2005. vol. 2. No. 4

The author traces the development of the subject category in the school of the Russian philosopher and psychologist, S.L. Rubinstein. According to the author, Rubinstein transformed the Hegelian category of the subject, which signified a source of activity, self-determined motion and self-development, into an ontological one. In the work of Rubinstein's followers, its meaning went through a number of stages. The author comes to a conclusion that what is often perceived as psychology' crisis — its seemingly contradictory tendencies — are due in fact to the spread of a new, «subject paradigm», or the subject as a new methodological principle.

The authors develop a new approach to the brain mechanisms of speech and perception  based on the hypothesis that speech and perception are forms of one common structure — «language structure». In contrast with speech, which often appears the most developed and «genuine» form of language, perception seems only indirectly linked to the latter.  For this reason, the article focuses on perception as a particular form of language, and it analyses recent theoretical and empirical research. Perception can be described as a «visual language» with its own alphabet (characters), morphology (parts of the «visual speech» — visual syllables, words and combinatory rules) and with its own visual syntax (punctuation marks).

The power of the unaided individual mind is highly overrated. Much human creativity is social, arising from activities that take place in a social context in which interaction with other people and the artifacts that embody collective knowledge are essential contributors. Social creativity is not a luxury but a necessity to address the problems faced by societies in the 21st century. Our research has focused specifically on complex design problems requiring the contributions of many stakeholders. We have developed socio-technical environments supporting these objectives in the specific contexts of urban planning, collaborative learning, and collaborative software design. This paper concludes with a brief description of research directions and activities in the USA related to these aspects of creativity.

The article introduces a new direction in creativity studies, the reflexive psychology. It describes the historical antecedents and theoretical foundations of the new area, the results of experimental research and its application to education and management. A special attention is given to drawing the typology of psychological and educational interventions that aim at boosting creativity with the help of the original psychotechnologies (of igrorefleksika, or game reflexivity). The author demonstrates that his reflexive psychology can be constructive in such interconnected areas of the human sciences as reflexive acmeology and the pedagogy of creativity.

The creative process refers to the sequence of thoughts and actions that lead to original, adaptive productions. After a brief description of the classic four‑stage model, we discuss the evolution of research on the creative process during the past fifty years. Two empirical studies are presented, illustrating a multivariate approach. The first focuses on the extent to which original ideas come at certain moments in the creative process.  The second study provides support for emotional resonance as part of the creative process.

This article aims at introducing the Berlin Intelligence Structure test for the diagnosis of giftedness (BIS-HB; Jäger, Holling, Preckel, Schulze, Vock, Suß & Beauducel, 2005). Based on the underlying facet model of Jäger (e.g., 1967, 1982), the BIS-HB is the latest version of a sequence of developed instruments, and it meets high standards of test construction and validation. The test is especially suitable for the identification of high intelligence and allows for the assessment of a broad range of abilities. A particular emphasis of this article is on the psychological construct of creativity, which has long been the focus of both theoreticians and psychometricians (e.g., Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). Creativity is firmly founded within the BIS-model, and thus the exploration of research questions linking the constructs of (academic) intelligence and creativity is made possible.

The author locates contemporary studies of social intelligence in the area of creativity and giftedness, and he suggests a theoretical model of social competence.

The author presents the theoretical framework and supporting studies from her work: the Discovering Intellectual Strengths and Capabilities while Observing Varied Ethnic Responses (DISCOVER) Projects. She posits that problem solving is a key idea in theories of intelligence and theories of creativity, and shows how a continuum of problem types can be used to compare measurements. The perception of intelligence and creativity as separate constructs may be due to the different ways problem solving is defined and measured. Four recent studies are reviewed. One study provides validation for the problem continuum in mathematics, and another study shows the contribution of age, schooling, and domain-specific knowledge to creativity in math. Two studies of the DISCOVER curriculum model show its positive effects on student achievement and one study shows the developmental path of creativity in cultural minority students in classrooms with traditional and non-traditional pedagogy.

The concept of the intensity of artistic life provides answers to the question of how a great artist affects the evolution of artistic life. Upon the earlier analysis (based on the creativity of 4511 European composers of the XVI-XX centuries) we concluded that there are six versions of evolution of the intensity parameters: rise, decline, dissipation, accumulation, external growth, external destruction. The version of evolution often seems to be «made» almost exclusively by this small group of composers. We regard this phenomenon as an «evolutionary genius». To measure the «evolutionary genius» we would suggest a method based on the concepts of fuzzy sets. The most favorable version for evolutionary genius is rise. Accumulation is a less favorable version for evolutionary genius. The other versions of evolution are unfavorable for evolutionary genius.

This article describes the major results from investigations of the neuropsychology, personality, and cognition of creativity. Extreme groups, high and low in creativity were selected by the Creative Functioning Test (CFT). They were tested on anxiety and defense mechanisms. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured during three tasks: Automatic speech, word fluency (FAS), and unusual uses (Brick). The high creative group had more anxiety, more projection, and higher defense sum, than the low creative group. Defense sum was positively correlated with CFT fluency. Differences between groups were found in all prefrontal regions, when blood flows during FAS and during Brick were compared. The high creative group had bilateral increases, or no change, while the low creative group had decreases. The results were discussed in terms of higher basal arousal in creative people, a creative defensive style, and interactions between complementary brain areas.

The author examines C. Ryff’s theory of psychological well-being and its main method, the Well-Being Scale, the latter with the help of factorial analysis. He suggests a new content and structure of the same concept.