Study Finds Spatial Skill Is Early Sign of Creativity | Hacker News Reader

Study Finds Spatial Skill Is Early Sign of Creativity

nytimes.com

60 pointstokenadult34 comments

To emphasize the positive here, and to link to some other information about research on this topic, I invite readers to look at the freely downloadable peer-reviewed research articles from the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, which researches the issue of which early indicators of ability may be predictive of different kinds of adult achievement. The study has been looking at spatial ability tests as one of several kinds of ability tests for more than a decade.

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/camilla-benbow/

I know some of the study participants.

I am consistently disappointed that these sort of articles do not even mention what can be done to develop spatial reasoning but focus on testing alone. The challenge is to create a curriculum that systematically develops this mental faculty. That would require a lot of creativity ;-).

You're assuming there's a causation there, not just a correlation.

seconded

I wonder if there are any methods or tools for developing this? My son is almost 3 years old.

A similar conclusion struck me when I was taking a linear algebra course in my 1st year. I had a very smart friend, and sometimes I studied with him. He usually studied a lot more than myself, and naturally fared a lot better (and more consistently).

However there were some problems which were very unusual which I would look at, think for just a few seconds, and have a delightful path to the solution -- and often times, many. My friend, otoh, would usually look into the question, think for quite some time, and move on to the more straightforward ones, although with adequate time he would definitively solve it, and with adequate study, he would get consistent, as he did. But at once I discovered his whole process was fundamentally different. He found the solutions thinking algebraically, not geometrically. This algebraic skills allowed him to plow through most problems with speed, but when he needed to think creatively, to have a geometric intuition on something, he was slowed down.

He is a wonderful programmer however, and I'm sure he is "algotihmically creative".

For me this indicates that a lot of science lends itself a lot to have a spatial intuition to be effectively creative. Einstein famously came up with relativity through thought experiments, not algebraic reasoning of the laws of nature. Planck however, with equal notoriety introduced the quanta as an algebraic "trick", and Maxwell formulated an electromagnetic theory of light by manipulating differential equations. Computer science and a fraction of math, lend themselves to algebraic reasoning and I believe what drives those is an algebraic type of creativity, in contrast to say physics, architecture and mechanical engineering -- although I believe we need both types of thinkers everywhere.

It's a funny Yin and Yang aspect of our minds!

Would you be able to elaborate on "algebraical vs geometrical" thinking?

I've noticed myself that there are two types of "math" that people tend to be good at:

1) Algorithmic - Following a set of steps to achieve a particular result. Algorithms, discrete math, "compsci" math, and procedural and OO programming. Coders tend to be good at this kind.

2) "Abstract" - "Pure Math", what I would label as the harder kind of math, like calculating the intersection of planes, calculus, linear algebra, etc. Pure math majors and theoretical computer science folks are good at this kind.

I have met folks that are good at 1 or 2, or both.

Forgive me for my poor use of terms, I'm one of those folks that is not particularly great at math (mostly due to lack of practice) but I was always curious if my observation was backed up with any "real" terms or if there has been any research into this kind of thing. What you describe seems to be relatively close to what I've observed myself.

I know that I personally am much stronger with algebraic math than geometrical math. For me, that means that integrals, linear algebra, etc are something that I'm strong at, but I'm poor at anything that requires spatial reasoning.

That's different from your two types. For example, take your "calculating the intersection of planes." I would approach that by first writing the algebraic equations that define the two planes, then trying to find the manipulation that will let me solve for the intersection. Someone who is a geometric thinker might start by plotting the two planes, and reasoning spatially.

So, that distinction is wholly separate from your algorithmic/abstract distinction, and to me, is a distinction within the abstract realm.

Yea, this is a good illustration.

For example, for an intersection of two planes going through origin, the plane equation coefficients are (a multiple of) the of the normal vector coefficients. Now, the intersection vector must be perpendicular to both planes normals, so if you take the cross product of the two vectors, you get the intersection vector.

This in this case I would just look at it and instantly do a cross product of the coefficients, whereas you would eventually do precisely the same, but reasoning algebraically, perhaps just as fast.

In this case, thinking algebraically doesn't seem to yield the intimate relationship with your object of study required for creativity, just because of the geometric nature of it.

But this reasoning wouldn't be much use in -- for instance -- fiddling with discrete mathematics, where you may get more intimate precisely by reasoning algebraically!

There was an essay from an extremely famous mathematician that I read not a long time ago on analytical vs geometrical oriented thinking in mathematics and I can't recall where it is and it is driving me crazy. If anyone knows what it is, please link it.

You mean Planck, not Maxwell, right?

Right, Planck! (It stands corrected)

It's possible that any test of intelligence that the educational system isn't measuring and working on is going to be a better predictor of various kinds of success than those it is. There are a huge number of factors in success, and it's possible that they are correlated more with each other than they are with the managing to get good scores on those few traits that are tested and taught for. (I don't know whether the original papers address this possibility; I'm just going by the linked article.)

Which isn't to say that it's bad to take these things at face value and start testing things like this as they're found to be relevant - it seems better to test and teach more things than fewer.

On a tangent, I seem to remember a study found that Quake improves spatial skills more than Tetris.

13-year-olds [...] particularly gifted [...] spatial relations skills, the ability to visualize and manipulate two-and three-dimensional objects.

Hah! True story. As a 13 year old, I met my first girlfriend over a 28.8k local BBS link and, other than occasionally meeting in person, we generally proceeded to create raw Povray source files with constructive solid geometry using plain text editors, and exchange the raytraced renderings. They weren't super complex scenes, but they were complex enough when you remember that rendering a single frame took half an hour!

PS. I often wonder if shoving kids in to boring boxy apartments (as is presently happening the world over) is not depriving them of spatial stimulation... a forest is infinitely more spatially complex than the built environment.

If this is true, then schools are literally quashing creativity.

When I was in high school my maths teacher insisted on us using algebraic methods to solve geometry problems. (I'm a visual-spatial thinker, go figure.) The reasoning went: laying the steps out that way would guarantee 'process points', even if you got the result wrong. Not possible with a geometric approach. This was in preparation for the Chinese Gaokao, mind, so points were a matter of life and death (or so it felt like).

This is just more evidence that our school system is heading in the wrong direction. With so much emphasis on testing easily measurable subjects, emphasis is moving away from hard to measure, such as creative thinking.

I've seen first hard how the results of standardized tests in elementary schools force administrators to shift additional periods towards test prep that would have otherwise been used for arts, music, free play, etc.

While I really like this kind of articles I don't like the search for single or few causes of intelligence or creativity. Happily human beings and the world in general is more complex and trying to absolutely follow what these studies say is a bad idea.

People who downvote without adding a reply...

Now he is automatically downvoting everything I post here.

Is tokenadult related to the downvotes? I don't think so since someone with experience in HN will be more polite. I would to didcover the name of the downvoters.

People with experience in HN aren't always polite, please don't make such broad-sweeping and baseless assumptions.

How many of the downvotes are yours?

That's none of your business.

In the interests of being polite, you are getting downvoted because you've made almost half the posts in a 15 comment thread, the bulk of which are complaints that your comments aren't better received.

The theme of the article is that research has revealed spatial reasoning plays a larger role in intelligence than we previously thought. Your post that you are sick and tired of people searching for the sole cause of intelligence is a hastily applied trope with little actual relevance.

Unfair or not, when people scroll down and see your posts in this thread many of them will feel compelled to downvote them as a way of telling you "please be more thoughtful with your comments". If you can't see why then maybe you are the one who needs to take a run in the park.

The weird thing is that I never experienced this rage in my long time in HN. I understand the first downvote but not engaging in a "downvote hunt" without saying something. So I think the person/people involved in more than two downvotes is an HN outlier.

That's because your comment is a logical fallacy -- a false dichotomy. You claim that the article portrays a search for single or few causes of intelligence/creativity, however the article doesn't argue that. The title -- "Study finds spatial skill is early sign of creativity" -- doesn't indicate that the only early sign of creativity is only measuring spatial skill, but instead it claims that a study's results demonstrate that spatial skill is one early sign of creativity.

You also claim that it's a bad idea to 'absolutely follow' these studies (what does it mean to absolutely follow a study?) but nobody is advocating that -- neither the article nor anybody commenting here.

Furthermore, complaining about downvotes is a surefire way to get more downvotes. Such complaints add little to the conversation, and it implies that you deserve to be upvoted regardless of the content of your post.

You argued like a robot. I am commenting in HN not writing a paper on logic here. Look at the edges of what I said.

Strangely I never had this extreme feedback from the HN community in my previous community participation. So, to me it seems that someone needs to go to run in the park for a while.

Please don't attack my methods of persuasion or pretend you know who I am, there's nothing wrong with arguing like a robot and my park attendance is none of your business.

Also, you didn't address my argument about how you're drawing conclusions that are irrelevant to the news article, but instead you made personal attacks against me. Stay classy.

You received (now) a kind and thoughtful reply about why your top-level reply was deemed not constructive for the current discussion. (I didn't vote on that comment. Certainly I did not downvote it.)

Subsequent comments bringing up solely the issue of being downvoted are being downvoted on sight, because those sorts of comments are never constructive to the discussion and are disfavored by the site guidelines.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

By the way, the premise is false that there is any rule here against downvoting without commenting. Implicitly, some comments should be downvoted on sight.

http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

"Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads."

The site founder has commented that downvotes for disagreement are permitted here.

(In order of time of posting, with the last post quite recent.)

"I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

"IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691

"I sometimes downvote things that seem mistaken. I think most users do."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006808

"If there's one thing I wish I could do to improve HN, it would be to detect this sort of middlebrow dismissal algorithmically.

. . . .

"The problem with the middlebrow dismissal is that it's a magnet for upvotes. The 'U R a fag's get downvoted and end up at the bottom of the page where they cause little trouble. But this sort of comment rises to the top. Things have now gotten to the stage where I flinch slightly as I click on the 'comments' link, bracing myself for the dismissive comment I know will be waiting for me at the top of the page."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

I understand your explanation but I think people can also talk, this is an important step towards peace.

Also, I never seen this rage in my past engagements in HN, so I think it's very rare to receive this series of downvotes without engaging in a short talk.

Nobody said we should follow anything absolutely. This just points out that our current models are wrong and could benefit from some specific tweaks.

Absolutely in this context means that there are even smart people that follow this studies strictly.

ihsw is right. There is nothing "strict" about the study. It points out that we should add some spatial testing to all the other tests we have. That's a very moderate suggestion. There is nothing in the study or the article that says there is only one cause of intelligence or creativity, so I'm not sure why you mentioned it.

really like this kind of articles I don't like

What's to like or not like about it? It's information on correlation of an aspect of reasoning with creativity.

What's does "follow what these studies say" even mean?

What I find intriguing is that creativity really develops from giving it time to develop. i.e. If I just tackle a problem as I know how to from my own point of view, I'm probably going to do it as straight forwardly as possible, anything that has a definite solution I'll answer first and I'll do that ad nauseum (perhaps w/ research inbetween, but we're not talking creative research, just more fact checking) until the problem is finished. On the other hand, if you are willing to you can probably sit, think the problem over, and let a solution develop. You might have to forget preconceived ideas that you had, perhaps think in a new way, but it's possible. Either way you'll probably get to a solution, but my real point is, creativity is as much a matter of willingness as anything else, I mean you just can't turn off your thoughts, you can really only direct them. ...I'll admit I havn't read the article, but I'm always curious about these discussions of creativity, why is it an isssue? How do you know someone isn't being creative? Because they don't take your approach? How do you teach someone to be creative, show them how you would do it? I think the only common denominator for creativity, is how much effort you're willing to give it.

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