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Creative Malady by George Pickering (review)
- Leonardo
- The MIT Press
- Volume 10, Number 2, Spring 1977
- pp. 160-161
- Review
- Additional Information
160 Books As a branch of computer technology, 'pattern recognition' advanced rapidly in the 1950's and 1960's. enabling automatic recognition of printed characters, biomedical specimens, objects in military photographs, speech, etc. The process usually involves the extraction of features from the pattern followed by an attempt to classify it. These techniques have been supported by many developments in statistical theory, particularly in the development of 'optimal' recognition systems. Reed reviews those theories in psychology that provide an insight into pattern recognition by humans. He has adopted an 'information processing model' that at many points is close in character to that used in computer science. He does not present much experimental evidence for an information processing model of human pattern recognition; instead he assumes the model to be appropriate and uses the evidence to show us how it works. Indeed, the model provides such a workable convention that it readily disappears into the background. Its influence. however. is strong. Many papers on automatic pattern recognition start with 'let there be a vector of measurements X = (rl, .xZ.. . .,.xn)' and then seek to classify the object so measured into one of (cI,cz. . . .,c,,,) classes, but they do not treat objects that might be measured or measurements that might be appropriate. I am reminded of this by the way.Reed repeatedly refers to features and classes in an abstract way that has doubtlessly facilitated the growth of a consistent hypothesis. Danger lurks here, for in computer science the feature-classification paradigm has spawned a flourishing hypothesisthat has left application behind. Maybe it is the wrong hypothesis. It has proved weak in describing form, recognizing scenes and dealing with space and movement. I note that these topics are more or less absent from Reed's book. which describes many experiments that rarely go beyond matching, scanning. recognizing and classifying of mainly simple shapes. alphabetic characters and words. Reed intends his book primarily for graduate students and psychologists interested in the problem of pattern recognition and human information processing. It makes very concentrated reading and requires study. His avoidance of mathematics and his way of describing other researchers' work within a single framework and terminology does make the book readable by a wider audience. Essays in Creativity. Stanley Rosner and Lawrence Edwin Abt. eds. North River Press. Croton-on-Hudson. N.Y.. 1974. 214 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by James Scott* This book contains essays that talk urowid the subject of creativity: some specific, yet wide-ranging. aspects of the creative process and also the role of motivation within the process are treated. In Notes on Creativity. Rudolf Arnheim gives some historical precedents for certain aspects of the creative process and extrapolates them into a description ofcreativity based on 'visual thinking' The relationship between the conscious and unconscious processcs involved in creative thinking is excellently presented. He also discusses some of the key ingredients in the creative process such as spontaneity. conscious preparation and the necessity of making conceptual connections between seemingly diverse ideas. I find that he tends to underemphasize the conccptual aspect of visual art and, as a result. he fails to account for certain contemporary trends in art such as 'idea art'. In The Snail beneath the Shell, Mary Henle discussescreativity as a process concerned with posing questions and seeking answers. Emphasis is placed on the importance of problemformulation . which is seen a s :I kind of initiation of the creative process. Beforc a creative solution can be found. the 'right' question must be asked. She does not discuss how the results of creative problem-solving are to be evaluated. Unitersal to Unique by David Feldman contains a good description of the relationship of Piaget's stage-advance hypothesis to the cultural and educational implications of creativity. Feldman makes a distinction between that which is creative in ii universal sense and that which is unique to an individual. He contends that one aspect of a 'powerful creative *3051 2 Brkn Mawr Dr. S. E.. Albuquerque, NM X7106, U.S.A. ~~ -~~~ thought' is its ability to extend existing bodies of knowledge. Thus 'productivity' and 'affecting others' are seen as essential for a creative act of universal significance. Although the essay...