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Creativity Creatividad K Meredith Beattie and Sherard Cheung University of California, San Diego

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Does Bilingualism affect Creativity? Why?

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Research Purpose Is there a correlation between bilingualism and performance on creativity tasks?

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How to Operationally define Creativity? 1.Fluency 2.Originality 3.Elaboration 4.Flexibility (Torrance, 2000 )

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The Torrance Tests of Creativity TTCT: ATTA: Essentially, you have to do a number of tasks, and the more points you receive, the higher your level of creativity Activity IActivity IIActivity IIIActivity IV Activity V VerbalAsk-and- Guess Product improveme nt Unusual usesUnusual questions Just suppose FiguralPicture construction Picture completion Repeated figures of lines or circles Activity IActivity IIActivity III VerbalUnusual question FiguralPicture construction/ Completion Repeated figures of triangles Torrance, 1966, 1974, 1990, 1998; Torrance & Ball, 1984

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ATTA Verbal JUST SUPPOSE you could walk on air or fly without being in an airplane or similar vehicle. What problems might this create? List as many as you can?

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List of Common Responses (42) Air sickness, could get Airplane industry, destroy/reduce/close Auto industry, destroy/reduce Bathroom in the air, cant use Breathe easily, cannot/suffocate Collisions, air-to-air Crowded, air would become Oxygen, loss/lack of Privacy, loss/no Run into buildings, trees, houses, bugs Tired, would get Traffic jams in the air UFO, people might think you were Wet, would get

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ATTA Figural See how many objects or pictures you can make from the triangles below, just as you did with the incomplete figures. Remember to create titles for your pictures.

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Common Responses (28) Boat Body, person Face, person Hat House Ice-cream cone Mountain Pyramid Rocket Tent Tree Triangle

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Lack of: - Originality - Elaboration - Flexibility

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1. Scoring richness and/or colorfulness of imagery 2. Combination/synthesis of 2 or more figures 3. Expressions of emotions 4. Fantasy

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Results 1. Bilinguals outperform monolinguals 2. High-proficient bilinguals outperform low-proficient bilinguals

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Bilinguals outperform Monolinguals on Standardized Creativity Tests (Carringer, 1974), (Kharkhurin, 2009)

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(Carringer, 1974)

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High-Proficient Bilinguals Outperform Low-Proficient Bilinguals Creativity Performance Index (TCTT ) Degree of Bilingualism (Kharkhurin, 2008, 2011 )

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Confounds Culture Correlation Age Gender SES Intelligence Motivation Immigrant Status

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Culture Bi-Cultural Effect: Perhaps bilinguals are scoring higher than monolinguals on these tasks due to the influence of two cultural experiences, NOT two languages

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Correlation NOT Causation All studies were based on a pre-existing condition of bilingualism (i.e. did not use any form of experimental manipulation) Performance measures (TTCT) represent a correlation between bilingualism and creativity But is the nature of interchangeably using, speaking, and thinking in two different languages CAUSING bilinguals to be more creative?

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Pre-test and Post-test Test Group: Monolinguals spend 1+ years learning a foreign language Control group: Monolinguals spend 1+ years learning something OTHER THAN a foreign language Randomly Assigned Cons Extensive time required More expensive

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Conclusion OVERALL These findings suggest that bilingualism should not be related to creativity as a unitary concept but, rather, to the specific processes and mechanisms that underlie creativity

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Thank you, Gracias, Merci, C ., ,