A machine that createsA machine that createsA machine that createsA machine that creates

Włodzisław Duch & CoWłodzisław Duch & Co

Katedra informatyki StosowanejKatedra informatyki Stosowanej, , Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, ToruńUniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń

DepDept.t. of Comp of Comp.. Sci, School of Computer Sci, School of Computer EngineeringEngineering, ,

Nanyang Nanyang Technological UniversityTechnological University

Google: DuchGoogle: Duch

PlanPlan

1. Most mysterious … 2. Creativity research: psychology and

neuroscience.3. Intuition and insight.4. Neurocognitive model of higher mental

functions.5. Words in the brain.6. Creation of novel words, puzzles and word

games. 7. Creativity research - perspectives.

Most mysterious Most mysterious … … What features of our brain/minds are most mysterious?

Consciousness? Imagination? Intuition? Emotions, feelings? Higher mental functions?

Masao Ito (director of RIKEN, neuroscientist): creativity. Lady Lovelace (Turing 1950) wrote about Babbage analytical engine: „It cannot originate anything, it merely does that which we order it to do”.

MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences has 1100 pages.

It has 6 chapters about logics & over 100 references to logics in the index. Creativity: 1 page (+1 page about „creative person”). Intuition: 0, not even mentioned in the index.

In everyday life we use intuition more often than logics.

What are we talking aboutWhat are we talking about? ? How to define creativity?

Bink & Marsh (2001): the number of definitions of „creativity” is equal to the number of researchers that study this subject.

M. Boden (1991): creativity is „a matter of using one’s computational resources to explore, and sometimes to break out of, familiar conceptualspaces.” We may distinguish two dimensions of creativity: H-creativity, new ideas in the history of mankind; vs. P-creativity, new ideas for the agent who generated them.E-creativity, incremental, combinatorial creativity based on exploration of concept spaces, vs. T-creativity, transformation of conceptual foundation, paradigm change.

Sternberg (Handbook of Human Creativity, 1998): „the capacity to create a solution that is both novel and appropriate”, not only in creation of novel theories or inventions, but permeates our everyday actions, understanding of language and interactions among people.

Creativity researchCreativity researchCreativity researchCreativity researchCreativity research lies mostly in the domain of philosophers, educators and psychologists, including Eysenck, Weisberg, or Sternberg.

M.A. Boden, The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (Abacus 1991).

Theories of Creativity (Sage, 1990), eds. M.A. Runco & S. AlbertHandbook of Human Creativity (CUP, 1998), eds. R.J. Sternberg Encyclopedia of creativity (Elsevier, 2005), eds. M. Runco & S. Pritzke, 167 articles, but no testable models of creativity have been proposed.

Journals:

Creativity Research Journal, from 1988, LEA.

Journal of Creative Behavior, from 1967, Creative Education Foundation.

Connections: intelligence, IQ tests, special gifts, genius, psychopathologies (cyclophrenia is 10x more frequent among creative writers than in general population), intuition, insight (Eureka or Aha!), etc.

Psychology of Psychology of creativitycreativity

Psychology of Psychology of creativitycreativity

G. Wallas, The art of thought (1926): four-stage Gestalt model of problem solving. 4 stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification.

These stages were identified in creative problem solving by individuals and small groups of people; additional stages may involve: preparation stage preceded by finding or noticing a problem, proposing interesting questions, frustration period preceding illumination, final stage of communication that follows the verification stage.

Understanding details of such stages and sequences yielding creative productions is a central issue for creativity research, but is it sufficient?

Poincare (1948): math intuition and creativity is a discrimination between promising and useless ideas and their combinations; math thinking may be based on heuristic search among sufficiently rich representations. Math intuition is an interplay between spatial imagination, abstraction and approximate reasoning, and analytical reasoning or visual-spatial and linguistic thinking, observed in fMRI imaging (Dehaene, 1999).

IntuitionIntuitionIntuitionIntuitionIntuition is also a concept difficult to grasp, but commonly believed to play important role in business and other decision making; „knowing without being able to explain how we know”.

Sinclair & Ashkanasy (2005): intuition is a „non-sequential information-processing mode, which comprises both cognitive and affective elements and results in direct knowing without any use of conscious reasoning”.

First tests of intuition were introduced by Wescott (1961), now 3 tests are used, Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI), Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and Accumulated Clues Task (ACT).

Different intuition measures are not correlated, showing problems in constructing theoretical concept of intuition. Significant correlations were found between REI intuition scale and some measures of creativity. Intuition may result from implicit learning of complex similarity-based evaluation that are difficult to express in symbolic (logical) way. For example, intuition in chess has been studied.

Insights and brainsInsights and brainsInsights and brainsInsights and brainsActivity of the brain while solving problems that required insight and that could be solved in schematic, sequential way has been investigated. E.M. Bowden, M. Jung-Beeman, J. Fleck, J. Kounios, „New approaches to demystifying insight”. Trends in Cognitive Science 2005.

After solving a problem presented in a verbal way subjects indicated themselves whether they had an insight or not.

An increased activity of the right hemisphere anterior superior temporal gyrus (RH-aSTG) was observed during initial solving efforts and insights. About 300 ms before insight a burst of gamma activity was observed, interpreted by the authors as „making connections across distantly related information during comprehension ... that allow them to see connections that previously eluded them”.

Insight interpretedInsight interpretedInsight interpretedInsight interpreted

What really happens? My interpretation:

• LH-STG represents concepts, S=Start, F=final• understanding, solving = transition, step by step, from S to F• if no connection (transition) is found this leads to an impasse; • RH-STG ‘sees’ LH activity on meta-level, clustering concepts into

abstract categories (cosets, or constrained sets);• connection between S to F is found in RH, leading to a feeling of

vague understanding; • gamma burst increases the activity of LH representations for S, F

and intermediate configurations; • stepwise transition between S and F is found;• finding solution is rewarded by emotions during Aha! experience;

they are necessary to increase plasticity and create permanent links.

Commercial breakCommercial breakCommercial breakCommercial breakIs creativity based on unconstrained imagination, no rules?

No! Anarchist type of methods encouraging unstructured approach (free associations, brainstorming, random stimulation or lateral thinking) fail, while structured approaches, based on higher-order rules and templates, lead to excellent results; see:

Goldenberg, Mazursky & Solomon, Science 285, 1999.J. Goldenberg & D. Mazursky, Creativity in Product Innovation, CUP 2002

270 possible traits (T) were collected from adds in magazines; 900 symbols (S) that people associated with these traits were collected.3-4 most common symbols were finally selected for each trait.Replacement schema for advertising of product P:

1. Define the relevant trait T for a given product P. 2. List symbols S that completely and unquestionably invoke T. 3. Construct P-space of objects that are strongly correlated with P.

4. Substitute an aspect A of one of the objects in place of the corresponding aspect of S.

Some addsSome addsSome addsSome addsIdeas generated by the automated routine were presented to judges, along with ideas on the same theme appearing in magazine ads and advertising ideas generated by layman individuals.

Magazine ads: 2.880.55, templates 2.890.48, laymens 2.220.43

Examples of some adds:

• An Apple Computer terminal offering flowers (for advertising Apple Computers friendliness).

• Temple Mountain Mosque with Tennis ball texture (for advertising World Cup Tennis Tournament in Jerusalem).

• A cuckoo in the shape of a plane emerging from the cuckoo clock (for advertising the time accuracy of an airline company).

• Two Jeeps communicating in sign language (for silent car engine).

• A bullet shaped car (for fast car).

Memory & creativityMemory & creativityMemory & creativityMemory & creativityCreative brains accept more incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment (Carson 2003), with low levels of latent inhibition responsible for filtering stimuli that were irrelevant in the past. This may be related to more complex representation of objects and situations in creative minds. Zen mind, beginners mind (S. Suzuki).

Pairwise word association technique may be used to probe if a connection between different configuraitons representing concepts in the brain exists.

A. Gruszka, E. Nęcka, Creativity Research Journal, 2002.

Words may be close (easy) or distant (difficult) to connect; priming words may be helpful or neutral; helpful words are either semantic or phonological (hogse for horse); neutral words may be nonsensical or just not related to the presented pair.

Results for groups of people who are less/highly creative are surprising …

Word 1 Priming 0,2 s Word 2

Creativity & associationsCreativity & associationsCreativity & associationsCreativity & associationsHypothesis: creativity depends on the associative memory, ability to connect distant concepts together. Results: creativity is correlated with greater ability to associate words & susceptibility to priming, distal associations show longer latencies before decision is made.

Neutral priming is strange!

• for close words and nonsensical priming words creative people do worse than less creative; in all other cases they do better.

• for distant words priming always increases the ability to find association, the effect is strongest for creative people. Latency times follow this strange patterns.

Conclusions of the authors:

More synaptic connections => better associations => higher creativity.

Results for neutral priming are puzzling.

Words in the brainWords in the brainWords in the brainWords in the brainThe cell assembly model of language has strong experimental support; F. Pulvermuller (2003) The Neuroscience of Language. On Brain Circuits of Words and Serial Order. Cambridge University Press.

Acoustic signal => phonemes => words => semantic concepts.Semantic activations are seen 90 ms after phonological in N200 ERPs.

Phonological density of words = # words that sound similar to a given word, that is create similar activations in phonological areas.

Semantic density of words = # words that have similar meaning, or similar extended activation network.

Perception/action networks, results from ERP & fMRI.

Words: simple modelWords: simple modelWords: simple modelWords: simple modelGoals: • make the simplest testable model of creativity; • create interesting novel words that capture some features of products;• understand new words that cannot be found in the dictionary.

Model inspired by the putative brain processes when new words are being invented. Start from keywords priming auditory cortex.

Phonems (allophones) are resonances, ordered activation of phonemes will activate both known words as well as thier combinations; context + inhibition in the winner-takes-most leaves one or a few words.

Creativity = imagination (fluctuations) + fitering (competition)

Imagination: many chains of phonemes activate in parallel both words and non-words reps, depending on the strenght of synaptic connections. Filtering: associations, emotions, phonological/semantic density.

Paired associationsPaired associationsPaired associationsPaired associationsSo why neutral priming for close associations and nonsensical priming words degreads results of creative people?

Low creativity = weak associations (connections) between microcircuits; adding noise (nonsensical words) increases activity in between facilitating connections, but for a network that is densely connected, and close words, adding noise creates confusion, activating too many circuits.

Distant associations are not helped by noise if creativity is low because there are no connections, priming words contribute only to chaos. For creative people resonance between distant microcircuits is possible: this is called stochastic resonance !

For priming words with similar spelling and close words the activity of the second word representation is higher, always increasing the chance of connections and decreasing latency. For distant words it will not help, as intermediate configurations are not activated, as in the case of nonsensical words that increase overall activity in the intermediate configurations.

Words: algorithmWords: algorithmWords: algorithmWords: algorithmNeural resonant models (~ ARTWORD), or associative nets.Simplest things first => statistical model.

Preliminary: • create probability models for linking phonemes and syllables;• create semantic and phonological distance measures for words.

Statistical algorithm to find novel words:

• Read initial pool of keywords.

• Find phonological and semantic associations to increase the pool.

• Break all words into chains of phonemes, and chains of morphemes.

• Find all combinations of fragments forming longer chunks ranked according to their phonological probability (using bi- or tri-grams).

• For final ranking use estimation of semantic density around morphemes in the newly created words.

Words: experimentsWords: experimentsWords: experimentsWords: experimentsA real letter from a friend: I am looking for a word that would capture the following qualities: portal to new worlds of imagination and creativity, a place where visitors embark on a journey discovering their inner selves, awakening the Peter Pan within. A place where we can travel through time and space (from the origin to the future and back), so, its about time, about space, infinite possibilities.FAST!!! I need it sooooooooooooooooooooooon.

creativital, creatival (creativity, portal), used in creatival.comcreativery (creativity, discovery), creativery.com (strategy+creativity)discoverity = {disc, disco, discover, verity} (discovery, creativity, verity)digventure ={dig, digital, venture, adventure} still new! imativity (imagination, creativity); infinitime (infinitive, time) infinition (infinitive, imagination), already a company namejournativity (journey, creativity) learnativity (taken, see http://www.learnativity.com)portravel (portal, travel); sportal (space, sport, portal), taken timagination (time, imagination); timativity (time, creativity)tivery (time, discovery); trime (travel, time)

Word gamesWord gamesWord gamesWord gamesWord games that were popular before computer games took over. Word games are essential to the development of analytical thinking skills. Until recently computer technology was not sufficient to play such games.

The 20 question game may be the next great challenge for AI, because it is more realistic than the unrestricted Turing test; a World Championship with human and software players in Singapore?

Finding most informative questions requires knowledge and creativity.

Performance of various models of semantic memory and episodic memory may be tested in this game in a realistic, difficult application.

Asking questions to understand precisely what the user has in mind is critical for search engines and many other applications.

Creating large-scale semantic memory is a great challenge: ontologies, dictionaries (Wordnet), encyclopedias, MindNet (Microsoft), collaborative projects like Concept Net (MIT) …

Humanized interface

Store

Applications, eg. 20 questions game

Query

Semantic memory

Parser

Part of speech tagger& phrase extractor

On line dictionaries

Manual

verification

DREAM architecture DREAM architecture

Natural input

modules Cognitive functions

Affectivefunctions

Web/text/databases interface

Behavior control

Control of devices

Talking head

Text to speechNLP

functions

Specializedagents

DREAM is concentrated on the cognitive functions + real time control, we plan to adopt software from the HIT project for perception, NLP, and other functions.

Puzzle generatorPuzzle generatorPuzzle generatorPuzzle generator

Semantic memory may be used to invent automatically a large number of word puzzles that the avatar presents. This application selects a random concept from all concepts in the memory and searches for a minimal set of features necessary to uniquely define it; if many subsets are sufficient for unique definition one of them is selected randomly.

It has charm, it has spin, and it has charge. What is it?

It is an Amphibian, it is orange and has black spots. How do you call this animal?

A Salamander.

If you do not know, ask Google!Quark page comes at the top …

Rozumienie tekstówRozumienie tekstówRozumienie tekstówRozumienie tekstów

Próbujemy rozwinąć neurokognitywne podejście do rozumienia języka w oparciu o koncepcję grafów spójnych koncepcji, aktywnej części pamięci semantycznej z hamowaniem i rozchodzeniem się aktywacji.

Dla tekstów medycznych mamy >2 mln koncepcji, 15 mln relacji …

Przyszłość?Przyszłość?Przyszłość?Przyszłość?Potrzebujemy szczegółowego modelu opartego na rezonansach (np. ART.)Te same zasady obowiązują w projektowaniu i innych domenach: wyobraźnia ograniczona jest przez wiedzę, rezultaty … filtrowane przez…?Porównania tworzenia słów dla zabawek, programów, serwerów WWW itd. ze słowami tworzonymi przez ludzi. Porównania wyników gry w 20 pytań – na ile dobrze radzą sobie z tym ludzie a na ile programy? Jest tylko jeden komercyjny program 20Q.Mistrzostwa świata w grach słownych?Co naprawdę dzieje się w mózgu?

Badania przy użyciu EPR i fMRI aktywności mózgu w czasie tworzenia nowych słów i słuchania nowych słów – droga do badań kreatywności?

Zastosowania neurokognitywnego NLP:

• gry słowne w telefonach, grach itp.

• tworzenie nazw, które można zastrzec;

• nadzieja na osiągnięcie kompetencji człowieka w rozumieniu tekstów?