That's a good series of questions, though I think the crux lies in your closers. Cognitive flexibility is a tricky concept to nail down. Are you referring to the flexibility associated with intact prefrontal circuitry and usually defined by its absence (perseveration)? Or to the flexibility alluded to in the creativity literature? Arguably they are aspects of the same underlying construct, but I'm not even sure anybody has established this. And there is no obvious correspondence between (say) a sound performance on the Wisconsin Card Sort Test and a high Flexibility score on the Figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking.

Aside from the neuropsychological literature and that on creativity, the only other place where you might find anything would be in the Art Therapy journals. But there's very little good empirical research there, alas.

To Stephen's point, more clarity on how you define 'cognitive flexibility' would be helpful in answering your questions. My guess is that you are thinking about it in terms of creative thinking and ability to overcome things like functional fixedness, for example.

If that is the case, I do recall there being a correlation between positive mood and creative thinking/ flexibility. Art therapy sounds very much like an activity that would inspire a calm, positive mood, which is just right for 'letting the ideas flow'. Further, the task in art therapy is to use one thing (paints) to represent another thing (the object) or no specific thing at all. That puts the brain in a particular functional state that, I speculate, encourages flexibility in the barriers between usually distinct and unrelated concepts. Looking at things in a new way, is, I think, another way to say "cognitive flexibility".

Beyond my speculations and recall, if you are interested in exploring the link further in research, I have some recommendations. First, if creativity is what you are looking for, look for a copy of or chapters from "The Creativity Handbook" by R. J. Sternberg. This should be composed of top-quality research reports and presentations, but I haven't read it myself to be able to confirm. I have read and highly recommend the research by Barbara Frederickson on positive emotions/moods and work performance. You can find her "Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being" article in the journal Prevention and Treatment online at journals.apa.org/prevention. That should give you further references to explore. I think her "What good are positive emotions" article in 98's Review of General Psychology (pp. 300-319) covers the link between positive moods and cognitive flexibility through a review of several articles you will likely find of interest. It could be a different article of hers, however.

Stephen already mentions two tests. I'm not really sure but The Wincinsin Card sorting test is to find dysfunctions of the brain. (Don't shoot me I'm no pro) What I've found is that in the most researches they use the Torrance test. http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb/r546/modules/creativity/creativity_tests/torrance_test.html

This is an interesting publication in my opinion, maybe you'll like it.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103112000212

I don't know if this is helpful, I hope it is.

Best,

Kyrr

You may find this video interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDC7Jpf8f4E

Peter Lovatt discusses how improv dance can enhance flexible problem solving, vs how structured dance can enhance more structured problem solving.

Thanks for sharing the video, Tumay. This supports my earlier speculations.

Stephen,

My apologies for not replying to your answer earlier. I agree with you that how we think about cognitive flexibility, operationalise and measure this is vitally important. Are you talking about how the PFC has been found to assign stimuli into categories based upon semantic categories (Pan, et al 2012) and what do you mean by "the flexibility alluded to in the creativity literature"? I have thought for a some time that the construct of creativity must be of two major sub-types. The first of these could be thought of as an overall personality characteristic ands refers to a person's usual degree of creative thinking and practice across many different behavioural areas. The second type is more specific and relates to specific kinds of creativity. I am not sure if there needs to be two types of creativity but this appeals to me. For example, selective responses by cells in the visual cortex to specific types of visual stimuli seems to potentially restrict or at least influence creative in specific senses, whilst the research quoted above on the PFC seems to relate to a more general dispositional creativity.

Hi Paul -

I probably wasn't being especially clear or precise. But when I wrote about flexibility in the creativity literature, I was thinking of the scoring system for the Torrance Tests, in particular the Verbal form. Here, the test-taker offers a number of "solutions" to a "problem." Three scores are derived for each problem: (1`) Fluency (the number of discrete responses), (2) Originality (the number of uncommon responses), and (3) Flexibility (the number of conceptual categories into which the responses fall).

What I've never been 100% sure of is the extent to which this form of flexibility correlates with other measures of mental flexibility - whether inversely (with perseveration) or positively (with resistance to premature closure, say).

With regard to your second point: There is a certain amount of debate over whether there is a general disposition toward originality/creativity vs. whether creativity is more domain-specific. Baer's work from the 1990s promulgated the domain-specific view, though he has moderated this in recent tears. Like you, I think each idea has merit. I'd be inclined to place them hierarchically, as it were, much as a single broad personality trait may have several facets, or general intelligence may be divided according to the type of problem being solved.

Thanks everybody for all your comments.

Hi Paul, I have a bit thought to share in particular about whether if some art forms are more effective than others. I assume the reason you ask is because you may see it in this way perspectively. 'some art forms are more effective than others' is a phenomenon we have observed. In my opinion, individuality is one of the main cause, as every individual is different in the way perceiving the world as well we evaluating and being affected by art. Some people are sensitive to particular art forms and being bovine to others due to the gene they carry into the world which has determined who they are. So, using another phenomenon to explain it that there is no single person can understand all art forms, across from music, visual art, novel, performing art... In other words, apart from there is some thing fundamental we all share as human, there is no any single art form can triumph/affect on all human/individuals. And the phenomenon/illusion of 'some art forms are more effective than others' is due to many exterior reasons, such as the fashion of the day of the society, the quality of the artwork and so on. To sum up, all art forms are equally effective as they are all material based. Meanwhile, there is a 'favorite and more effective art forms' appearing at different time, different society temporarily and subjectively.

Thanks Peng.

Dear Colleague:

Among several questions I answer two:

„is there evidence that art stimulate flexibility more than non-art visual inputs or activities?”and

„is it creating or viewing art that encourages flexibility or are other forms of creative practice (reading, writing or just some form of non-creative neutral activity) have just as much impact?”

I think artistic activity is more stimulating, than reading alone. An example is: I use special booklets for parzicipants when a field work is organized. Classical way is that there is a prospectus, which gives introduction to the region you plan to visit. Even if it is full of images, no stimulating force exist in it. The stimulation is only: go and see it.

However, I am a teacher, so I made a booklet, where you can connect reading and painting activity, by coloring the field work booklet. For example I made a booklet of a region of Hungary called Southern Trans Danubia. I sjetched ca. 150 images in it. You can read this booklet and color it. One final form of coloring has been given by the partially colored pages in the following website of the Researchgate:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261948647_Southern_Trans-Danubia_Del-Dunantul

I think your visit in villages, museums, churches, caves, toos, folkart communities, and several other sites is more xciting if your activity gloues impressions and the on site experiences.

Article Southern Trans-Danubia (Dél-Dunántúl).