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ERIC Number: EJ1318659
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2079-3200
EISSN: N/A
Revealing the Role of Divergent Thinking and Fluid Intelligence in Children's Semantic Memory Organization
Rastelli, Clara; Greco, Antonino; Finocchiaro, Chiara
Journal of Intelligence, v8 Article 43 2020
The current theories suggest the fundamental role of semantic memory in creativity, mediating bottom-up (divergent thinking) and top-down (fluid intelligence) cognitive processes. However, the relationship between creativity, intelligence, and the organization of the semantic memory remains poorly-characterized in children. We investigated the ways in which individual differences in children's semantic memory structures are influenced by their divergent thinking and fluid intelligence abilities. The participants (mean age 10) were grouped by their levels (high/low) of divergent thinking and fluid intelligence. We applied a recently-developed Network Science approach in order to examine group-based semantic memory graphs. Networks were constructed from a semantic fluency task. The results revealed that divergent thinking abilities are related to a more flexible structure of the semantic network, while fluid intelligence corresponds to a more structured semantic network, in line with the previous findings from the adult sample. Our findings confirm the crucial role of semantic memory organization in creative performance, and demonstrate that this phenomenon can be traced back to childhood. Finally, we also corroborate the network science methodology as a valid approach to the study of creative cognition in the developmental population.
MDPI AG. Klybeckstrasse 64, 4057 Basel, Switzerland. e-mail: indexing@mdpi.com; e-mail: jintelligence@mdpi.com; Web site: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jintelligence
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Raven Progressive Matrices
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A