Showing papers by "Dean Keith Simonton published in 1989"

The swan-song phenomenon: last-works effects for 172 classical composers

Abstract: Creative individuals approaching their final years of life may undergo a transformation in outlook that is reflected in their last works. This hypothesized effect was quantitatively assessed for an extensive sample of 1,919 works by 172 classical composers. The works were independently gauged on seven aesthetic attributes (melodic originality, melodic variation, repertoire popularity, aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, performance duration, and thematic size), and potential last-works effects were operationally defined two separate ways (linearly and exponentially). Statistical controls were introduced for both longitudinal changes (linear, quadratic, and cubic age functions) and individual differences (eminence and lifetime productivity). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that composers' swan songs tend to score lower in melodic originality and performance duration but higher in repertoire popularity and aesthetic significance. These last-works effects survive control for total compositional output, eminence, and most significantly, the composer's age when the last works were created.

Age and creative productivity: nonlinear estimation of an information-processing model.

Abstract: A two-step cognitive model is outlined that explicates the key empirical findings on the relation between age and creative productivity. Two primary information-processing parameters, the ideation and elaboration rates, define a mathematical function that both describes the age curves and specifies how those curves vary across disciplines. To validate the model further, a nonlinear estimation program was applied to previously published tabulations on the longitudinal fluctuations in creative output. The resulting parameter estimates also yield the expected peak age and the creative half-life for each domain of achievement. Despite the prediction of a post-peak decline, the model's implications for creativity over the life span are optimistic.

Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science

Abstract: List of tables and figures Acknowledgments 1. The chance-configuration theory 2. Impressionistic evidence 3. Personality and individual differences 4. Productivity 5. Developmental antecedents 6. Multiple discovery and invention 7. Creative genius in science References Name index Subject index.