EXPERIMENT 3
CREATIVITY

Abstract
This experiment studies about creativity using anagrams. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If someone has ideas, but don’t act on them, that person is imaginative but not creative. Even those of us not in explicitly creative fields must come up with new ideas and insights in order to move ahead.
Solving anagrams has been conceptualized as a two-stage process, involving letter rearrangement and then the matching of the rearrangement with a word accessed from memory.
The objective of this experiment is to measure flexibility, novelty, and originality thru response production of a series of letters.
The subjects were given series of letters called anagrams, and they were instructed to create new words derived from those original letters. The new word can be composed of at least two letters, even the word is nonsense and cannot be located on the dictionary, subjects must write down their responses. Experimenter limit them within 4 minutes. This experiment was composed of two parts, the first is from anagram, and the second is from anagram as stimulus words.

Creativity
The title of this experiment is “Creativity” which comes from many definitions. It is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created. It is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality which is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. According to Rollo May, creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. It requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life.
The experimenter uses anagrams to test the creativity of the subjects involved. Anagram is the transposing of the letters of a word or group of words to produce other words using all the original letters exactly once. Anagrams are often used as a form of mnemonic device. The original word or phrase is known as the subject of the anagram. Someone who creates anagrams may be called an anagrammatist. The goal of anagrammatists is to produce anagrams that in some way reflect or comment on the subject. Such an anagram may be a synonym or antonym of its subject, a parody, a criticism, or praise; for example, “William Shakespeare” can be rearranged to “I am a weakish speller”. Another example is “silent” which can be rearranged to “listen”. Meaning, the quieter a person become, the more they can hear.
The hypothesis of this study is that the more number of letters in an anagram, the easier it will be for solvers to come up new words.
The independent variables in this experiment are the time limit of 4 minutes, the anagrams presented in the first part, and the stimulus words presented in the second part. While the dependent variable is the number of new words that elicited from the original set of anagrams.
In the first part of this experiment, the experimenter presented typical anagrams, and in the second part, experimenter presented anagrams as words. Which of the two procedures elicited difficulty? What stimulus words elicited faster anagram solution? What words were the most frequently used? These questions will be answered at the end of this study.

Method
Participants
The experiment was conducted on a class of BS Psychology students in an air-conditioned room setting which made them felt bored and sleepy during executing the task that was appointed to them. When they conducted this, the time of the day is afternoon, during the experiment, they were in their last subject which is Experimental Psychology, anxiety to get home triggers them to response from the anagrams even though they write nonsense syllables just to say that they have participated in the experiment.
Measures
The experimenter used stopwatch to limit the subjects within 4 minutes upon conducting the experiment. She used the white board to write the anagrams that was presented to the subjects. Subjects wrote down their responses on a paper.
Manipulations
The experimenter instructed the subjects to get a paper where they wrote their responses on the anagrams that were presented on the white board written by the experimenter. Every time the experimenter write new letters of anagrams, she demanded to subjects not to look at it until it was finished. In the first part of the experiment, the experimenter presented the anagrams (ILDVEA, ESIVIL, OEDRXETNEA, GAEIVANT, TERHAF, KNATE, RAMKET, ORDEWP) and asked the subjects to form as many words as possible from these. The experimenter gave 4 minutes time limit. In the second part of the experiment, the experimenter presented the anagrams as words (IDEA, LIVES, RENTED, GRAMS, GIVEN, FATHER, NEAT, MAKER). The task of the subjects is to form as many other words as possible within 4 minutes. After they’ve conducted the experiment, the experimenter instructed the subjects to count the numbers of their responses in each of the presented anagrams.

Results
Table 1. Formed Words from Anagrams Anagram | Response Words | Total | ILDVEA | Lead, Vail, Deal, Veal, Veda, Lid, Led, Leva, Ela, Id, Laid, Vale, Vid, Vile, Dale, Ale, Diva, Vida, Lea, Levi | 20 | ESIVIL | Live, Veil, Lies, Vise, Lives, Seil, Sive, Vile, Lie, Is, Lei, Sei, Evil | 13 | OEDRXETNEA | Rodent, Red, Deer, Dear, Rent, Ted, Tax, Ox, Tear, Tee, Road, Ant, Net, Teen, T-rex, Dart, Dean, Den, Rode, Tore, Ten, Read, Dent, Adore, Teed, Tree, Eden, Deena | 28 | GAEIVANT | Vent, Vain, Tan, Gave, Give, Naive, Ivan, Get, Nag, Atain, Via, Age, Tag, Vat, Gain, Again, Avant, Vintage, Van, Vane | 20 | TERHAF | Hater, Hate, Fart, Hear, Far, Tear, Heart, Fare, Hare, Ref, Raft, Ear, Fear, After, Rate, Ate, Afar, Tea, Eat, At, Fat, Are | 22 | KNATE | Ate, Eat, Kate, Neat, Tan, Ken, Tane, Kent, Tea, Tank, Nake, Take, Tean, Kant, Kat, Nate, Kea, Kane | 18 | RAMKET | Market, Team, Mark, Take, Ram, Karma, Tear, Rake, Eat, Ate, Tea, At, Kram, Kat, Make, Mate, Ream, Kea, Tar, Rat | 20 | ORDEWP | Pew, Dew, Wore, Derp, Word, Pedro, Pewo, Dope, Dore, Rode, Or, We, Rope, Redo, Do, Ore, Wed | 17 |
Table 1 represents formed words from anagrams. There are 8 anagrams and each has equivalent response words. The anagram ILDVEA has a total of 20 response words, ESIVIL has 13, OEDRXETNEA has 28, GAEIVANT has 20, TERHAF has 22, KNATE has 18, RAMKET has 20, and, ORDEWP has 17. There are a total of 158 formed words from anagrams.

Table 2. Formed Words from Stimulus Words Stimulus Words | Response Words | Total | IDEA | Id, Die, Aid, A, Ad, Dea | 6 | LIVES | Is, Lie, Lies, Veil, Live, Seiv, Seil, Sive, Les, Sel, Vil, Evil, Vile | 13 | RENTED | Rent, Dent, Tent, Ten, Net, Teen, Deer, Red, Ted, Ned, Need, Tee, Neet, Rete, Teed, Tree, Ret, Reed | 18 | GRAMS | Mars, Gram, Sam, Gas, Nags, Mar, Sag, Mag, Sar, Gar, As, Am, Gras, Sarg | 14 | GIVEN | Give, Vein, Gin, Neiv, Gen, Ven, Neg, Veg, Gen, In, Vin | 11 | FATHER | Fat, Her, Fart, Tar, Heat, Hat, Rat, Ate, Eat, Ate, Eat, Tea, At, The, Taf, Hate, Hater, Fare, Are, Art | 20 | NEAT | Ate, Eat, Tea, At, An, Tan, Ten, Net, Tean, Nat, Ant, Tane, Nate | 13 | MAKER | Make, Mar, Mea, Mare, Are, Am, Kea, Kame, Ream, Rake, Tram, Rame, Mark, Ram, Ark | 15 |
Table 2 represents formed words from stimulus words. There are also 8 stimulus words and each has equivalent response words. The stimulus word IDEA has a total of 6 response words, LIVES has 13, RENTED has 18, GRAMS has 14, GIVEN has 11, FATHER has 20, NEAT has 13, and, MAKER has 15. There are a total of 110 formed words from stimulus words.

Figure 1 represents the summary of the number of formed words from both anagrams and stimulus words. As you can see from the data, with anagrams, there were more response new words than with stimulus words. In the anagram ESIVIL and stimulus word LIVES (2), it obtained same number of formed words which is 13. That is because when you form the anagram ESIVIL into a new word using most of the letters, it can form as LIVES, therefore, same response words were written by the subject. In anagram KNATE and stimulus word FATHER (6), there were more number of formed words in FATHER than in KNATE. The reason is before the anagram as stimulus word of FATHER has been given, it appeared in the anagram TERHAF, that’s why the subjects already have an idea with what response words they will write.
Discussion
Which of the two procedures elicited difficulty? The second part of the experiment where the experimenter gave anagrams from stimulus words elicited difficulty because it seemed that the subjects were limited in creating new response words from those original words.
What stimulus words elicited faster anagram solution? Stimulus words RENTED and FATHER elicited faster anagram solution. The reason is, in anagram OEDRXETNEA, the word RENTED can be formed, that’s why the subject has already an idea on what to write when the word RENTED has been given on the anagram from stimulus words. That is the same reason for stimulus word FATHER, it appeared on the anagram TERHAF.
What words were the most frequently used? The words Eat, Ate, and Tea were the most frequently used. It appeared in the anagram KNATE, and in the anagram as stimulus words FATHER and NEAT.
According to Novick and Sherman (2003), anagram solution is achieved through two distinct processes. The first process produces a pop-out solution within about 2 seconds after the presentation of the anagram. For these insight-like solutions, solvers bare no conscious awareness of having made incremental progress toward the goal. Pop-out solutions usually occur for well-structured words with common orthographic patterns which are consistent with frequent structural forms in the language (Henin et al., 2009). These structural patterns involve phonological regularity and syllabic patterning (Novick & Sherman, 2008). The second process applies in cases where anagram solvers fail to evoke a lexical response. In that case, they utilize a more time-consuming strategy of a serial process by rearranging the letters until they work out the correct word (Novick & Sherman, 2003)
Conclusion
Solvers of anagrams are influenced by different types of information when solving anagrams. Specifically they found that superficial features of anagrams like pronounceability have a greater effect on solution difficulty for poor problem solvers, whereas structural features like the number of syllables have a greater effect on good anagram solvers. Syllables have an effect on anagram solution difficulty.

References
Creativity. (2015, February 10). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity Creativity at Work. (2014, February 17). What is Creativity? Retrieved from https://www.creativityatwork.com/2014/02/17/what-is-creativity/ Dictionary. (n.d). Anagram. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anagram Muncer, S. J, & Knight, David. (2011, June 8) The syllable effect on anagram solution:
Unrecognized events from past studies. Retrieved March 1, 2015 from http://dro.dur.ac.uk/8257/1/8257.pdf?DDD27+dps5dck+dul4eg Psychology Today. (n.d). All about Creativity. Retrieved March 1, 2015 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/creativity Sarris, M. E, & Panagiotakopoulos, C. T. (2013, August 4) Linguistic Effects on
Anagram Solution: The Case of Transparent Language. Retrieved March 1, 2015
From
http://www.academia.edu/5009907/Linguistic_Effects_on_Anagram_Solution_The_Case_of_a_Transparent_Language
Whiite, Hedy. (1988). Semantic priming of anagram solutions. Retrieved March 1, 2015 from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1423086?sid=21105487931031&uid=2&uid=4

Appendix
Creativity
1.