This simple word test reveals how creative you are, scientists say

[W_HAMILTON]

CNN — Creativity is a uniquely human quality that’s difficult to define and, perhaps, even harder to objectively measure.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that scientists haven’t tried, and a study published in June in the journal PNAS proposes a new and surprisingly simple test to gauge this ability.

It only takes a few minutes and involves thinking of 10 nouns that are unrelated to one another and as far apart in meaning as possible. Your score reveals how creative you are, said Jay Olson, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, who came up with the concept and is one of the study authors.

“The task can be objectively and automatically scored, meaning that it does not need people to subjectively score the responses,” he said. “It is also faster to complete than most other creativity measures; many people complete it in under two minutes.”

Taken from: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/health/words-creativity-test-scn-wellness/index.html

You can take the test here: https://www.datcreativity.com/

[W_HAMILTON]

1. I guess I'm not very creative. :(

Even though I felt my words were pretty different!

bed
airplane
sand
desk
apple
store
person
ruler
puddle
plug

[hunter]

14. Those are all things that have an obvious physical presence...

... things you can touch.

"Presence" is a noun.

"Love" is a noun.

"Quanta" is a noun.

There are many nouns like that; things you can't really touch.

[Lochloosa]

30. Algebra put me over the top.

[tblue37]

2. Person woman man camera TV. I guess Trump proved to be uncreative, since his words

were related to each other.

[underpants]

3. That was me doing a spit take.

[underpants]

11. 67.55

Person
Woman
Man
Camera
TV
Bird
Plane
Superman
Covfefe
Best

[Buckeye_Democrat]

21. Lol!

Now that's clever!

[underpants]

47. I don't think it actually accepted Superman or Covfefe

[wryter2000]

34. You forgot "berder"

Covfefe

[Midnight Writer]

53. I did what you did, mostly. Low score for me!.

[underpants]

4. 79.19

[dweller]

5. 86.22

not trying to be creative even
🤔

✌🏻

[W_HAMILTON]

10. LIst your words, so we uncreative ones can learn!

[dweller]

24. Not sure I can remember ... let's see

Air
Banana
Concept
Siren
Shoelace
Exit
Toenail
and 3 others I can’t remember…

Glad it isn’t a memory test
✌🏻

[SWBTATTReg]

6. I'm sure that just one test to measure such a subjective word as 'creativity' is rather limited.

But it is fun to do tests like this occasionally, and compare results w/ friends etc. I didn't do too well, but being a numbers guy (an old IT guy), zeroes and ones rule my world, and a thing is either one thing or the other, pretty straight forward. So, right on the button.

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Average, I guess. Still scored higher than 55.25% of those who've taken it.

[alphafemale]

8. Saving for later. nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. This is a mildly interesting exercise, but it's important to note that it measures only one aspect

of creativity:

The test specifically measures one component of creativity called divergent thinking, which is the ability to generate diverse solutions to open-ended problems. It doesn't measure another component -- what psychologists call convergent thinking, or solving problems considering various constraints.

People with different life experiences are going to score very differently on exercises that measure both convergent and divergent thinking, and IMO there's quite a bit of bias in conflating vocabulary with the ability to solve open-ended problems.

Creativity can also mean much more than solving problems. I hope this exercise doesn't make people feel like they're not creative.

[lark]

40. It just validated that I'm not that creative by nature, not that I can't do creative things.

I got a 78.9, however I do feel that you can do creative things even if you aren't really talented. It's also a skill, I think, and is sharpened with use. So, given my only slightly above average divergence of thinking, guess I'm doing ok.

[qazplm135]

44. Agreed

It's a silly test that could lead people to think it determines who is and isn't creative.

[asiliveandbreathe]

12. They give you a score..The average score is 78, and most people score between 74 and 82.

80.46..In good company..I guess..

spaceship
horse
mountain
casino
monorail
jasmine
ocean

[Ocelot II]

13. 86.37

Octopus
Atom
Shrubbery
Tooth
Muscle
Bubble
Whistle

[lagomorph777]

15. Trolling for passwords.

I don't think it would wise to play along.

[EYESORE 9001]

16. My results

Your score is 85.78, higher than 87.8% of the people who have completed this task

The average score is 78, and most people score between 74 and 82. In our published validation sample, the lowest score was 24 and the highest was 96. The score theoretically ranges from 0 to 200, but scores above 100 are extremely unlikely. In our unpublished online sample, the lowest score we have ever seen is 6 and the highest is 103.

[SKKY]

17. 84.43, higher than 83.21%....

...meh. Not sure what I can do with this information, but ok.

[EarlG]

18. 89.62

Me creative!

[Johnny2X2X]

19. 82.33

Not too shabby.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. 81.54

Not sure if that test means what it claims, though.

[EarlG]

22. See if you can beat my low score: 14.9

My words were:

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten

Can anyone do worse than that?

[Lochloosa]

28. The lowest score we have ever seen is 6 - Try again

[EarlG]

42. It seems getting a low score

is harder than it looks. I just got 60-something with car, wheel, horn, door, windshield, gas, headlight

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. I give you extra creativity points for subverting the test!

My good score was 87.35 (cosmos blackness cook bridge association yesterday eyeball, for the 7 scoring, plus actor, joy and alcohol).

1st try at a low score: redness orangeness yellowness greenness whiteness blackness pinkness scored 56.97.

hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron carbon nitrogen = 53.88

This is hard!

average mean median centre middle midpoint norm = 68.52

Median and centre are sored as 94 apart! How can that be?

Oh, but spell it 'center', and the score drops to 66.18. Very dodgy.

[Layzeebeaver]

23. 88.23

I think it was paramecium.

[nuxvomica]

25. 86.61

serendipity
icon
signal
mountain
extraction
automobile
erasure

Some of these words were from posts today.

[SKKY]

26. I did it again and got 89.62, which puts me in the 95 percentile...

truth satellite necklace document circuit meadow syndrome
truth - 90 86 74 91 93 84
satellite 90 - 98 85 77 91 98
necklace 86 98 - 100 95 85 94
document 74 85 100 - 81 100 90
circuit 91 77 95 81 - 92 90
meadow 93 91 85 100 92 - 87
syndrome 84 98 94 90 90 87 -


* I Still have no idea what I can do with this information.

[Lochloosa]

27. Your score is 82.11, higher than 73.07% of the people who have completed this task

I win.

[Clash City Rocker]

29. My score is 87.64, higher than 92.55% of the people who have completed this task

Vertigo
Cow
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Skateboard
Foolishness
Hobo
Screwball
Tango
Lasagna
Wormhole

[Clash City Rocker]

57. Just for fun, I tried to see how high a score I could get

I got up to 98.53, higher than 99.89% of people who take the test. I only kept one word from my original list, and that one wasn’t high enough on that list to be used the first time. The seven words that count are

Touchdown
Feldspar
Music
Schnitzel
Wormhole
Bookkeeper
Arthritis

It doesn’t count psychologically, according to the site, but I’m not convinced the first test counted psychologically. It is fun, though.

[Klaralven]

31. 88.3

corollary flagellum tax planet butcher idea booty

The algorithm did not use arabidopsis, nacelle and absinthe for some reason.

[wryter2000]

38. Let me guess

You were really good at spelling bees

[RockRaven]

32. 92.26

Seems like there are at least two things to keep in mind to get a high score:
1) although you put in ten answers, they only score the first seven valid answers. You really only need seven very different words, but they need to be the first seven.
2) there are lots of nouns which are not physical objects: thoughts/feelings, artistic/scientific concepts, etc.

[wryter2000]

33. 88.28, or higher than 93.81 percent of people

I know a bit about psychological testing, and this appears to be a well-founded test. It doesn't hurt that I did very well.

BTW, horticulture did rather well for me. They need to correlate this with someone's base vocabulary. (Although I have no idea how to calculate that.) My guess is the score depends largely one the number of words one has available easily.

[ms liberty]

35. K&R. n/t

[unblock]

36. Your score is 91.32, higher than 97.69% of the people who have completed this task

Fascinating. Especially because I'm by far the least creative person I know.

[Sogo]

37. 86.72

"higher than 90.41% who take it."

[nolabear]

39. Higher than 92.38%

Not bad. Of course I’m a terrible self critic and want to know why it’s not more. 😏

[Kingofalldems]

41. 98.6

No wait, that's my temperature.

80.5 was my score.

[Alice Kramden]

51. Ha!

[lame54]

62. Very creative

[qazplm135]

43. No it doesn't

You can't define creativity from picking ten words.

Big fan of science but this is baloney.

[janterry]

45. Your score is 91.69

fun!

[bif]

46. 83.14

flowers cowboy castle cloud lipstick worm iceberg

[malaise]

48. 76.16

[chowder66]

50. Your score is 88.45

elocution
pyramid
bone
war
jellyfish
fabric
paradigm
logic
vacuum
bolt

They assessed the first seven.

[Alice Kramden]

52. These kind of tests are silly things -

That being said, of course I had to take it.

[treestar]

54. 83.64

Though what is the basis? How do they show the words chosen and their indication of creativity?

[ProfessorGAC]

55. 85.81%

Higher than 83% of those tested.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

56. 86.78

[Politicub]

58. Well, that was depressing. LOL

81.89.

[alphafemale]

59. 88.14 nt

[LiberatedUSA]

60. 83.65. Edit for fun new addition to the thread.

Orc
Basketball
Needle
Coat
Dog
Penis
Galaxy

Edit:

Part of this thread should be to make a sentence out of your words.

The king of the Galaxy, an orc with a dog coat made with a needle the size of his penis, won the basketball tournament.

[lame54]

61. 90.13

[ansible]

63. 94.1% woohoo!