily and rather trivial and complex problems. Furthermore, he argues that it is not merely an approach to the exploitation of reports and contributions enabled by the Web, but a real strategic model aimed at attracting a large group of individuals interested, motivated, and able to develop solutions superior to those achievable through the most traditional forms of business and procedures, both from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view.

From this conceptual perspective, crowdsourcing is experiencing a clear success in the fashion system. In fact, this phenomenon is significantly modifying the structure of the industry from both a productive and retailing points of views. Indeed, the number of firms diving into the crowdsourcing arena is growing exponentially and examples include every step of the value chain.

For the purpose of mapping the strategies and the main outcomes of the crowdsourcing activities, we propose to investigate them according to the stage of a fashion firm's production cycle in which it can occur. Ideally, following a traditional fashion value chain, we can identify four main phases: inspiration, creation, production, and distribution [20].

Traditionally, the inspiration phase is a matter of the designers of the fashion firms: they usually conduct a personal analysis of new trends and market preferences to develop the concept of the new collection. The ability to identify and catch the right stimuli is the real foundation for the success of this stage. Starting from this consideration, the involvement of the customer base is a good means to monitor their preferences and develop new ideas consistent with them. Many firms regularly use polls, focus group or man-on-the-street observations and interviews to track any changes in tastes and trends, but crowdsourcing offers a reach and a dialog on a wider scale unreachable with other traditional marketing techniques.

The second phase—the creation—starts with the approval by the firm's creative direction of the collection concept and it consists of the realization of the first prototypes. In other words, this is the product design step where a set of strategic and operational activities turns ideas into tangible products. Here, again we can underline the same considerations about the value that a crowdsourcing technique can bring in coping with the risks.

With the third phase, the firm launches the production, supporting ex ante all costs. In fact, fashion companies try to create value by producing clothes that people want to wear and bearing the connected economic and financial risks. In order to reduce these risks, firms can conduct product test on some items, but the results of this activity can be hardly generalized to the entire collection and to all available markets.

Finally, with the distribution phase, firms plan their placement and strategies leveraging on market tests conducted on the most significant geographical areas.

This pattern is consistent with the four possible variations of crowdsourcing proposed in the literature and described below. Specifically, we want to identify under which conditions the four possible configurations of crowdsourcing can match with the different phase of the production cycles previously described, without highlighting any single and exclusive link between each step of the value chain and each crowdsourcing configuration.

**31**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

**2.1 Crowd wisdom**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

The first of the forms of crowdsourcing listed is based entirely on crowd wisdom, fully sharing its principles, so much to be identified with it. The choice to resort to this type therefore stems from the desire to exploit the knowledge of a large number of people, recognizing the egalitarian hypothesis expressed by Howe [1], so each individual has some knowledge or talent that is of value for some other individual. The goal of crowdsourcing is therefore to connect those who hold a knowledge with those who consider it useful and, since everyone can provide some valuable contributions to the level of knowledge, thanks to their private informa-

A fundamental concept that supports the search for the involvement of a multitude of subjects in decision-making processes is the one formulated by the "Theorem of diversity that beats talent", interpreted in the book by Ostrom [21] "The Difference. How the Power of Diversity creates Better Groups, Enterprises, Schools and Societies", which proposes a logical/mathematical analysis of collective intelligence. Along this conceptual framework, Page [22] stated that, given certain circumstances, the solutions developed by a randomly selected group of people are seen by a group of selected subjects as the best results. This theorem, verified by many academic studies [23], is based on the observation that the talented subjects, in a given field, constitute a homogeneous group, since, in most cases, they have followed the same training path, even attending the same schools, and consequently, they tend to apply similar, if not identical, solutions to processes and problems. Specialized knowledge is better than generic knowledge, but in its specific context of reference and, moreover, the resolution of most problems, especially of those

tion, to extend as much as possible this network of connections.

that are complex, implies the appeal to different spheres of knowledge.

be faced according to alternative and often unusual perspectives.

being able to count on a wide variety of heuristics and solution techniques.

Therefore, the experts are better than the crowd, but in less contexts, and the latter generally obtains the most effective results in the problem-solving processes,

Page's theorem affirms the essence of collective intelligence, that is, the belief that the combined action of a group of different people can lead to a better decision than any person individually could take. This principle directly links another significant aspect that can be found in problem-solving activities, namely the high probability that solutions emerge from the most unexpected subjects. According to Lakhani et al. [24], this counter-intuitive outcome derives from the ability of the actors who are intellectually distant from the field of skills that would tend to apply to a given problem to interpret the question in a new way, according to different perspectives, and to apply solutions that are known to them but unusual in that domain of knowledge. The so-called breakthrough thinking emerges almost always in subjects who have not had previous experience in the area in which the problem is inserted, precisely because they are free of conditioning and conjectures on the techniques considered traditionally suitable for the resolutive approach. Applying the theory of diversity, crowdsourcing favors this result, since it involves a group of people endowed with skills in different fields and therefore analyzes the situation to

Howe [1] realized that a company that decides to rely on crowd wisdom to find the solution to its problem outperforms the predominant trend in business (and also in human networks) to address people and other similar organizations, which, since they are similar, they know each other well and consequently adopt similar methods of analysis and action. In this case, crowdsourcing makes use of the "strength of weak bonds", as defined by sociologists, i.e., the greater possibility of progress provided by unknown actors and realities, which bring new ideas and new approaches to resolution, which on the one hand, thanks to their variety, increase

### **2.1 Crowd wisdom**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

the crowd, called client company, and the place, physical or virtual, which allows the connection between these two protagonists and hosts all the activities of the process. Considering the various categories, we can see the flexible nature of crowdsourcing, which can in fact take many activities into its logic, revealing a model that can be applied in a variety of situations and even not only in the economic but also scientific, political, social, and many other sectors. Brabham [19] noted that crowdsourcing, with the diversity of its possible applications in a plurality of industries, stands as a model for solving both daily and rather trivial and complex problems. Furthermore, he argues that it is not merely an approach to the exploitation of reports and contributions enabled by the Web, but a real strategic model aimed at attracting a large group of individuals interested, motivated, and able to develop solutions superior to those achievable through the most traditional forms of business and procedures, both from a quantitative and a qualita-

From this conceptual perspective, crowdsourcing is experiencing a clear success in the fashion system. In fact, this phenomenon is significantly modifying the structure of the industry from both a productive and retailing points of views. Indeed, the number of firms diving into the crowdsourcing arena is growing expo-

For the purpose of mapping the strategies and the main outcomes of the crowdsourcing activities, we propose to investigate them according to the stage of a fashion firm's production cycle in which it can occur. Ideally, following a traditional fashion value chain, we can identify four main phases: inspiration, creation,

Traditionally, the inspiration phase is a matter of the designers of the fashion firms: they usually conduct a personal analysis of new trends and market preferences to develop the concept of the new collection. The ability to identify and catch the right stimuli is the real foundation for the success of this stage. Starting from this consideration, the involvement of the customer base is a good means to monitor their preferences and develop new ideas consistent with them. Many firms regularly use polls, focus group or man-on-the-street observations and interviews to track any changes in tastes and trends, but crowdsourcing offers a reach and a dialog on a

The second phase—the creation—starts with the approval by the firm's creative

With the third phase, the firm launches the production, supporting ex ante all costs. In fact, fashion companies try to create value by producing clothes that people want to wear and bearing the connected economic and financial risks. In order to reduce these risks, firms can conduct product test on some items, but the results of this activity can be hardly generalized to the entire collection and to all available

Finally, with the distribution phase, firms plan their placement and strategies leveraging on market tests conducted on the most significant geographical areas. This pattern is consistent with the four possible variations of crowdsourcing proposed in the literature and described below. Specifically, we want to identify under which conditions the four possible configurations of crowdsourcing can match with the different phase of the production cycles previously described, without highlighting any single and exclusive link between each step of the value

direction of the collection concept and it consists of the realization of the first prototypes. In other words, this is the product design step where a set of strategic and operational activities turns ideas into tangible products. Here, again we can underline the same considerations about the value that a crowdsourcing technique

wider scale unreachable with other traditional marketing techniques.

nentially and examples include every step of the value chain.

**30**

markets.

tive point of view.

production, and distribution [20].

can bring in coping with the risks.

chain and each crowdsourcing configuration.

The first of the forms of crowdsourcing listed is based entirely on crowd wisdom, fully sharing its principles, so much to be identified with it. The choice to resort to this type therefore stems from the desire to exploit the knowledge of a large number of people, recognizing the egalitarian hypothesis expressed by Howe [1], so each individual has some knowledge or talent that is of value for some other individual. The goal of crowdsourcing is therefore to connect those who hold a knowledge with those who consider it useful and, since everyone can provide some valuable contributions to the level of knowledge, thanks to their private information, to extend as much as possible this network of connections.

A fundamental concept that supports the search for the involvement of a multitude of subjects in decision-making processes is the one formulated by the "Theorem of diversity that beats talent", interpreted in the book by Ostrom [21] "The Difference. How the Power of Diversity creates Better Groups, Enterprises, Schools and Societies", which proposes a logical/mathematical analysis of collective intelligence. Along this conceptual framework, Page [22] stated that, given certain circumstances, the solutions developed by a randomly selected group of people are seen by a group of selected subjects as the best results. This theorem, verified by many academic studies [23], is based on the observation that the talented subjects, in a given field, constitute a homogeneous group, since, in most cases, they have followed the same training path, even attending the same schools, and consequently, they tend to apply similar, if not identical, solutions to processes and problems. Specialized knowledge is better than generic knowledge, but in its specific context of reference and, moreover, the resolution of most problems, especially of those that are complex, implies the appeal to different spheres of knowledge.

Therefore, the experts are better than the crowd, but in less contexts, and the latter generally obtains the most effective results in the problem-solving processes, being able to count on a wide variety of heuristics and solution techniques.

Page's theorem affirms the essence of collective intelligence, that is, the belief that the combined action of a group of different people can lead to a better decision than any person individually could take. This principle directly links another significant aspect that can be found in problem-solving activities, namely the high probability that solutions emerge from the most unexpected subjects. According to Lakhani et al. [24], this counter-intuitive outcome derives from the ability of the actors who are intellectually distant from the field of skills that would tend to apply to a given problem to interpret the question in a new way, according to different perspectives, and to apply solutions that are known to them but unusual in that domain of knowledge. The so-called breakthrough thinking emerges almost always in subjects who have not had previous experience in the area in which the problem is inserted, precisely because they are free of conditioning and conjectures on the techniques considered traditionally suitable for the resolutive approach. Applying the theory of diversity, crowdsourcing favors this result, since it involves a group of people endowed with skills in different fields and therefore analyzes the situation to be faced according to alternative and often unusual perspectives.

Howe [1] realized that a company that decides to rely on crowd wisdom to find the solution to its problem outperforms the predominant trend in business (and also in human networks) to address people and other similar organizations, which, since they are similar, they know each other well and consequently adopt similar methods of analysis and action. In this case, crowdsourcing makes use of the "strength of weak bonds", as defined by sociologists, i.e., the greater possibility of progress provided by unknown actors and realities, which bring new ideas and new approaches to resolution, which on the one hand, thanks to their variety, increase

the probability of finding a solution and on the other could also determine the discovery of an unexpected line of action which proves to be superior to the options drawn by the traditional heuristics.

Today, companies exploit collective intelligence in problem-solving processes, anticipating future results and addressing company strategies. In particular, Howe [1] indicated for crowd wisdom based crowdsourcing three even more specific connotations, namely the application in the market of forecasts (or information market), the crowdcasting, which consists in the assignment of a business problem to a network indefinite of potential external solvers, and the idea jam (or idea dump, translatable as "crowd of ideas"), which aims to gather many ideas and insights into a brainstorming logic, without reference to a specific problem to be addressed. In the case of the forecast market, the crowd is assigned the task of predicting the winner of some kind of competition or the result to which a certain "future" contract is linked. In crowdcasting, the actors involved in the network can decide to tackle problem-solving activities individually or to organize themselves in groups. Finally, the idea jam usually envisages the development of crowdsourcing on the Web, configuring itself as a sort of online suggestion box and allowing anyone to propose their own ideas, which can then be discussed with other people.

In general, in this first analyzed form of crowdsourcing, discussions and the search for a consensus among the actors involved in the process are avoided, as the strength of this model lies in the sum of the differences, which are maintained by leaving each his own autonomy, while aggregating the contributions of all, so many separate actions are realized that flow into a collective problem-solving activity.

Moving on to the debate on our field, the wisdom configuration of crowdsourcing allows fashion companies to aggregate the knowledge of a large number of current and potential new customers in exploiting new trends and tastes in the fashion industry.

Evidence shows numerous examples of the benefits of this activity. A very interesting case comes from Nike. Back in 1999, the sportswear firm introduced customized sneakers and currently it has broadened the program including a huge variety of options also on clothing and sport equipment until to let customers to share and order each other's design in its online gallery as well as in its app developed for Android and Apple users. The most recent development in improving Nike's customer shopping experience is the "Consumer Direct Offense", a new company alignment that allows Nike to better serve the consumer personally, at scale. In the new alignment, the company drives growth by deeply serving consumers through personalized services in 12 key cities, across 10 key countries: New York, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City, Barcelona, Seoul, and Milan. These key cities and countries are expected to represent over 80% of Nike's projected growth through 2020.

Moreover, stressing on the problem-solving final aim, usually associated with the crowd wisdom, this configuration of crowdsourcing can support fashion firms in identifying solutions to specific managerial issues. An example is represented by the "Design the next Coach Tote" campaign launched by Coach to engage a younger market, both ensuring the successful understanding of its customers' needs and repositioning its brand on this segment of the market. The campaign, conceived to allow consumers to design their own Coach bag, was successful, thanks to more than 1700 participants and 3200 submissions of new different tote bag designs over 6 weeks. Currently, the company still offers the possibility to personalize some bags and sneakers with the choice of patterns and pins.

**33**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

**2.2 Crowd creation**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

The second declination of crowdsourcing described by Howe [1] is aimed at exploiting the creative energies of the crowd, which translate into user generated content, or online content, innovative ideas, and new products, made in a collaborative way. The desire of the companies that make use of this form of crowdsourcing is precisely that of channeling the creativity of the external stakeholders in their

The processes of crowd creation differ greatly from those that use collective intelligence, based on the interaction between the subjects involved in a given work, which is instead avoided by crowd wisdom in order to protect the diversity of thought. The aggregation of dispersed know-how developed autonomously is thus replaced by the formation or support of a community of individuals who share the passion for a certain activity and who, driven by the affinity descending from this common interest, want to confront and communicate with each other. Therefore, the fundamental element that makes crowd creation possible is the social environment, and the protagonists of this type of crowdsourcing are the communities that emerge, mostly spontaneously, in the new ecosystem of interconnected subjects. The central role assigned to communities highlights another fundamental difference between crowd creation and the exploitation of crowd wisdom: while the decision of a company to make use of collective intelligence appears to be an alternative to other problem-solving techniques, by offering new but in any case, additive value with respect to internal tools and resources, the involvement of communities formed autonomously by amateurs and consumers is sometimes an almost obligatory choice. In fact, these communities constantly increase their capacity to perform functions similar to those of companies, with the risk of threatening the survival of the latter, if they are not able to recognize and benefit from the increased skills and organization of their stakeholders. Moreover, since communities formed by amateurs and/or consumers self-organize, they do not allow themselves to be managed, but can only be guided by companies. Therefore, it is not easy for an organization to be able to build and maintain these groups, toward and in which full transparency must be guaranteed, in such a way that a relationship of trust and real partnership between company and crowd is created. In fact, the latter must not feel exploited, but must perceive a balance between the advantages offered and received through the work of the crowdsourced work, which leads to the achievement of effective and efficient results precisely in conditions of harmony between the company and the community. The self-organization of the communities is itself one of the main sources of efficiency of crowd creation, as it substantially corresponds to their ability to distribute intellectual resources in an organic way, which is more functional to problem-solving processes than a hierarchical structure of tasks and knowledge. The development of this second form of crowdsourcing takes place through the interactions of the members of a community, who actually act collaboratively, assisting each other and exchanging opinions. Because of the benefit directly obtainable from the solution and/or from the job, these subjects are strongly motivated to participate in the problem-solving process, normally linked to the commercial offer of the company, and to favor the achievement of the best possible result. Consequently, crowd creation activities are characterized by the search for an improvement of their knowledge and skills and, therefore, by the predominant role of learning processes. The user generated content, with which we normally refer to as the content produced and published on the Web by consumers, is one of the main forms of crowd creation, which often takes place via an online platform. In fact, users have increasingly revealed the desire not only to take part in the creative and productive activities of companies, but also to interact with the media, synergistically

commercial offer, through the creation of a community production.

### **2.2 Crowd creation**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

drawn by the traditional heuristics.

with other people.

fashion industry.

through 2020.

the probability of finding a solution and on the other could also determine the discovery of an unexpected line of action which proves to be superior to the options

anticipating future results and addressing company strategies. In particular, Howe [1] indicated for crowd wisdom based crowdsourcing three even more specific connotations, namely the application in the market of forecasts (or information market), the crowdcasting, which consists in the assignment of a business problem to a network indefinite of potential external solvers, and the idea jam (or idea dump, translatable as "crowd of ideas"), which aims to gather many ideas and insights into a brainstorming logic, without reference to a specific problem to be addressed. In the case of the forecast market, the crowd is assigned the task of predicting the winner of some kind of competition or the result to which a certain "future" contract is linked. In crowdcasting, the actors involved in the network can decide to tackle problem-solving activities individually or to organize themselves in groups. Finally, the idea jam usually envisages the development of crowdsourcing on the Web, configuring itself as a sort of online suggestion box and allowing anyone to propose their own ideas, which can then be discussed

In general, in this first analyzed form of crowdsourcing, discussions and the search for a consensus among the actors involved in the process are avoided, as the strength of this model lies in the sum of the differences, which are maintained by leaving each his own autonomy, while aggregating the contributions of all, so many separate actions are realized that flow into a collective problem-solving activity. Moving on to the debate on our field, the wisdom configuration of crowdsourc-

ing allows fashion companies to aggregate the knowledge of a large number of current and potential new customers in exploiting new trends and tastes in the

Evidence shows numerous examples of the benefits of this activity. A very interesting case comes from Nike. Back in 1999, the sportswear firm introduced customized sneakers and currently it has broadened the program including a huge variety of options also on clothing and sport equipment until to let customers to share and order each other's design in its online gallery as well as in its app developed for Android and Apple users. The most recent development in improving Nike's customer shopping experience is the "Consumer Direct Offense", a new company alignment that allows Nike to better serve the consumer personally, at scale. In the new alignment, the company drives growth by deeply serving consumers through personalized services in 12 key cities, across 10 key countries: New York, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City, Barcelona, Seoul, and Milan. These key cities and countries are expected to represent over 80% of Nike's projected growth

Moreover, stressing on the problem-solving final aim, usually associated with the crowd wisdom, this configuration of crowdsourcing can support fashion firms in identifying solutions to specific managerial issues. An example is represented by the "Design the next Coach Tote" campaign launched by Coach to engage a younger market, both ensuring the successful understanding of its customers' needs and repositioning its brand on this segment of the market. The campaign, conceived to allow consumers to design their own Coach bag, was successful, thanks to more than 1700 participants and 3200 submissions of new different tote bag designs over 6 weeks. Currently, the company still offers the possibility to personalize some bags and sneakers with the choice of patterns

Today, companies exploit collective intelligence in problem-solving processes,

**32**

and pins.

The second declination of crowdsourcing described by Howe [1] is aimed at exploiting the creative energies of the crowd, which translate into user generated content, or online content, innovative ideas, and new products, made in a collaborative way. The desire of the companies that make use of this form of crowdsourcing is precisely that of channeling the creativity of the external stakeholders in their commercial offer, through the creation of a community production.

The processes of crowd creation differ greatly from those that use collective intelligence, based on the interaction between the subjects involved in a given work, which is instead avoided by crowd wisdom in order to protect the diversity of thought. The aggregation of dispersed know-how developed autonomously is thus replaced by the formation or support of a community of individuals who share the passion for a certain activity and who, driven by the affinity descending from this common interest, want to confront and communicate with each other. Therefore, the fundamental element that makes crowd creation possible is the social environment, and the protagonists of this type of crowdsourcing are the communities that emerge, mostly spontaneously, in the new ecosystem of interconnected subjects.

The central role assigned to communities highlights another fundamental difference between crowd creation and the exploitation of crowd wisdom: while the decision of a company to make use of collective intelligence appears to be an alternative to other problem-solving techniques, by offering new but in any case, additive value with respect to internal tools and resources, the involvement of communities formed autonomously by amateurs and consumers is sometimes an almost obligatory choice. In fact, these communities constantly increase their capacity to perform functions similar to those of companies, with the risk of threatening the survival of the latter, if they are not able to recognize and benefit from the increased skills and organization of their stakeholders. Moreover, since communities formed by amateurs and/or consumers self-organize, they do not allow themselves to be managed, but can only be guided by companies. Therefore, it is not easy for an organization to be able to build and maintain these groups, toward and in which full transparency must be guaranteed, in such a way that a relationship of trust and real partnership between company and crowd is created. In fact, the latter must not feel exploited, but must perceive a balance between the advantages offered and received through the work of the crowdsourced work, which leads to the achievement of effective and efficient results precisely in conditions of harmony between the company and the community. The self-organization of the communities is itself one of the main sources of efficiency of crowd creation, as it substantially corresponds to their ability to distribute intellectual resources in an organic way, which is more functional to problem-solving processes than a hierarchical structure of tasks and knowledge.

The development of this second form of crowdsourcing takes place through the interactions of the members of a community, who actually act collaboratively, assisting each other and exchanging opinions. Because of the benefit directly obtainable from the solution and/or from the job, these subjects are strongly motivated to participate in the problem-solving process, normally linked to the commercial offer of the company, and to favor the achievement of the best possible result. Consequently, crowd creation activities are characterized by the search for an improvement of their knowledge and skills and, therefore, by the predominant role of learning processes.

The user generated content, with which we normally refer to as the content produced and published on the Web by consumers, is one of the main forms of crowd creation, which often takes place via an online platform. In fact, users have increasingly revealed the desire not only to take part in the creative and productive activities of companies, but also to interact with the media, synergistically

combining these two aspects and providing their contributions via the Internet. The latter, thanks above all to the more interactive connotation of Web 2.0, lends itself to a cooperative approach to work, naturally encouraging the exchange of information and ideas and a decentralized but almost unlimited participation. However, by accepting a smaller presence of subjects involved, this type of crowdsourcing can take place profitably even in a physical place, which may represent a better choice than the online environment depending, for example, on the level of complexity of the problem to be addressed or on the degree and type of interactions required for the dissemination and creation of knowledge.

Among the several examples of the application of crowd creation in the fashion industry, some interesting cases emerge from the footwear sector. In fact, as the Nike example previously described shows, the footwear industry seems to be one of the most vibrant sectors in the fashion industry, as previous studies underlined [25–27]. Among the most dynamic firms, Keds is perhaps the largest and best-known company whose success is based on its ability to set up a marketplace for customized products. Launched in 2008, the "Keds design your own custom shoes" program lets on line customers to choose among a huge selection of alternatives to personalize their own sneakers. Moreover, for a period of time, visitors could share and sell their creations on Zazzle.com, setting their own royalty from 10 to 99% above the base shoe price of \$60. Furthermore, Keds, together with the American department store chain Bloomingdale's and the Whitney Museum, has created a project to sell art to the masses in the form of footwear. Acting as sponsor of the Whitney Museum of American Art Summer Season, Keds launched the KedsWhitney shoe collection, consisting of sneakers designed by conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who created limited-edition shoes sold at Bloomingdale's stores in Midtown and SoHo.

### **2.3 Crowd voting**

The third form of crowdsourcing aimed at exploiting the skills of the crowd arises essentially from the difficulty for a company to evaluate all the numerous contributions that the crowd itself provides in the context of a given activity entrusted to it. The complexity of analysis evidently increases proportionally to the quantity of ideas and solutions proposed and, therefore, the use of crowd voting is mainly found after problem-solving processes based on crowd wisdom or idea jam sessions. To overcome the problem of examining the multiplicity and diversity of contributions, the power to judge them is shifted from producers to consumers, so "the crowd provides creative talent as well as acumen to evaluate this talent" [1].

These filtering operations of proposals and decision between them can easily take place online and are even the preferred tool for the governance and classification of information on the Web, which no single individual or company could be able to organize. In fact, the Google search engine, recognizing the possibility of ordering an immense amount of information and notions through the aggregation of individual decisions, attributes to Internet users the power to determine the value of information, which moreover is exercised without any additional effort, through normal browsing behavior. However, online voting also presents a risk of alteration of the results through vote buying and selling actions, which clearly compromise the validity of the overall judgment.

The collective choices resulting from crowd voting are therefore a collaborative filter, which allows organizing information and contributions based on the relevance that is attributed to them. This result is achieved both in the case in which the judging mechanism is passive (as is the case with Google) and in the case in which it is active. The passive filter is configured as a sort of unconscious evaluation, using the data generated by the choices and the digital paths of the various

**35**

**2.4 Crowdfunding**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

business processes.

considered a mode of creation.

they let their customers play.

ously described, or the website Threadless.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

users of the network as a database of organizational knowledge, to be exploited in the management and classification of information. The active filter, on the other hand, coincides with a form of analysis and conscious decision by people, who are

Companies that decide to implement a form of crowd voting learn opinions and needs of consumers, which allow, for example, a better understanding of the demand for products and services offered and to schedule production accordingly; they also promote consensus and trust stakeholders who want to be involved in

With particular reference to participatory media, Howe [1] reported a rule that summarizes the dynamics of the first three declinations of crowdsourcing from the point of view of participation, the value and the type of contribution made by the subjects that make up the crowd: the "rule 1:10:89," according to which "of every one hundred people on a given site, one will really create something, 10 will vote for what it has created and the remaining 89 will simply consume creation." Ten percent, by examining and evaluating ideas, actually performs an activity that is just as important as that of making contributions, so much so that it can still be

Crowd voting in the fashion industry can be used according to two different patterns: firms can adopt a selective or a collective approach, depending on the role

In the selective form, fashion firms seek for new ideas coming from the public and then choose how many and which among the proposed options drive into mass production. To achieve this result, companies can launch a specific contest, addressed to current and potential customers, to collect ideas for new product developments through software available online or via an app. In turn, the selection process can be guided by internal or external decision-making mechanisms. The internal selection is usually based on the verification of the matching between the characteristics of the products proposed by customers and the heritage values of the firms as well as its positioning in the market. Instead, the external selection is entrusted to a public voting, giving the customers a say in the choosing and buying process of a fashion firm. Examples of the selective crowdsourcing are the campaign "Design the next Coach Tote", previ-

Threadless is an e-commerce, created in 2000, and founded on an online community of artists and potential buyers who create and chose the items to be sold on the website. Each week, about 1000 designs are submitted online and are put to a public vote. Threadless allows users to vote on designs and rate them on a scale from 1 to 5. Designs are scored by the community for 1 week, before being reviewed by the Threadless staff. Based on the average score and community feedback, about 10 designs are selected each week, printed on clothing and other products, and sold

While the first three configurations of crowdsourcing enhance the skills of a crowd, in particular the knowledge and creative skills, the fourth one considers the crowd as a source of financial resources. In fact, crowdfunding, also known as "social banking", presents some peculiarities that make it a form in a certain sense comparable to the others. In fact, crowdfunding does not exploit the skills and creativity of the stakeholders, or their judgments, but their economic availability. However, Howe [1] highlighted a series of typical aspects of crowdsourcing that are also found in this type, namely the radical change induced in the organization of

worldwide through the online store and at their retail store in Chicago.

explicitly called to express their judgment on a set of contributions.

### *Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

the dissemination and creation of knowledge.

combining these two aspects and providing their contributions via the Internet. The latter, thanks above all to the more interactive connotation of Web 2.0, lends itself to a cooperative approach to work, naturally encouraging the exchange of information and ideas and a decentralized but almost unlimited participation. However, by accepting a smaller presence of subjects involved, this type of crowdsourcing can take place profitably even in a physical place, which may represent a better choice than the online environment depending, for example, on the level of complexity of the problem to be addressed or on the degree and type of interactions required for

Among the several examples of the application of crowd creation in the fashion industry, some interesting cases emerge from the footwear sector. In fact, as the Nike example previously described shows, the footwear industry seems to be one of the most vibrant sectors in the fashion industry, as previous studies underlined [25–27].

company whose success is based on its ability to set up a marketplace for customized products. Launched in 2008, the "Keds design your own custom shoes" program lets on line customers to choose among a huge selection of alternatives to personalize their own sneakers. Moreover, for a period of time, visitors could share and sell their creations on Zazzle.com, setting their own royalty from 10 to 99% above the base shoe price of \$60. Furthermore, Keds, together with the American department store chain Bloomingdale's and the Whitney Museum, has created a project to sell art to the masses in the form of footwear. Acting as sponsor of the Whitney Museum of American Art Summer Season, Keds launched the KedsWhitney shoe collection, consisting of sneakers designed by conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who created limited-edition shoes sold at Bloomingdale's stores in Midtown and SoHo.

The third form of crowdsourcing aimed at exploiting the skills of the crowd arises essentially from the difficulty for a company to evaluate all the numerous contributions that the crowd itself provides in the context of a given activity entrusted to it. The complexity of analysis evidently increases proportionally to the quantity of ideas and solutions proposed and, therefore, the use of crowd voting is mainly found after problem-solving processes based on crowd wisdom or idea jam sessions. To overcome the problem of examining the multiplicity and diversity of contributions, the power to judge them is shifted from producers to consumers, so "the crowd provides creative talent as well as acumen to evaluate this talent" [1]. These filtering operations of proposals and decision between them can easily take

place online and are even the preferred tool for the governance and classification of information on the Web, which no single individual or company could be able to organize. In fact, the Google search engine, recognizing the possibility of ordering an immense amount of information and notions through the aggregation of individual decisions, attributes to Internet users the power to determine the value of information, which moreover is exercised without any additional effort, through normal browsing behavior. However, online voting also presents a risk of alteration of the results through vote buying and selling actions, which clearly compromise the validity

The collective choices resulting from crowd voting are therefore a collaborative filter, which allows organizing information and contributions based on the relevance that is attributed to them. This result is achieved both in the case in which the judging mechanism is passive (as is the case with Google) and in the case in which it is active. The passive filter is configured as a sort of unconscious evaluation, using the data generated by the choices and the digital paths of the various

Among the most dynamic firms, Keds is perhaps the largest and best-known

**34**

**2.3 Crowd voting**

of the overall judgment.

users of the network as a database of organizational knowledge, to be exploited in the management and classification of information. The active filter, on the other hand, coincides with a form of analysis and conscious decision by people, who are explicitly called to express their judgment on a set of contributions.

Companies that decide to implement a form of crowd voting learn opinions and needs of consumers, which allow, for example, a better understanding of the demand for products and services offered and to schedule production accordingly; they also promote consensus and trust stakeholders who want to be involved in business processes.

With particular reference to participatory media, Howe [1] reported a rule that summarizes the dynamics of the first three declinations of crowdsourcing from the point of view of participation, the value and the type of contribution made by the subjects that make up the crowd: the "rule 1:10:89," according to which "of every one hundred people on a given site, one will really create something, 10 will vote for what it has created and the remaining 89 will simply consume creation." Ten percent, by examining and evaluating ideas, actually performs an activity that is just as important as that of making contributions, so much so that it can still be considered a mode of creation.

Crowd voting in the fashion industry can be used according to two different patterns: firms can adopt a selective or a collective approach, depending on the role they let their customers play.

In the selective form, fashion firms seek for new ideas coming from the public and then choose how many and which among the proposed options drive into mass production. To achieve this result, companies can launch a specific contest, addressed to current and potential customers, to collect ideas for new product developments through software available online or via an app. In turn, the selection process can be guided by internal or external decision-making mechanisms. The internal selection is usually based on the verification of the matching between the characteristics of the products proposed by customers and the heritage values of the firms as well as its positioning in the market. Instead, the external selection is entrusted to a public voting, giving the customers a say in the choosing and buying process of a fashion firm. Examples of the selective crowdsourcing are the campaign "Design the next Coach Tote", previously described, or the website Threadless.

Threadless is an e-commerce, created in 2000, and founded on an online community of artists and potential buyers who create and chose the items to be sold on the website. Each week, about 1000 designs are submitted online and are put to a public vote. Threadless allows users to vote on designs and rate them on a scale from 1 to 5. Designs are scored by the community for 1 week, before being reviewed by the Threadless staff. Based on the average score and community feedback, about 10 designs are selected each week, printed on clothing and other products, and sold worldwide through the online store and at their retail store in Chicago.

### **2.4 Crowdfunding**

While the first three configurations of crowdsourcing enhance the skills of a crowd, in particular the knowledge and creative skills, the fourth one considers the crowd as a source of financial resources. In fact, crowdfunding, also known as "social banking", presents some peculiarities that make it a form in a certain sense comparable to the others. In fact, crowdfunding does not exploit the skills and creativity of the stakeholders, or their judgments, but their economic availability. However, Howe [1] highlighted a series of typical aspects of crowdsourcing that are also found in this type, namely the radical change induced in the organization of

a sector, the removal of hierarchies, and the direct link between those who hold a resource and who needs it, the democratic impulse.

In addition to the direct benefit of obtaining funds, crowdfunding allows you to know if anyone is specifically interested in the development of a certain project or product, as the will to contribute financially can only be dictated by sharing the objective to be achieved or the desire to be able to purchase and consume a new product/service, with certain characteristics and with a certain quality level. Therefore, considering this declination of crowdsourcing from the perspective of problem solving, the positive impact emerges on the creation of consensus and motivation, as well as on the ability to cope with any threats and to seize the opportunities that may arise in the transactional environment.

This last configuration of crowdsourcing is straightforward to be applied to any industry, including fashion. As shown by the various crowdfunding platforms for gathering money from the public, such as Kickstarter, this phenomenon is typical of new ventures with innovative ideas to be developed. Looking at the only fashion projects available on Kickstarter (more than 25,000), it is clear how much this configuration meets the interest of start-ups and investors, also thanks to the rules that govern the funding mechanism: project creators choose a deadline and a minimum funding goal. If the goal is not met by the deadline, no funds are collected.

### **3. Pros and cons of crowdsourcing**

### **3.1 Advantages of crowdsourcing**

Crowdsourcing, as outsourcing a business to the crowd, implies for the company the achievement of benefits linked to both costs and risks [28]. About the economic aspect, the company is basically free to define the amount of remuneration, which can be significantly reduced compared to that relating to a function performed in outsourcing, if not even nonexistent. In fact, although professionals can also lend their jobs as part of a crowdsourcing project, they are considered on the same level as most contributors, including amateurs, consumers, and individuals wishing to spend their free time or a period of unemployment exploiting their knowledge and skills and are therefore motivated above all by opportunities for personal satisfaction, an increase in social reputation, and the reporting of their skills. A form of compensation, however limited, should still be offered, due to the positive link with the degree of involvement of people in the problem-solving process, which, among other things, considers participation in crowdsourcing, and in particular that related to complex activities, as a source of additional income. In any case, the company that decides to monetarily reward the parties that provide their contribution is obliged to pay only if the results achieved meet its expectations. Moreover, if the participants in the crowdsourcing activity are consumers of the company's products, the latter has less need to monitor the feedback on the products and, consequently, the testing phases that follow that of research and development are simpler, faster, and naturally less expensive. In addition, by examining the effects of crowdsourcing on the risks borne by the company, on the one hand, the risk deriving from the dependence on a single supplier is substantially eliminated, and on the other hand, the risk of failure inherent in any process of problem solving is externalized, also considering that the possibility that the contributions obtained are not satisfactory is limited, thanks to a system of monetary incentives.

In addition to the cost and risk advantages, of course, the use of crowdsourcing can have a positive effect on the quality of the results achieved through the problem-solving processes. The literature, examining numerous cases of crowdsourcing,

**37**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

of the actions implemented by the organization.

business models and forms of collaboration.

reveals how the factual outcomes of this model are better or good at least as much as those produced through other methods of problem solving [29]. Schenk and Guittard [30] highlighted the variety of impacts that the model exercises according to the type of outsourced activity, to which corresponds the same quality perception diversity. Indeed, when the crowd performs routine tasks for a company, the benefit for the latter in terms of quality depends on the access to a more or less large pool of contributions, with a more or less complementary nature. In the opposite situation of developing a complex project, quality refers to the characteristics of the elaborated solutions, also considering their different trade-offs and technological paths. Finally, the quality of creative activities coincides with the originality of the crowd's

proposals that are assessed comparing them to the company's expectations.

On the other hand, it is more difficult to judge the impact of crowdsourcing on perceptual results; however, the empirical evidence and in particular the rapid increase in crowdsourcing projects and the growth of related expenses suggest a positive impact on the degree of satisfaction of the participants [29]. Moreover, the possibility of contributing to the company processes positively influences the trust and loyalty of the stakeholders toward the organization, since it stimulates their sense of belonging. Performing a more detailed analysis, we can indicate a series of specific advantages of each of the crowdsourcing declinations identified by Howe [1]. In particular, the benefits offered by the exploitation of the crowd wisdom are linked to access to a wide range of knowledge and to the creation of linking networks between holders and researchers of skills. The crowd creation, in addition to providing a variety of creative ideas, is a valuable tool for the interaction between business and emerging communities in the current scenario dominated by interconnections and for the stimulation of processes for the dissemination of knowledge and constant learning. On the other hand, crowd voting, in the first place, considerably reduces the complexity of the decision-making process, with specific reference to the selection phase of the solution to be implemented, and, secondly, allows the company to find information on consumer preferences. Finally, crowdfunding makes it possible to overcome financial barriers that may hinder or even prevent the realization of a project and fosters both the knowledge of its stakeholders and the approval by them

In general, the incentives to adopt the crowdsourcing model and therefore the main advantages achievable are the availability of a highly motivated and committed workforce that lends itself to perform certain company functions at an extremely low cost for the company that outsources them, the ability to quickly execute large quantities of work and solve problems that are too long and/or

complex to be dealt with by a single subject, and, given the benefits listed above, the opportunity to achieve better results overall than those obtainable through other

Moreover, in an environment that asks organizations to continuously know how to evolve and adapt, requiring the priority development of dynamic skills and innovative processes, crowdsourcing can also be chosen as a means to foster creativity, both at the individual and at the organizational level, and the consequent innovation. In fact, crowdsourcing seems to facilitate the coexistence of the characteristics of successful innovators, emerged from the Root-Bernstein ten-year study [31]: a good command of knowledge and fundamental tools of the business sector, which is not the only field of specialization and combines with information and concepts belonging to other areas, curiosity and interest primarily for the problem and then for the solution, the attitude to question dominant models and hypotheses, and the conception of knowledge as an integrated form and the search for solutions of a global rather than particular nature. The members of the crowd each possess a unique heritage of knowledge, which can be more or less generic and variously exploitable in

### *Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

resource and who needs it, the democratic impulse.

tunities that may arise in the transactional environment.

**3. Pros and cons of crowdsourcing**

**3.1 Advantages of crowdsourcing**

a sector, the removal of hierarchies, and the direct link between those who hold a

In addition to the direct benefit of obtaining funds, crowdfunding allows you to know if anyone is specifically interested in the development of a certain project or product, as the will to contribute financially can only be dictated by sharing the objective to be achieved or the desire to be able to purchase and consume a new product/service, with certain characteristics and with a certain quality level. Therefore, considering this declination of crowdsourcing from the perspective of problem solving, the positive impact emerges on the creation of consensus and motivation, as well as on the ability to cope with any threats and to seize the oppor-

This last configuration of crowdsourcing is straightforward to be applied to any industry, including fashion. As shown by the various crowdfunding platforms for gathering money from the public, such as Kickstarter, this phenomenon is typical of new ventures with innovative ideas to be developed. Looking at the only fashion projects available on Kickstarter (more than 25,000), it is clear how much this configuration meets the interest of start-ups and investors, also thanks to the rules that govern the funding mechanism: project creators choose a deadline and a minimum

Crowdsourcing, as outsourcing a business to the crowd, implies for the company the achievement of benefits linked to both costs and risks [28]. About the economic aspect, the company is basically free to define the amount of remuneration, which can be significantly reduced compared to that relating to a function performed in outsourcing, if not even nonexistent. In fact, although professionals can also lend their jobs as part of a crowdsourcing project, they are considered on the same level as most contributors, including amateurs, consumers, and individuals wishing to spend their free time or a period of unemployment exploiting their knowledge and skills and are therefore motivated above all by opportunities for personal satisfaction, an increase in social reputation, and the reporting of their skills. A form of compensation, however limited, should still be offered, due to the positive link with the degree of involvement of people in the problem-solving process, which, among other things, considers participation in crowdsourcing, and in particular that related to complex activities, as a source of additional income. In any case, the company that decides to monetarily reward the parties that provide their contribution is obliged to pay only if the results achieved meet its expectations. Moreover, if the participants in the crowdsourcing activity are consumers of the company's products, the latter has less need to monitor the feedback on the products and, consequently, the testing phases that follow that of research and development are simpler, faster, and naturally less expensive. In addition, by examining the effects of crowdsourcing on the risks borne by the company, on the one hand, the risk deriving from the dependence on a single supplier is substantially eliminated, and on the other hand, the risk of failure inherent in any process of problem solving is externalized, also considering that the possibility that the contributions obtained

funding goal. If the goal is not met by the deadline, no funds are collected.

are not satisfactory is limited, thanks to a system of monetary incentives.

In addition to the cost and risk advantages, of course, the use of crowdsourcing can have a positive effect on the quality of the results achieved through the problem-solving processes. The literature, examining numerous cases of crowdsourcing,

**36**

reveals how the factual outcomes of this model are better or good at least as much as those produced through other methods of problem solving [29]. Schenk and Guittard [30] highlighted the variety of impacts that the model exercises according to the type of outsourced activity, to which corresponds the same quality perception diversity. Indeed, when the crowd performs routine tasks for a company, the benefit for the latter in terms of quality depends on the access to a more or less large pool of contributions, with a more or less complementary nature. In the opposite situation of developing a complex project, quality refers to the characteristics of the elaborated solutions, also considering their different trade-offs and technological paths. Finally, the quality of creative activities coincides with the originality of the crowd's proposals that are assessed comparing them to the company's expectations.

On the other hand, it is more difficult to judge the impact of crowdsourcing on perceptual results; however, the empirical evidence and in particular the rapid increase in crowdsourcing projects and the growth of related expenses suggest a positive impact on the degree of satisfaction of the participants [29]. Moreover, the possibility of contributing to the company processes positively influences the trust and loyalty of the stakeholders toward the organization, since it stimulates their sense of belonging.

Performing a more detailed analysis, we can indicate a series of specific advantages of each of the crowdsourcing declinations identified by Howe [1]. In particular, the benefits offered by the exploitation of the crowd wisdom are linked to access to a wide range of knowledge and to the creation of linking networks between holders and researchers of skills. The crowd creation, in addition to providing a variety of creative ideas, is a valuable tool for the interaction between business and emerging communities in the current scenario dominated by interconnections and for the stimulation of processes for the dissemination of knowledge and constant learning. On the other hand, crowd voting, in the first place, considerably reduces the complexity of the decision-making process, with specific reference to the selection phase of the solution to be implemented, and, secondly, allows the company to find information on consumer preferences. Finally, crowdfunding makes it possible to overcome financial barriers that may hinder or even prevent the realization of a project and fosters both the knowledge of its stakeholders and the approval by them of the actions implemented by the organization.

In general, the incentives to adopt the crowdsourcing model and therefore the main advantages achievable are the availability of a highly motivated and committed workforce that lends itself to perform certain company functions at an extremely low cost for the company that outsources them, the ability to quickly execute large quantities of work and solve problems that are too long and/or complex to be dealt with by a single subject, and, given the benefits listed above, the opportunity to achieve better results overall than those obtainable through other business models and forms of collaboration.

Moreover, in an environment that asks organizations to continuously know how to evolve and adapt, requiring the priority development of dynamic skills and innovative processes, crowdsourcing can also be chosen as a means to foster creativity, both at the individual and at the organizational level, and the consequent innovation. In fact, crowdsourcing seems to facilitate the coexistence of the characteristics of successful innovators, emerged from the Root-Bernstein ten-year study [31]: a good command of knowledge and fundamental tools of the business sector, which is not the only field of specialization and combines with information and concepts belonging to other areas, curiosity and interest primarily for the problem and then for the solution, the attitude to question dominant models and hypotheses, and the conception of knowledge as an integrated form and the search for solutions of a global rather than particular nature. The members of the crowd each possess a unique heritage of knowledge, which can be more or less generic and variously exploitable in

the activities outsourced by the client company, but certainly suitable for analyzing the problem according to original perspectives. In addition to the versatility inherent in the crowd, the company benefits from the strong interest of those involved in a crowdsourcing project for the problem faced, often deriving from the desire to involve in creative processes or the opportunity to put their skills at stake, increasing personal satisfaction and reputation, and, in these circumstances, pre-eminent to that for the solution. Finally, knowledge is now perceived by the crowd as social knowledge, an overall knowledge to which everyone can contribute and of which everyone can benefit, in a logic to which even businesses are called to approach.

### **3.2 Risks of crowdsourcing**

The use of crowdsourcing also involves risks for a company, some common to the outsourcing model and others specific to this phenomenon. As in the case of outsourcing, an organization that assigns the crowd to carry out its activities can renounce moments of learning and the creation of new in-house skills [30]. However, this disadvantage can be limited by constant monitoring by the company of the problem-solving process carried out by the crowd, which is possible in cases of project development in a physical place, where both people who lend their own work can be present as well as the client company, or by preparing appropriate online monitoring tools.

A specific risk of crowdsourcing, and in particular of online forms, derives from the assignment of the organization to a platform owned by third parties and, consequently, from partial dependence on the strategic choices made by these, which at the same time can provide an important support in the management of the process. Another aspect to the detriment of this specific model of joint problem solving is linked to human costs and indeed consists of the negative effect on the subjects involved in terms of compensation for their work. In fact, despite the perceived fairness in the relationship between organization and crowd, which—as highlighted more times—obtains the greatest satisfaction from the activity itself and/or from the result of the same, and not through any monetary compensations, the performances executed have a value far superior in comparison to the remuneration offered for the winning solutions [19]. The amount of payments provided by the company is in no way proportionate to the high quality of the contributions received, which, if acquired through the classic labor market rules, would entail much higher costs. However, this negative dynamic for the crowd is balanced by the already mentioned opportunity to perform a more rewarding work compared to ordinary activities and to assert its importance at different stages of the value production chain, which also guarantees the client company to reduce the risk of a lack of motivation to participate in the crowdsourcing project.

Finally, a significant criticism of this model concerns the rights of intellectual property, in the absence of an employment contract between the members of the crowd involved in the crowdsourcing activities and the client company. It is important to underline, on the one hand, the lawfulness for the company to benefit from the spontaneous contributions received from the crowd, and on the other hand, the unacceptability from the ethical point of view of an exploitation of the same in generating profit, without paying those who produced them. Before the start of the process, it is therefore essential to establish the mechanisms of governance of intellectual property, legal, and payment aspects [32]. A further risk—mentioned above—partly linked to this problem and, more specifically, to incentive techniques, is the contribution of low quality work or even the possible lack of participation; the latter is therefore a crucial challenge in defining how to manage crowdsourcing.

**39**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

the creative director.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

**4. Managerial implications and conclusions**

collections provided seasonally by fashion companies.

to implement open innovation strategies.

once they have contributed to build a product.

Flexibility and adaptability are essential elements for a fashion company to survive in this industry, which is characterized by market changes most significant and rapid compared to the past. Historically, fashion companies based their businesses on the designer's own creativity and experience. In fact, traditionally, design is a valuable strategic asset that is directly related to the competitive advantage of each player acting in this industry. This leads to emphasize the tacit knowledge derived from the experiences, perceptions, and expectations of an individual actor, namely

Nonetheless, customers nowadays are looking for more differentiated and personalized products and they less and less recognize themselves in the traditional

Based on this consideration, the fashion industry is seeking alternative and sustainable ways for growth. Among the existing alternatives, open innovation seems to be one of the most fruitful opportunities. The term open innovation refers to the use of external knowledge to emphasize internal creativity with the final aim to expand the market reach [11, 33]. In fact, by openly embracing open innovation, firms can leverage beyond their own resources and develop better ideas faster and at a lower cost. Along this conceptual framework, crowdsourcing is an effective means

The use of crowdsourcing provides firms with several advantages. First, a company can save cost and time, since crowdsourcing does not require additional internal resources neither to plan nor realize outsourcing strategies. Moreover, thanks to the participation of a larger number of actors, the time to market can register significant reduction. Second, through crowdsourcing, firms can avoid any risk connected to the path dependency problem, opening the ideation process to a wider range of stimuli and opportunities. Third, thanks to the active consumer participation, firms can increase their loyalty to the brand and their attachment to the product. Finally, firms can profit of the possibility to better understand tastes

and preferences of their customer and monitor the trend over the time.

Thanks to the implementation of crowdsourcing activities, various business models are popping up from the public's ideas, modifying the traditional structure of the fashion industry at every level of the value chain. The common element among these numerous and diverse business model configurations is the active role of external stakeholder, especially referring to customers. Engaging the current and potential customers is a good instrument to cope with the growing competition that characterized the fashion industry. This is especially true at an earlier stage of the firms' life cycle; in fact, a strong customer engagement can represent a competitive driver for a new venture. In other words, crowdsourcing provides start-ups with a new way to run their business, lowering the barriers for entry and introducing new critical success factors. Nevertheless, also incumbents can benefit from the involvement of customers in their decision processes with the final aim to draw them closer to their brands. Indeed, ideally in the brand's mind, consumers will be more loyal

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

**3.2 Risks of crowdsourcing**

online monitoring tools.

the activities outsourced by the client company, but certainly suitable for analyzing the problem according to original perspectives. In addition to the versatility inherent in the crowd, the company benefits from the strong interest of those involved in a crowdsourcing project for the problem faced, often deriving from the desire to involve in creative processes or the opportunity to put their skills at stake, increasing personal satisfaction and reputation, and, in these circumstances, pre-eminent to that for the solution. Finally, knowledge is now perceived by the crowd as social knowledge, an overall knowledge to which everyone can contribute and of which everyone can benefit, in a logic to which even businesses are called to approach.

The use of crowdsourcing also involves risks for a company, some common to the outsourcing model and others specific to this phenomenon. As in the case of outsourcing, an organization that assigns the crowd to carry out its activities can renounce moments of learning and the creation of new in-house skills [30]. However, this disadvantage can be limited by constant monitoring by the company of the problem-solving process carried out by the crowd, which is possible in cases of project development in a physical place, where both people who lend their own work can be present as well as the client company, or by preparing appropriate

A specific risk of crowdsourcing, and in particular of online forms, derives from the assignment of the organization to a platform owned by third parties and, consequently, from partial dependence on the strategic choices made by these, which at the same time can provide an important support in the management of the process. Another aspect to the detriment of this specific model of joint problem solving is linked to human costs and indeed consists of the negative effect on the subjects involved in terms of compensation for their work. In fact, despite the perceived fairness in the relationship between organization and crowd, which—as highlighted more times—obtains the greatest satisfaction from the activity itself and/or from the result of the same, and not through any monetary compensations, the performances executed have a value far superior in comparison to the remuneration offered for the winning solutions [19]. The amount of payments provided by the company is in no way proportionate to the high quality of the contributions received, which, if acquired through the classic labor market rules, would entail much higher costs. However, this negative dynamic for the crowd is balanced by the already mentioned opportunity to perform a more rewarding work compared to ordinary activities and to assert its importance at different stages of the value production chain, which also guarantees the client company to reduce the risk of a

lack of motivation to participate in the crowdsourcing project.

Finally, a significant criticism of this model concerns the rights of intellectual property, in the absence of an employment contract between the members of the crowd involved in the crowdsourcing activities and the client company. It is important to underline, on the one hand, the lawfulness for the company to benefit from the spontaneous contributions received from the crowd, and on the other hand, the unacceptability from the ethical point of view of an exploitation of the same in generating profit, without paying those who produced them. Before the start of the process, it is therefore essential to establish the mechanisms of governance of intellectual property, legal, and payment aspects [32]. A further risk—mentioned above—partly linked to this problem and, more specifically, to incentive techniques, is the contribution of low quality work or even the possible lack of participation; the latter is therefore a crucial challenge in defining how to

**38**

manage crowdsourcing.

### **4. Managerial implications and conclusions**

Flexibility and adaptability are essential elements for a fashion company to survive in this industry, which is characterized by market changes most significant and rapid compared to the past. Historically, fashion companies based their businesses on the designer's own creativity and experience. In fact, traditionally, design is a valuable strategic asset that is directly related to the competitive advantage of each player acting in this industry. This leads to emphasize the tacit knowledge derived from the experiences, perceptions, and expectations of an individual actor, namely the creative director.

Nonetheless, customers nowadays are looking for more differentiated and personalized products and they less and less recognize themselves in the traditional collections provided seasonally by fashion companies.

Based on this consideration, the fashion industry is seeking alternative and sustainable ways for growth. Among the existing alternatives, open innovation seems to be one of the most fruitful opportunities. The term open innovation refers to the use of external knowledge to emphasize internal creativity with the final aim to expand the market reach [11, 33]. In fact, by openly embracing open innovation, firms can leverage beyond their own resources and develop better ideas faster and at a lower cost. Along this conceptual framework, crowdsourcing is an effective means to implement open innovation strategies.

The use of crowdsourcing provides firms with several advantages. First, a company can save cost and time, since crowdsourcing does not require additional internal resources neither to plan nor realize outsourcing strategies. Moreover, thanks to the participation of a larger number of actors, the time to market can register significant reduction. Second, through crowdsourcing, firms can avoid any risk connected to the path dependency problem, opening the ideation process to a wider range of stimuli and opportunities. Third, thanks to the active consumer participation, firms can increase their loyalty to the brand and their attachment to the product. Finally, firms can profit of the possibility to better understand tastes and preferences of their customer and monitor the trend over the time.

Thanks to the implementation of crowdsourcing activities, various business models are popping up from the public's ideas, modifying the traditional structure of the fashion industry at every level of the value chain. The common element among these numerous and diverse business model configurations is the active role of external stakeholder, especially referring to customers. Engaging the current and potential customers is a good instrument to cope with the growing competition that characterized the fashion industry. This is especially true at an earlier stage of the firms' life cycle; in fact, a strong customer engagement can represent a competitive driver for a new venture. In other words, crowdsourcing provides start-ups with a new way to run their business, lowering the barriers for entry and introducing new critical success factors. Nevertheless, also incumbents can benefit from the involvement of customers in their decision processes with the final aim to draw them closer to their brands. Indeed, ideally in the brand's mind, consumers will be more loyal once they have contributed to build a product.

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

### **Author details**

Luigi Nasta\* and Luca Pirolo LUISS – Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome, Italy

\*Address all correspondence to: lnasta@luiss.it

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**41**

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry*

[1] Howe J. Crowdsourcing. Il valore partecipativo come risorsa per il futuro del business. Bologna: Luca Sossella

[2] Pellegrini B. Il crowdsourcing e il valore partecipativo. In: Howe J, editor. Crowdsourcing. Il valore partecipativo come risorsa per il futuro del business. Bologna: Luca Sossella Editore; 2010

[3] Pirolo L, Giustiniano L, Nenni ME. The Italian footwear industry: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Engineering Business Management.

[4] Kotler P. The Prosumer Movement: A New Challenge For Marketers. In: Lutz RJ, editor. NA - Advances in Consumer Research. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research;

[5] Von Hippel E. The Sources of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University

[6] Piller FT, Moeslein K, Stotko CM. Does mass customization pay? An economic approach to evaluate customer integration. Production Planning and

[7] Zipkin P. Mass customization. MIT Sloan Management Review; 2001

Innovation. Cambridge (Massachusetts,

[10] Leadbeater C, Miller P. The Pro-Am Revolution: How Enthusiasts Are Changing our Society and Economy.

London: Demos; 2004. p. 24

[8] Von Hippel E. Democratizing

[9] Seltzer E, Mahmoudi D. Citizen participation, open innovation and crowdsourcing: Challenges and opportunities for planning. Journal of Planning Literature. 2012;**28**(1):3-18

USA): MIT Press; 2005

Control. 2004;**15**(4):435-444

**References**

Editore; 2010

2013;**5**:34

1986;**13**:510-513

Press; 1988

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

[11] Chesbrough H. Open Innovation. Boston: Harvard Business Press; 2003

[12] Marchegiani L, Pirolo L. The proximity paradox: How localization influences relational exchange and innovation diffusion. Evidences from a cluster level analysis. An Enterprise Odyssey. International Conference

[13] Pirolo L, Presutti M. Towards a dynamic knowledge-based approach to the innovation process: An empirical investigation on social capital inside an industrial cluster. International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital.

[14] Felin T, Zenger TR. Closed or open innovation? Problem solving and the governance choice. Research Policy.

[15] Chesbrough H. Managing Open Innovation. Research-Technology Management. 2004;**47**(1):23-26

[16] Gassmann O, Enkel E. Towards a theory of open innovation: Three core process archetypes. Proceedings of the

[17] Speidel KP. Problem description in open problem solving: How to overcome cognitive and psychological roadblocks. In: Sloane P, editor. A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing. Advice from Leading Experts. London:

[18] Zhao Y, Zhu Q. Evaluation on crowdsourcing research: Current status and future direction. Information Systems Frontiers. 2012;**16**(3):417-434

[19] Brabham DC. Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 2008;**14**(1):75-90

RADMA Conference; 2004

Koganpage; 2011

Proceedings; 2004

2007;**4**(1-2):147-173

2014;**43**(5):914-925

*Crowdsourcing in the Fashion Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84607*

### **References**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

LUISS – Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome,

**40**

Italy

**Author details**

Luigi Nasta\* and Luca Pirolo

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: lnasta@luiss.it

[1] Howe J. Crowdsourcing. Il valore partecipativo come risorsa per il futuro del business. Bologna: Luca Sossella Editore; 2010

[2] Pellegrini B. Il crowdsourcing e il valore partecipativo. In: Howe J, editor. Crowdsourcing. Il valore partecipativo come risorsa per il futuro del business. Bologna: Luca Sossella Editore; 2010

[3] Pirolo L, Giustiniano L, Nenni ME. The Italian footwear industry: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Engineering Business Management. 2013;**5**:34

[4] Kotler P. The Prosumer Movement: A New Challenge For Marketers. In: Lutz RJ, editor. NA - Advances in Consumer Research. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research; 1986;**13**:510-513

[5] Von Hippel E. The Sources of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1988

[6] Piller FT, Moeslein K, Stotko CM. Does mass customization pay? An economic approach to evaluate customer integration. Production Planning and Control. 2004;**15**(4):435-444

[7] Zipkin P. Mass customization. MIT Sloan Management Review; 2001

[8] Von Hippel E. Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA): MIT Press; 2005

[9] Seltzer E, Mahmoudi D. Citizen participation, open innovation and crowdsourcing: Challenges and opportunities for planning. Journal of Planning Literature. 2012;**28**(1):3-18

[10] Leadbeater C, Miller P. The Pro-Am Revolution: How Enthusiasts Are Changing our Society and Economy. London: Demos; 2004. p. 24

[11] Chesbrough H. Open Innovation. Boston: Harvard Business Press; 2003

[12] Marchegiani L, Pirolo L. The proximity paradox: How localization influences relational exchange and innovation diffusion. Evidences from a cluster level analysis. An Enterprise Odyssey. International Conference Proceedings; 2004

[13] Pirolo L, Presutti M. Towards a dynamic knowledge-based approach to the innovation process: An empirical investigation on social capital inside an industrial cluster. International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital. 2007;**4**(1-2):147-173

[14] Felin T, Zenger TR. Closed or open innovation? Problem solving and the governance choice. Research Policy. 2014;**43**(5):914-925

[15] Chesbrough H. Managing Open Innovation. Research-Technology Management. 2004;**47**(1):23-26

[16] Gassmann O, Enkel E. Towards a theory of open innovation: Three core process archetypes. Proceedings of the RADMA Conference; 2004

[17] Speidel KP. Problem description in open problem solving: How to overcome cognitive and psychological roadblocks. In: Sloane P, editor. A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing. Advice from Leading Experts. London: Koganpage; 2011

[18] Zhao Y, Zhu Q. Evaluation on crowdsourcing research: Current status and future direction. Information Systems Frontiers. 2012;**16**(3):417-434

[19] Brabham DC. Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 2008;**14**(1):75-90

[20] Christopher M, Lowson R, Peck H. Creating agile supply chains in the fashion industry. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 2004;**32**(8):367-376

[21] Ostrom E. In: Page Scott E, editor. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2008, 2007. 448p. Perspectives on Politics, 6(4), 828-829

[22] Page SE. The Difference. How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies. Princeton (New Jersey, USA): Princeton University Press; 2007

[23] Nasta L, Pirolo L, Wikström P. Diversity in creative teams: A theoretical framework and a research methodology for the analysis of the music industry. Creative Industries Journal. 2016;**9**(2):97-106

[24] Lakhani, Karim, Jeppesen, Lohse, Panetta. The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving. Working Paper 07-050. Harvard Business School; 2007

[25] Nenni ME, Giustiniano L, Pirolo L. Demand forecasting in the fashion industry: A review. International Journal of Engineering Business Management. 2013;**5**(Godište 2013):5-36

[26] D'amico S, Giustiniano L, Nenni ME, Pirolo L. Product lifecycle management and compliance with international standards: A case study analysis in the footwear industry. International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management. 2014;**7**(2-3):215-229

[27] Corbo L, Pirolo L, Rodrigues V. Business model adaptation in response to an exogenous shock: An empirical analysis of the Portuguese footwear industry. International Journal of

Engineering Business Management. 2018;**10**:1847979018772742

[28] Estrelle-Arolas E, González-Ladrón-De-Guevara F. Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science. 2012;**38**(2):189-200

[29] Pedersen J, Kocsis D, Tripathi A, Tarrell A, Weerakoon A, Tahmasbi N, et al., Conceptual foundations of crowdsourcing: A review of IS research. 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences; 2013

[30] Schenk E, Guittard C. Crowdsourcing: What can be outsourced to the crowd, and why. In: Workshop on Open Source Innovation, Strasbourg, France. Vol. 72; 2009. p. 3

[31] Root-Bernstein RS. Discovering, Inventing and Solving Problems at the Frontiers of Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press; 1989

[32] Vukovic M. Crowdsourcing for enterprises. In: Services-I, 2009 World Conference on. IEEE; 2009. pp. 686-692

[33] Chesbrough HW, Teece DJ. Organizing for innovation: when is virtual virtuous? In: The Transfer and Licensing of Know-How and Intellectual Property: Understanding the Multinational Enterprise in the Modern World; 2008. pp. 335-341

**43**

systems of the OECD [7, 8].

**Chapter 4**

**Abstract**

based contexts.

problem-solving

**1. Introduction**

*Margarida Romero*

From Individual Creativity to

Supporting the development of creative competency is important for the actual challenges of the society. However, creativity has been mainly approached in an individual way, without considering the specificities of team-based creativity processes. In this chapter, we establish the differences between creativity as an individual approach and creativity as a collaborative process. Then we discuss creativity from the perspective of the leaners' and teachers' attitudes. Subsequently, we discuss the concept of the *margin of creativity* in different learning activities. We finalize this chapter by discussing digital uses that can support creativity in team-

**Keywords:** creativity, co-creativity, team-based creativity, social creativity,

Creativity is a key competency in addressing the social challenges of postindustrial knowledge societies [1] in which new jobs have an increasing need to be supported by the creative class [2], in which individuals who work in it "engage in complex problem-solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education or human capital" (p. 8). In a context of a growing influence of automatization and artificial intelligence, creativity is being widely recognized as an important competency which makes a difference between humans and robotic work [2–4]. For Florida [2], creativity is a factor of socioeconomic differentiation of contemporary societies between "creative classes," who develop occupations where creativity is a determining factor in their complex problem-solving activities, and other social classes in which routine work could be easier to replace through automatization technologies. The noncreative class is in risk to face a growing precariousness within urban environments in which the creative class took the urban space. The importance of creativity as a new imperative of competitiveness is emphasized by Peck [5] as a manifestation of neoliberalism that would tend to increase competition within the active class and demands a higher level of creative problem-solving competency to increase the productivity and innovation to face the optimization of the industrial and service-oriented activities being challenged by automatization and globalization. However, despite the pression for developing creativity to face the twenty-first century challenges [6] and despite the growing differences between "creative classes" and others citizens [2], creativity is still not an educational priority in most of the educational

Team-Based Creativity

### **Chapter 4**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

Engineering Business Management.

[29] Pedersen J, Kocsis D, Tripathi A, Tarrell A, Weerakoon A, Tahmasbi N, et al., Conceptual foundations of crowdsourcing: A review of IS research. 46th Hawaii International Conference

outsourced to the crowd, and why. In: Workshop on Open Source Innovation, Strasbourg, France. Vol. 72; 2009. p. 3

[31] Root-Bernstein RS. Discovering, Inventing and Solving Problems at the Frontiers of Knowledge. Cambridge:

[32] Vukovic M. Crowdsourcing for enterprises. In: Services-I, 2009 World Conference on. IEEE; 2009. pp. 686-692

[33] Chesbrough HW, Teece DJ. Organizing for innovation: when is virtual virtuous? In: The Transfer and Licensing of Know-How and Intellectual

Property: Understanding the

World; 2008. pp. 335-341

Multinational Enterprise in the Modern

Harvard Business Press; 1989

[28] Estrelle-Arolas E, González-Ladrón-De-Guevara F. Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science.

2018;**10**:1847979018772742

2012;**38**(2):189-200

on System Sciences; 2013

[30] Schenk E, Guittard C. Crowdsourcing: What can be

[20] Christopher M, Lowson R, Peck H. Creating agile supply chains in the fashion industry. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.

[21] Ostrom E. In: Page Scott E, editor. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2008, 2007. 448p. Perspectives on Politics, 6(4),

[22] Page SE. The Difference. How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies. Princeton (New Jersey, USA): Princeton

[23] Nasta L, Pirolo L, Wikström P. Diversity in creative teams: A theoretical framework and a research methodology

industry. Creative Industries Journal.

[24] Lakhani, Karim, Jeppesen, Lohse, Panetta. The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving. Working Paper 07-050. Harvard Business School;

[25] Nenni ME, Giustiniano L, Pirolo L. Demand forecasting in the fashion industry: A review. International Journal of Engineering Business Management.

[26] D'amico S, Giustiniano L, Nenni ME, Pirolo L. Product lifecycle management and compliance with international standards: A case study analysis in the footwear industry. International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management.

[27] Corbo L, Pirolo L, Rodrigues V. Business model adaptation in response to an exogenous shock: An empirical analysis of the Portuguese footwear industry. International Journal of

2013;**5**(Godište 2013):5-36

2014;**7**(2-3):215-229

for the analysis of the music

University Press; 2007

2016;**9**(2):97-106

2007

2004;**32**(8):367-376

828-829

**42**

## From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity

*Margarida Romero*

### **Abstract**

Supporting the development of creative competency is important for the actual challenges of the society. However, creativity has been mainly approached in an individual way, without considering the specificities of team-based creativity processes. In this chapter, we establish the differences between creativity as an individual approach and creativity as a collaborative process. Then we discuss creativity from the perspective of the leaners' and teachers' attitudes. Subsequently, we discuss the concept of the *margin of creativity* in different learning activities. We finalize this chapter by discussing digital uses that can support creativity in teambased contexts.

**Keywords:** creativity, co-creativity, team-based creativity, social creativity, problem-solving

### **1. Introduction**

Creativity is a key competency in addressing the social challenges of postindustrial knowledge societies [1] in which new jobs have an increasing need to be supported by the creative class [2], in which individuals who work in it "engage in complex problem-solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education or human capital" (p. 8). In a context of a growing influence of automatization and artificial intelligence, creativity is being widely recognized as an important competency which makes a difference between humans and robotic work [2–4]. For Florida [2], creativity is a factor of socioeconomic differentiation of contemporary societies between "creative classes," who develop occupations where creativity is a determining factor in their complex problem-solving activities, and other social classes in which routine work could be easier to replace through automatization technologies. The noncreative class is in risk to face a growing precariousness within urban environments in which the creative class took the urban space. The importance of creativity as a new imperative of competitiveness is emphasized by Peck [5] as a manifestation of neoliberalism that would tend to increase competition within the active class and demands a higher level of creative problem-solving competency to increase the productivity and innovation to face the optimization of the industrial and service-oriented activities being challenged by automatization and globalization. However, despite the pression for developing creativity to face the twenty-first century challenges [6] and despite the growing differences between "creative classes" and others citizens [2], creativity is still not an educational priority in most of the educational systems of the OECD [7, 8].

### **2. Creativity is demanding**

Creativity is often perceived negatively in educational settings [9]. Teachers and learners sometimes associate creativity with creative processes that have no purpose and no constraints that can lead to worthless solutions. They associate creativity to tasks in which the *margin of creativity* offers an extensive number of solutions, without considering the creative process in some activities with a limited, but important, margin of creativity in the domains such language, physics, or mathematics. Despite the misconception associating creativity to effortless artistic processes [8], creativity is a demanding process resulting from a good analysis of the situation-problem and its context, which must then lead to a solution. Creativity is about creating an innovative, relevant, and valuable solution [10] that is parsimonious and elegant in the face of an initial situation-problem.

### **3. From creativity as an individual trait to collaborative creativity**

Creativity is often seen as an individual trait that can be manifested both in the process and the product or artifact created through the creative process [4]. While everyone has a different level of development of the creativity competency, all subjects can develop their creative potential [10] by developing a better awareness of the creative processes such as divergent thinking [11] and also the creative criteria to self-regulate the quality of the creative solution. Creativity has been mostly studied from an individual point of view in the field of psychology, but there are a growing number of studies in the field of education, not only in individual tasks but also in team-based activities engaging students in different types of creative projects. When learners face complex problems that require collaboration and creativity, then creativity is a social process. If we talk about distributed cognition, we can also talk about distributed creativity [12]. In the educational context, creativity has been mainly analyzed with the help of individual activities [13], which goes against the social character of creativity [14] but also opportunities for collaboration in the context of learning involving tasks of a certain complexity [15]. We see creativity as an iterative process that can develop both individually and collaboratively [16]. Constraints are sometimes a trigger for the initial creative process; creating with limited resources establishes a framework that leads the learner to engage in a creative process to successfully meet these requirements; during the creative process, the learner must explore several new solutions to a problem, to draw inspiration from other realizations to guide one's reasoning and finally to select a solution while considering the context of the situation-problem. This definition of the creative process fostered by a situational problem coincides with Vygotsky's concept of double simulation, according to which learners overcome critical conflicts by making use of cultural artifacts in order to create a solution that emancipates them from the problem situation [17].

### **4.** *Creatitude* **as a willingness to engage in creative solutions**

This creative attitude or *creatitude* goes beyond the acquisition and understanding of knowledge to give an active role to the learner. Our creativity invites us to invest in creative activities in which we (co) construct cultural products of different types. *Creatitude* refers to the willingness to try new approaches and solutions and also to the ability to make critical and benevolent judgments about the process and to make new attempts when creative attempts are not of enough quality. From

**45**

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

reflection that requires the efforts of learners.

certain context.

the written creation to robot programming, creative attitude is a way to interact in the world and overcome the consumer or passive role of humans not nurturing their creative attitude toward the problem situations they experience in their lives. Creative attitude allows us to develop new approaches and develop various solutions

Creating is not enough; creative process should propose an efficient solution that is deemed valid by a reference group. Creativity is socioculturally rooted and cannot be only designated by the subject having to create something but by the community or reference group who will evaluate the value and relevance of the solution in a

Creative solutions should be not only original but also valuable. In instance, making a chocolate salad is perhaps original, but if it does not taste good, it is not a good creative solution. Creativity is part of a design process and involves a reasonable use of resources. It might be thought that equipping automobiles with six wheels is an original invention and that the two extra wheels add stability to the vehicle, but if these new cars use more resources than necessary, they are not a good creative solution. So, there is a difference between originality and creativity. If originality is a potential for creativity, it is not its only component. This originality must therefore be oriented toward an iterative and complex, rational process of

Creativity also requires the learner to engage in decision -making about the way he analyzes the situation and decisions on the process to follow to develop a solution. Creativity emerges in a context in which the learner must decide the way he will proceed individually or negotiate the way they will proceed as a team in cocreative learning activities. In creative process we cannot always apply established solutions for which we can follow recipes step by step or copy a certain procedure. This is what we do most often in class. To pick up the example in the culinary world, being a good cook is not about running existing recipes but about being able to match flavors in innovative ways. In this sense, creative attitude or *creatitude* refers to the willingness to try new approaches and solutions and also the ability to make critical and benevolent judgments about the process and to make new attempts when creative attempts are not of enough quality. It is important not to think that *creatitude* is only an innate quality that only eccentric people can possess. How many times have we heard "I'm not creative. I am Cartesian." Being creative is an attitude and a competency that develops by engaging in motivating projects in which we

have real power of action and influence over the world around us.

**5. The margin of creativity as an educational design tool**

Despite the increasing awareness on the need to develop learners' creativity for today's society, it is difficult for teachers to put creativity as a priority in the context of standardized tests that rules the main milestones of the school curriculum. Therefore, we consider the development of creativity as a *margin* when teachers conceptualize their pedagogical sequences. By *margin of creativity*, we refer to the number of creative possibilities offered by elements such as the domain-specific knowledge of the task, the context of the class, and the time offered for the development of creativity among many other factors having the possibility to affect the activity. It is up to the teacher to judge the moment, the subject, and the context to determine how the development of creativity can be effectively integrated into the activities. In addition, it is important to distinguish the margin of creativity in the solution to be created and the margin of creativity in the creation process. Sometimes the pedagogical context offers more flexibility in the production to be

to problems that challenge us in a way that was not initially expected.

### *From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

nious and elegant in the face of an initial situation-problem.

**3. From creativity as an individual trait to collaborative creativity**

**4.** *Creatitude* **as a willingness to engage in creative solutions**

This creative attitude or *creatitude* goes beyond the acquisition and understanding of knowledge to give an active role to the learner. Our creativity invites us to invest in creative activities in which we (co) construct cultural products of different types. *Creatitude* refers to the willingness to try new approaches and solutions and also to the ability to make critical and benevolent judgments about the process and to make new attempts when creative attempts are not of enough quality. From

Creativity is often seen as an individual trait that can be manifested both in the process and the product or artifact created through the creative process [4]. While everyone has a different level of development of the creativity competency, all subjects can develop their creative potential [10] by developing a better awareness of the creative processes such as divergent thinking [11] and also the creative criteria to self-regulate the quality of the creative solution. Creativity has been mostly studied from an individual point of view in the field of psychology, but there are a growing number of studies in the field of education, not only in individual tasks but also in team-based activities engaging students in different types of creative projects. When learners face complex problems that require collaboration and creativity, then creativity is a social process. If we talk about distributed cognition, we can also talk about distributed creativity [12]. In the educational context, creativity has been mainly analyzed with the help of individual activities [13], which goes against the social character of creativity [14] but also opportunities for collaboration in the context of learning involving tasks of a certain complexity [15]. We see creativity as an iterative process that can develop both individually and collaboratively [16]. Constraints are sometimes a trigger for the initial creative process; creating with limited resources establishes a framework that leads the learner to engage in a creative process to successfully meet these requirements; during the creative process, the learner must explore several new solutions to a problem, to draw inspiration from other realizations to guide one's reasoning and finally to select a solution while considering the context of the situation-problem. This definition of the creative process fostered by a situational problem coincides with Vygotsky's concept of double simulation, according to which learners overcome critical conflicts by making use of cultural artifacts in order to create a solution that emancipates them from

Creativity is often perceived negatively in educational settings [9]. Teachers and learners sometimes associate creativity with creative processes that have no purpose and no constraints that can lead to worthless solutions. They associate creativity to tasks in which the *margin of creativity* offers an extensive number of solutions, without considering the creative process in some activities with a limited, but important, margin of creativity in the domains such language, physics, or mathematics. Despite the misconception associating creativity to effortless artistic processes [8], creativity is a demanding process resulting from a good analysis of the situation-problem and its context, which must then lead to a solution. Creativity is about creating an innovative, relevant, and valuable solution [10] that is parsimo-

**2. Creativity is demanding**

**44**

the problem situation [17].

the written creation to robot programming, creative attitude is a way to interact in the world and overcome the consumer or passive role of humans not nurturing their creative attitude toward the problem situations they experience in their lives. Creative attitude allows us to develop new approaches and develop various solutions to problems that challenge us in a way that was not initially expected.

Creating is not enough; creative process should propose an efficient solution that is deemed valid by a reference group. Creativity is socioculturally rooted and cannot be only designated by the subject having to create something but by the community or reference group who will evaluate the value and relevance of the solution in a certain context.

Creative solutions should be not only original but also valuable. In instance, making a chocolate salad is perhaps original, but if it does not taste good, it is not a good creative solution. Creativity is part of a design process and involves a reasonable use of resources. It might be thought that equipping automobiles with six wheels is an original invention and that the two extra wheels add stability to the vehicle, but if these new cars use more resources than necessary, they are not a good creative solution. So, there is a difference between originality and creativity. If originality is a potential for creativity, it is not its only component. This originality must therefore be oriented toward an iterative and complex, rational process of reflection that requires the efforts of learners.

Creativity also requires the learner to engage in decision -making about the way he analyzes the situation and decisions on the process to follow to develop a solution. Creativity emerges in a context in which the learner must decide the way he will proceed individually or negotiate the way they will proceed as a team in cocreative learning activities. In creative process we cannot always apply established solutions for which we can follow recipes step by step or copy a certain procedure. This is what we do most often in class. To pick up the example in the culinary world, being a good cook is not about running existing recipes but about being able to match flavors in innovative ways. In this sense, creative attitude or *creatitude* refers to the willingness to try new approaches and solutions and also the ability to make critical and benevolent judgments about the process and to make new attempts when creative attempts are not of enough quality. It is important not to think that *creatitude* is only an innate quality that only eccentric people can possess. How many times have we heard "I'm not creative. I am Cartesian." Being creative is an attitude and a competency that develops by engaging in motivating projects in which we have real power of action and influence over the world around us.

### **5. The margin of creativity as an educational design tool**

Despite the increasing awareness on the need to develop learners' creativity for today's society, it is difficult for teachers to put creativity as a priority in the context of standardized tests that rules the main milestones of the school curriculum. Therefore, we consider the development of creativity as a *margin* when teachers conceptualize their pedagogical sequences. By *margin of creativity*, we refer to the number of creative possibilities offered by elements such as the domain-specific knowledge of the task, the context of the class, and the time offered for the development of creativity among many other factors having the possibility to affect the activity. It is up to the teacher to judge the moment, the subject, and the context to determine how the development of creativity can be effectively integrated into the activities. In addition, it is important to distinguish the margin of creativity in the solution to be created and the margin of creativity in the creation process. Sometimes the pedagogical context offers more flexibility in the production to be

done and sometimes more flexibility in the process of realization. For example, when programming for the first time with software like Scratch, learners can make different productions, but they will have to work with the same blocks of code. Learners can create a story, a game, or a quiz. Conversely, the teacher may decide that learners should all create a story but leave them the choice of the best medium to tell their story supporting learners' agency. Learners can thus do theater with robots, create a book with augmented reality, create an audiovisual journey with virtual reality, or glue electrical components on puppets.

Moreover, although creativity is a crucial competency to develop in learners, it does not mean that learners must always be creative. The balance between conventional thinking and creative thinking is a more realistic goal. Some educational objectives can be better achieved by conventional ways of thinking. When learners want to understand specific French rules such as color adjectives, the teacher must conform to French conventions (even if it is possible to find a creative way to teach them these rules!). Teachers must also follow a prescribed curriculum, even if it can be applied flexibly. It is by considering these aspects that the psychologist of education at the University of Georgia, Mark Runco says that teachers should aim to develop post-conventional thinking [11]. This thinking refers to the ability of learners to understand established conventions while being able to make creative decisions emerging from a personal reflection process. Post-conventional thinking also refers to the learners' ability to understand context that is more supportive to creativity and contexts that are more conducive to conventional thinking. By focusing on the development of creativity while enabling learners to understand the contexts conducive to creativity, we will be able to get learners to understand that creativity is a competency that can develop in everyone and that must be deployed in the context in which we evolve. Context awareness and empathy are important aspects of creativity as a contextual process [18].

### **6. Creativity in all disciplines**

Creativity is more naturally associated to the artistic domains such the visual arts or literature. Despite this misconception, creativity can be developed in disciplines or domains that are not generally associated with creativity such as history, especially through the historical thinking approach [19] or science, through the maker education and STEAM approaches [18]. By considering the concept of creative margin, creativity can be developed through the study of discipline that may seem too rigid or based on immutable laws to let learners be creative and potentially miss important contents. History, for example, may seem too rigid when viewed as a mirror of the past. When viewed as an interpretative discipline where sources and testimonies serve as a breeding ground for fact-finding and development of deep understanding, then the historical inquiry process and the creative process have several points in common.

### **7. Creative uses of technology-enhanced learning (TEL)**

We must distinguish digital uses that support the creativity of learners of digital uses that place the learner in a situation of passive consumption (like viewing educational videos) or interactive consumption (like quizzes). Based on the model of cognitive engagement developed by Chi and Wylie [20], we have developed a model of creative engagement through the use of technology-enhanced learning (TEL): the passive-participatory model [21] (**Figure 1**).

**47**

**Figure 1.**

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

*Levels of creative engagement in the passive-participatory model [21].*

In the passive-participatory model [21], we distinguish five types of uses of technology-enhanced learning according to the creative engagement of the learner: passive ICT usage, interactive ICT usage, individual content creation, co-creation of content, and, ultimately, participatory knowledge-based co-creation geared toward understanding or solving problems shared within a learning community. When learners are engaged in co-creative activities (levels 4 and 5), they share their experiences and knowledge, then they negotiate their relevance within the group over the problem they seek to understand and solve. In co-creative activities, learners are required to discuss more explicitly their ideas, decisions and evaluation of the intermediate solutions. By going through a more explicit process, learners can benefit from the creative think-aloud process of their team-mates. This process can lead participants to produce new content based on explanations provided or exposure to peer knowledge designs [22]. Such original productions then become digital media artifacts, such as text-based creations (e.g., when posted to a wiki), audiovisual creations (e.g., interactive video), multimedia (e.g., digital storytell-

ing), or a computer program (e.g., Scratch visual programming).

**8. Activities supporting the creative uses of technologies**

The uses of digital technologies do not automatically generate an increase in the quality of the learning activities or the performances; neither can we assume the positive effect of technologies in the creative processes and outcomes. The scientific literature offers several principles to consider when it comes to co-creation with digital technologies. The benefits of teamwork must first exceed the transaction costs of coordination and communication actions [23]. In addition, when using technologies collaboratively, it is important that the physical or digital environment [24] is conducive to interaction and that the teacher offers scaffolding to learners while modeling the competencies and attitudes required to correctly collaborate. Teachers should encourage leadership to promote the production and negotiation of meaning in learners [25]. Collaboration among learners should also allow for a mutual and sustained understanding of the object of study [26–28] where there are no restful interactions on a dynamic of domination or idea accumulation without arguments between the members of the team [29]. Moreover, Wegerif [30] emphasizes that it is important to consider the ways in which learners can interact online when the development of competencies is the main pedagogical intent, as is the case in this research. Thus, when collaborating with digital tools, the learner must have a space to step back and actively listen to other members' opinions,

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

**Figure 1.**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

virtual reality, or glue electrical components on puppets.

aspects of creativity as a contextual process [18].

**6. Creativity in all disciplines**

several points in common.

done and sometimes more flexibility in the process of realization. For example, when programming for the first time with software like Scratch, learners can make different productions, but they will have to work with the same blocks of code. Learners can create a story, a game, or a quiz. Conversely, the teacher may decide that learners should all create a story but leave them the choice of the best medium to tell their story supporting learners' agency. Learners can thus do theater with robots, create a book with augmented reality, create an audiovisual journey with

Moreover, although creativity is a crucial competency to develop in learners, it does not mean that learners must always be creative. The balance between conventional thinking and creative thinking is a more realistic goal. Some educational objectives can be better achieved by conventional ways of thinking. When learners want to understand specific French rules such as color adjectives, the teacher must conform to French conventions (even if it is possible to find a creative way to teach them these rules!). Teachers must also follow a prescribed curriculum, even if it can be applied flexibly. It is by considering these aspects that the psychologist of education at the University of Georgia, Mark Runco says that teachers should aim to develop post-conventional thinking [11]. This thinking refers to the ability of learners to understand established conventions while being able to make creative decisions emerging from a personal reflection process. Post-conventional thinking also refers to the learners' ability to understand context that is more supportive to creativity and contexts that are more conducive to conventional thinking. By focusing on the development of creativity while enabling learners to understand the contexts conducive to creativity, we will be able to get learners to understand that creativity is a competency that can develop in everyone and that must be deployed in the context in which we evolve. Context awareness and empathy are important

Creativity is more naturally associated to the artistic domains such the visual arts or literature. Despite this misconception, creativity can be developed in disciplines or domains that are not generally associated with creativity such as history, especially through the historical thinking approach [19] or science, through the maker education and STEAM approaches [18]. By considering the concept of creative margin, creativity can be developed through the study of discipline that may seem too rigid or based on immutable laws to let learners be creative and potentially miss important contents. History, for example, may seem too rigid when viewed as a mirror of the past. When viewed as an interpretative discipline where sources and testimonies serve as a breeding ground for fact-finding and development of deep understanding, then the historical inquiry process and the creative process have

We must distinguish digital uses that support the creativity of learners of digital uses that place the learner in a situation of passive consumption (like viewing educational videos) or interactive consumption (like quizzes). Based on the model of cognitive engagement developed by Chi and Wylie [20], we have developed a model of creative engagement through the use of technology-enhanced learning (TEL):

**7. Creative uses of technology-enhanced learning (TEL)**

the passive-participatory model [21] (**Figure 1**).

**46**

*Levels of creative engagement in the passive-participatory model [21].*

In the passive-participatory model [21], we distinguish five types of uses of technology-enhanced learning according to the creative engagement of the learner: passive ICT usage, interactive ICT usage, individual content creation, co-creation of content, and, ultimately, participatory knowledge-based co-creation geared toward understanding or solving problems shared within a learning community. When learners are engaged in co-creative activities (levels 4 and 5), they share their experiences and knowledge, then they negotiate their relevance within the group over the problem they seek to understand and solve. In co-creative activities, learners are required to discuss more explicitly their ideas, decisions and evaluation of the intermediate solutions. By going through a more explicit process, learners can benefit from the creative think-aloud process of their team-mates. This process can lead participants to produce new content based on explanations provided or exposure to peer knowledge designs [22]. Such original productions then become digital media artifacts, such as text-based creations (e.g., when posted to a wiki), audiovisual creations (e.g., interactive video), multimedia (e.g., digital storytelling), or a computer program (e.g., Scratch visual programming).

### **8. Activities supporting the creative uses of technologies**

The uses of digital technologies do not automatically generate an increase in the quality of the learning activities or the performances; neither can we assume the positive effect of technologies in the creative processes and outcomes. The scientific literature offers several principles to consider when it comes to co-creation with digital technologies. The benefits of teamwork must first exceed the transaction costs of coordination and communication actions [23]. In addition, when using technologies collaboratively, it is important that the physical or digital environment [24] is conducive to interaction and that the teacher offers scaffolding to learners while modeling the competencies and attitudes required to correctly collaborate. Teachers should encourage leadership to promote the production and negotiation of meaning in learners [25]. Collaboration among learners should also allow for a mutual and sustained understanding of the object of study [26–28] where there are no restful interactions on a dynamic of domination or idea accumulation without arguments between the members of the team [29]. Moreover, Wegerif [30] emphasizes that it is important to consider the ways in which learners can interact online when the development of competencies is the main pedagogical intent, as is the case in this research. Thus, when collaborating with digital tools, the learner must have a space to step back and actively listen to other members' opinions,

with the aim of creating a dialogue space for reflection [30]. The dialogical space in collaborative tools should be able to support the team-mates' discussion about their different perspectives, opinions, and ideas [31]. Supporting the team-mates' discussion can contribute to their understanding of intersubjectivity [32] during the co-creative process. The mediating tools [33] and the community also participate in structuring collaborative inquiry processes [34] to understand the shared object. As for the composition of the group, Webb and Palincsar [35] argue that heterogeneous groups in terms of expertise can be more productive in collaborative tasks. For effective collaboration, team members must also share responsibility for the learning process and shared purpose [36]. It is also important to pay attention to over-structuring the pedagogical sequence that can create a scripted collaboration [37] that does not have as much pedagogical potential. When properly designed and implemented, the collaborative use of educational technologies would allow learners to experience more achievements, to master more fact-based information, and to be better able to solve problems than when learning for individual use [38–40]. Learners also show a more positive attitude toward the subject and are more motivated to learn when they collaborate with the technologies than when they use them individually [40, 41]. Collaborative idea creation thus enables the advancement and enrichment of the ideas of the learner community and also allows the development of deep understanding [42]. The idea of creating knowledge is thus very important in the design of the collaboration.

### **9. Conclusion**

Developing creative competency for learners and teachers at the same time is an important goal of the educational system and lifelong learning to prepare younger generations to be the creators of knowledge, analysts, leaders, designers, digital citizens, computational thinkers, and the people of tomorrow. It is essential that this aim be reflected in the design of pedagogical sequences built by teachers and lived by learners to train children to the increased complexity of our world. Developing creativity competency is achieved through complex, creative, contextualized, dynamic, digital uses that transform the way we teach and, above all, transform the way learners learn [43]. Within this chapter, we have stressed the importance of moving from an individual way of developing creativity competency to embrace a more collective approach of this competency in order to increase the society capacity to better solve team-level challenges and also increase the citizens' capabilities to deal with societal and global challenges requiring the subject to engage in a creative attitude to overcome current difficulties.

### **Acknowledgements**

This study was supported by the CreaMaker project funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) in France (ANR-18-CE38-0001).

**49**

**Author details**

Margarida Romero

provided the original work is properly cited.

Nice, France

Laboratoire d'Innovation et Numérique pour l'Education, Université Côte d'Azur,

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*Address all correspondence to: margarida.romero@univ-cotedazur.fr

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

### **Conflict of interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

in the design of the collaboration.

attitude to overcome current difficulties.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

**9. Conclusion**

with the aim of creating a dialogue space for reflection [30]. The dialogical space in collaborative tools should be able to support the team-mates' discussion about their different perspectives, opinions, and ideas [31]. Supporting the team-mates' discussion can contribute to their understanding of intersubjectivity [32] during the co-creative process. The mediating tools [33] and the community also participate in structuring collaborative inquiry processes [34] to understand the shared object. As for the composition of the group, Webb and Palincsar [35] argue that heterogeneous groups in terms of expertise can be more productive in collaborative tasks. For effective collaboration, team members must also share responsibility for the learning process and shared purpose [36]. It is also important to pay attention to over-structuring the pedagogical sequence that can create a scripted collaboration [37] that does not have as much pedagogical potential. When properly designed and implemented, the collaborative use of educational technologies would allow learners to experience more achievements, to master more fact-based information, and to be better able to solve problems than when learning for individual use [38–40]. Learners also show a more positive attitude toward the subject and are more motivated to learn when they collaborate with the technologies than when they use them individually [40, 41]. Collaborative idea creation thus enables the advancement and enrichment of the ideas of the learner community and also allows the development of deep understanding [42]. The idea of creating knowledge is thus very important

Developing creative competency for learners and teachers at the same time is an important goal of the educational system and lifelong learning to prepare younger generations to be the creators of knowledge, analysts, leaders, designers, digital citizens, computational thinkers, and the people of tomorrow. It is essential that this aim be reflected in the design of pedagogical sequences built by teachers and lived by learners to train children to the increased complexity of our world. Developing creativity competency is achieved through complex, creative, contextualized, dynamic, digital uses that transform the way we teach and, above all, transform the way learners learn [43]. Within this chapter, we have stressed the importance of moving from an individual way of developing creativity competency to embrace a more collective approach of this competency in order to increase the society capacity to better solve team-level challenges and also increase the citizens' capabilities to deal with societal and global challenges requiring the subject to engage in a creative

This study was supported by the CreaMaker project funded by the Agence

Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) in France (ANR-18-CE38-0001).

**48**

### **Author details**

Margarida Romero Laboratoire d'Innovation et Numérique pour l'Education, Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France

\*Address all correspondence to: margarida.romero@univ-cotedazur.fr

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

### **References**

[1] Garrison DR. E-learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice. [Internet]. 2nd ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge; 2011 [cited 2019 Aug 30]. Available from: https://www. taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203838761

[2] Florida RL. The rise of the creative class: and how it's transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Nachdr. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2006. p. 434

[3] De Bono E. Serious creativity: using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Random House; 2015

[4] Sternberg RJ, Lubart TI. Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity. Free Press; 1995

[5] Peck J. Struggling with the creative class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2005;**29**(4):740-770

[6] Hesse F, Care E, Buder J, Sassenberg K, Griffin P. A framework for teachable collaborative problem solving skills. In: Griffin P, Care E, editors. Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills [Internet]. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer; 2015. [cited 2019 Aug 30]. p. 37-56. Available from: http://link.springer. com/10.1007/978-94-017-9395-7\_2

[7] Durpaire F, Mabilon-Bonfils B. La fin de l'école: l'ère du savoir-relation. 1re édition. Paris: Presses universitaires de France; 2014. 273 p

[8] Capron Puozzo I. La créativité en éducation et formation: Perspectives théoriques et pratiques. De Boeck. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; 2017

[9] Lytton H. Creativity and Education. [Internet]. London: Routledge; 2012. [cited 2019 Aug 30]. Available from: https://ezproxy.aub.edu.lb/ login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis. com/books/9781136669699

[10] Runco MA. Creativity and education. New Horizons in Education. 2008;**56**(1):n1

[11] Runco MA. Divergent thinking and creative potential. Perspectives on Creativity Research. New York, NY: Hampton Press; 2013. 425 p

[12] Sawyer RK, DeZutter S. Distributed creativity: How collective creations emerge from collaboration. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. 2009;**3**(2):81

[13] Romero M, Hyvönen P, Barberà E. Creativity in collaborative learning across the life span. Creative Education. 2012;**3**(4):422-429

[14] Fischer G, Giaccardi E, Eden H, Sugimoto M, Ye Y. Beyond binary choices: Integrating individual and social creativity. International Journal of Human Computer Studies. 2005;**63**(4):482-512

[15] Kirschner F, Paas F, Kirschner PA. A cognitive load approach to collaborative learning: United brains for complex tasks. Educational Psychology Review. 2009;**21**(1):31-42

[16] Mouchiroud C, Lubart T. Social creativity: A cross-sectional study of 6-to 11-year-old children. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2002;**26**(1):60-69

[17] Vygotsky LS, Rieber R, Carton A. The Collected Works of LS Vygotsky: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. Vol. 4. New York: Plenum Press; 1997

[18] Barma S, Romero M, Deslandes R. Implementing maker spaces to promote cross-generational sharing and learning. In: Romero M, Sawchuk K, Blat J, Sayago S, Ouellet H, editors. Gamebased learning across the lifespan:

**51**

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

[28] Roschelle J. Learning by

Sciences. 1992;**2**(3):235-276

[30] Wegerif R. A dialogic

understanding of the relationship between CSCL and teaching thinking

[31] Dillenbourg P, Baker MJ, Blaye A, O'Malley C. The Evolution of Research on Collaborative Learning. Oxford:

[32] Koschmann T. Dewey's contribution to the foundations of CSCL research. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a CSCL Community; International Society of the Learning Sciences; 2002. pp. 17-22

[33] Vygotsky LS. Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

[34] Sami P, Kai H. From meaning making to joint construction of knowledge practices and artefacts: A trialogical approach to CSCL. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning-Volume 1; International Society of the Learning

[35] Webb NM, Palincsar AS. Group Processes in the Classroom. In: Handbook of educational psychology. London, England: Prentice Hall International; 1996. p. 841-873

[36] Fransen J, Weinberger A,

Kirschner PA. Team effectiveness and

University Press; 1978

Sciences; 2009. pp. 83-92

skills. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative

Learning. 2006;**1**(1):143-157

1995. 135 p

Elsevier; 1995

collaborating: Convergent conceptual change. The Journal of the Learning

[29] Mercer N. The guided construction of knowledge: talk amongst teachers and learners. Clevedon, Avon, England ; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters;

cross-generational and age-oriented topics. Cham: Springer; 2017. p. 65-78

[19] Lille B, Romero M. Creativity assessment in the context of makerbased projects. Design and Technology Education: An International Journal.

[20] Chi MTH, Wylie R. The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational Psychologist.

[21] Romero M, Laferriere T, Power TM. The move is on! From the passive multimedia learner to the engaged co-creator. eLearn. 2016;**2016**(3):1

[22] Nizet I, Laferrière T. Description des modes spontanés de co-construction de connaissances: contributions à un forum électronique axé sur la pratique réflexive. Recherche & Formation. 2005;**48**:151-166

[23] Kirschner P, Kirschner F, Janssen J.

The collaboration principle in multimedia learning. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning.

[24] O'Donnell AM. Structuring dyadic interaction through scripted cooperation. Cognitive Perspectives on

[25] Pea RD. The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for learning, education, and human activity. The Journal of the Learning Sciences.

[26] Arrighi C, Ferrario R. Abductive reasoning, interpretation and

collaborative processes. Foundations of

[27] Clark HH, Wilkes-Gibbs D. Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition.

Peer Learning. 1999:179-196

2004;**13**(3):423-451

1986;**22**(1):1-39

Science. 2008;**13**(1):75-87

2014:547-575

2017;**22**(3):32-47

2014;**49**(4):219-243

*From Individual Creativity to Team-Based Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89126*

cross-generational and age-oriented topics. Cham: Springer; 2017. p. 65-78

[19] Lille B, Romero M. Creativity assessment in the context of makerbased projects. Design and Technology Education: An International Journal. 2017;**22**(3):32-47

[20] Chi MTH, Wylie R. The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational Psychologist. 2014;**49**(4):219-243

[21] Romero M, Laferriere T, Power TM. The move is on! From the passive multimedia learner to the engaged co-creator. eLearn. 2016;**2016**(3):1

[22] Nizet I, Laferrière T. Description des modes spontanés de co-construction de connaissances: contributions à un forum électronique axé sur la pratique réflexive. Recherche & Formation. 2005;**48**:151-166

[23] Kirschner P, Kirschner F, Janssen J. The collaboration principle in multimedia learning. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. 2014:547-575

[24] O'Donnell AM. Structuring dyadic interaction through scripted cooperation. Cognitive Perspectives on Peer Learning. 1999:179-196

[25] Pea RD. The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for learning, education, and human activity. The Journal of the Learning Sciences. 2004;**13**(3):423-451

[26] Arrighi C, Ferrario R. Abductive reasoning, interpretation and collaborative processes. Foundations of Science. 2008;**13**(1):75-87

[27] Clark HH, Wilkes-Gibbs D. Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition. 1986;**22**(1):1-39

[28] Roschelle J. Learning by collaborating: Convergent conceptual change. The Journal of the Learning Sciences. 1992;**2**(3):235-276

[29] Mercer N. The guided construction of knowledge: talk amongst teachers and learners. Clevedon, Avon, England ; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters; 1995. 135 p

[30] Wegerif R. A dialogic understanding of the relationship between CSCL and teaching thinking skills. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. 2006;**1**(1):143-157

[31] Dillenbourg P, Baker MJ, Blaye A, O'Malley C. The Evolution of Research on Collaborative Learning. Oxford: Elsevier; 1995

[32] Koschmann T. Dewey's contribution to the foundations of CSCL research. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a CSCL Community; International Society of the Learning Sciences; 2002. pp. 17-22

[33] Vygotsky LS. Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1978

[34] Sami P, Kai H. From meaning making to joint construction of knowledge practices and artefacts: A trialogical approach to CSCL. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning-Volume 1; International Society of the Learning Sciences; 2009. pp. 83-92

[35] Webb NM, Palincsar AS. Group Processes in the Classroom. In: Handbook of educational psychology. London, England: Prentice Hall International; 1996. p. 841-873

[36] Fransen J, Weinberger A, Kirschner PA. Team effectiveness and

**50**

*Toward Super-Creativity - Improving Creativity in Humans, Machines, and Human...*

[10] Runco MA. Creativity and

Hampton Press; 2013. 425 p

[13] Romero M, Hyvönen P,

Education. 2012;**3**(4):422-429

2005;**63**(4):482-512

2009;**21**(1):31-42

2002;**26**(1):60-69

2008;**56**(1):n1

2009;**3**(2):81

education. New Horizons in Education.

[12] Sawyer RK, DeZutter S. Distributed creativity: How collective creations emerge from collaboration. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Barberà E. Creativity in collaborative learning across the life span. Creative

[14] Fischer G, Giaccardi E, Eden H, Sugimoto M, Ye Y. Beyond binary choices: Integrating individual and social creativity. International Journal of Human Computer Studies.

[15] Kirschner F, Paas F, Kirschner PA. A cognitive load approach to collaborative learning: United brains for complex tasks. Educational Psychology Review.

[16] Mouchiroud C, Lubart T. Social creativity: A cross-sectional study of 6-to 11-year-old children. International Journal of Behavioral Development.

[17] Vygotsky LS, Rieber R, Carton A. The Collected Works of LS Vygotsky: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. Vol. 4. New York: Plenum Press; 1997

[18] Barma S, Romero M, Deslandes R. Implementing maker spaces to promote cross-generational sharing and learning. In: Romero M, Sawchuk K, Blat J, Sayago S, Ouellet H, editors. Gamebased learning across the lifespan:

[11] Runco MA. Divergent thinking and creative potential. Perspectives on Creativity Research. New York, NY:

[1] Garrison DR. E-learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice. [Internet]. 2nd ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge; 2011 [cited 2019 Aug 30]. Available from: https://www. taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203838761

[2] Florida RL. The rise of the creative class: and how it's transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Nachdr. New York, NY: Basic Books;

[3] De Bono E. Serious creativity: using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas. New York, NY, USA:

[4] Sternberg RJ, Lubart TI. Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity. Free Press; 1995

[5] Peck J. Struggling with the creative class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2005;**29**(4):740-770

[6] Hesse F, Care E, Buder J, Sassenberg K, Griffin P. A framework for teachable collaborative problem solving skills. In: Griffin P, Care E, editors. Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills [Internet]. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer; 2015. [cited 2019 Aug 30]. p. 37-56. Available from: http://link.springer. com/10.1007/978-94-017-9395-7\_2

[7] Durpaire F, Mabilon-Bonfils B. La fin de l'école: l'ère du savoir-relation. 1re édition. Paris: Presses universitaires de

[8] Capron Puozzo I. La créativité en éducation et formation: Perspectives théoriques et pratiques. De Boeck. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; 2017

[9] Lytton H. Creativity and Education.

[Internet]. London: Routledge; 2012. [cited 2019 Aug 30]. Available from: https://ezproxy.aub.edu.lb/ login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.

com/books/9781136669699

France; 2014. 273 p

Penguin Random House; 2015

2006. p. 434

**References**

Section 2

Creativity in Machines

53

team development in CSCL. Educational Psychologist. 2013;**48**(1):9-24

[37] Dillenbourg P. Over-Scripting CSCL: The Risks of Blending Collaborative Learning with Instructional Design. Heerlen: Open Universiteit Nederland; 2002

[38] Johnson DW, Johnson RT. Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research. MN, US: Interaction Book Company; 1989;viii:253

[39] Johnson DW, Johnson RT, Smith KA. Cooperative learning returns to college what evidence is there that it works? Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 1998;**30**(4):26-35

[40] Resta P, Laferrière T. Technology in support of collaborative learning. Educational Psychology Review. 2007;**19**(1):65-83

[41] Springer L, Stanne ME, Donovan SS. Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research. 1999;**69**(1):21-51

[42] Wiske MS, Sick M, Wirsig S. New technologies to support teaching for understanding. International Journal of Educational Research. 2001;**35**(5):483-501

[43] Kamga R, Romero M, Komis V, Mirsili A. Design requirements for educational robotics activities for sustaining collaborative problem solving. In: International Conference EduRobotics 2016; Springer, Cham; 2016. pp. 225-228

Section 2
