Janusian and Homospatial Processes

In previous investigations based on structured

intensive interview series, documentary analyses, and

experimentation, I have found evidence for specific forms

of creative cognition, namely the janusian (Rothenberg 1971,

1973a, 1973b, 1979, 1990, 1994, 1996) and homospatial

(Rothenberg 1976, 1979, 1988, 1990, 1994) processes. The

janusian process consists of actively conceiving multiple

opposites or antitheses simultaneously. During the course

of the creative process, opposite or antithetical ideas,

concepts or propositions are deliberately and consciously

conceptualized side-by-side and/or as co-existing

simultaneously. Although seemingly illogical and self-

contradictory, these formulations are constructed in clearly

logical and rational states of mind in order to produce

creative effects. They occur as early conceptions in the

development of artworks and scientific theories and at

critical junctures at middle and later stages as well.

Because they serve generative functions during both

formative and critical stages of the creative process, these

conceptions usually undergo transformation and modification

and are seldom directly discernible in final created

products. They are formulated by the creative thinker as

central ideas for a plot, character, artistic composition,

or as solutions in working out practical and scientific

tasks.

Simultaneity of the multiple opposites or antitheses is

a cardinal feature. Opposite or antithetical ideas,

beliefs, concepts or propositions are formulated as

simultaneously operating, valid or true. Firmly held

propositions, for example, about the laws of nature, the

functioning of individuals and groups, and the aesthetic

properties of visual and sound patterns are conceived as

simultaneously true and not-true. Or, opposite or

antithetical propositions are entertained as concomitantly

operative. A person running is both in motion and not in

motion at the same time, a chemical is both boiling and

freezing, or kindness and sadism operate simultaneously.

Previously held beliefs or laws are still considered valid

but opposite or antithetical beliefs and laws are formulated

as equally operative or valid as well.

These formulations within the janusian process are

waystations to creative effects and outcomes. They interact

and join with other cognitive and affective developments to

produce new and valuable products. One of these developments

may be a later interaction with unifying homospatial process

effects. Others may be the use of analogic, dialectic,

inductive and deductive reasoning to develop theories,

inventions, and artworks. The phases of janusian process,

sometimes overlapping and sometimes occurring in very rapid

succession, consist of the following: 1) separation from

existing knowledge or aesthetic canons; 2) the recognition

and choice of salient and conflicting opposites and

antitheses in a scientific, cultural or aesthetic field; 3)

the formulation of the opposites or antitheses operating

simultaneously; 4) integration into elaborated creations

(Rothenberg, 1996).

Because such thinking is unusual and seemingly

illogical on the surface, it has been confused with the

thinking in psychosis or in what in psychoanalysis is

described as primary process cognition. One of the

characteristics of primary process is an absence of

contradictions and, for the purpose of disguise of

unconscious contents, substitution of opposites for each

other. Characteristic of an early childhood period prior to

the development of reality oriented secondary process

cognition, primary process structures are also identified in

the delusions and hallucinations of persons suffering from

psychosis. An example of this is when a schizophrenic

patient says to a doctor, "I am a human like yourself but I

am not a human." This delusional statement is superficially

similar to janusian formulations but, in distinction, it is

truly illogical. Psychotic patients do not appear to be

aware of the contradiction when making such assertions and

they therefore may be considered to manifest the primitive

primary process mode rather than a creative one.

The janusian process is distinct from psychosis and

from other forms of mental illness as well. An assessment of

this distinction was carried out in an experiment performed

with Nobel Prize laureates in the physical sciences,

psychiatric patients, and Yale University undergraduates

(Rothenberg, 1983). Among the Nobel laureates were Allan

Cormack, developer of the principle of the CAT scan type of

X-ray, Arthur Kornberg, first to synthesize DNA, Donald

Glaser, inventor of the Bubble Chamber, David Baltimore,

discoverer of the reverse transcriptase enzyme and its role

in genetic change. A word association test consisting of 99

Kent-Rosanoff stimulus words and one chaff stimulus word was

individually administered to each subject. Responses were

electronically recorded, with speed of responding measured

in the time span of one-hundredth of a second. The purpose

of the experiment was to find out whether the 12 Nobel

laureates and an independently designated high creative

group of 63 Yale undergraduates showed a tendency to

janusian process--manifested by extremely fast opposite-word

responses to the stimuli--in comparison with two types of

control groups: 18 psychiatric patients with a wide range of

diagnoses (schizophrenic disorder=2; borderline personality

disorder=9; brief reactive psychosis=1; major depressive

disorder=2; anorexia nervosa=1; opioid substance abuse=1;

alcohol dependence=1; narcissistic personality disorder=1),

and 53 Yale undergraduates independently designated as low

creative who were drawn from the same population as the high

creative students. The clearcut result was that rapid

opposite response was significantly greater in the Nobel

laureate and high creative student groups than in both the

patients and low creative students (range of p<.003-.05).

Speed of opposite responding among the creative subjects was

extremely rapid, averaging 1.1 to 1.2 seconds from the time

the experimenter spoke the stimulus word, suggesting the

formulation of simultaneous or, virtually simultaneous,

opposite associations.

The high creative and low creative student group also

gave a significantly greater number of popular responses

than the patients. This commonality response is consistent

with an assumption that the student groups were normal

controls. In addition, none of the Nobel laureates had a

history of psychiatric disorder. Results of the experiment

therefore distinguished between mental illness and

tendencies to creative thinking through the janusian

process.

The homospatial process consists of actively conceiving

two or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a

conception leading to the articulation of new identities.

In the course of creating literary characters, metaphors,

complete works of art, or scientific theories, creative

persons actively conceive images and representations of

multiple entities as superimposed within the same spatial

location. These sharply distinct and independent elements

may be represented as discrete colors, sounds, etc.,

organized objects such as knives and human faces, or more

complex organizations such as entire landscape scenes, or

else a series of sensory patterns or written words together

with their concrete or abstract meanings. This conception

is a figurative and abstract one in the sense that it

represents nothing that has ever existed in reality; it is

one of the bases for constructive and creative imagination.

One of the tenets known from universal sensory experience is

that two objects or two discrete entities can never occupy

the same space. Nor can more than two. The creative

person, however, brings multiple entities together in a

mental conception for the purpose of producing new and

valuable ideas, images, sound patterns and metaphors.

Because of the difficulty in maintaining multiple

elements in the same spatial location, the homospatial

conception is frequently a rapid, fleeting, and transitory

mental experience. Although this form of cognition often

involves the visual sensory modality, and like all

constructive imagination is probably easiest to describe in

visual terms, the superimposed entities may be derived from

any one of the sensory modalities. There may be entities

and sensations of the gustatory, olfactory, auditory,

kinesthetic or tactile type.

The homospatial process is a not a form of primary

process condensation or displacement despite the sharing of

superficial similarities such as the breaking of spatial

restrictions. Unlike condensation, the homospatial process

involves no spatial substitutions or compromise formations,

but sensory entities are consciously and intentionally

conceived as occupying an identical spatial location. This

produces a hazy and unstable mental percept rather than the

vivid images characteristically due to primary process

because consciously superimposed discrete spatial elements

cannot be held in exactly the same place. From this

unstable image, a new identity then is articulated in the

form of a metaphor or other type of aesthetic or scientific

unity. Also, whereas in primary process condensation

aspects of various entities are combined in the same spatial

area in order to represent all of those entities at once,

the homospatial process involves no combinations but rather

whole images interacting and competing for the same

location. For example, a patient's dream about man named

Lipstein is reported by Grinstein (1983, p.187) and shown to

be a clear-cut instance of a condensation of the names

Grinstein and Lipschutz. Rather than such a compromise

formation in a mental image which necessarily involves

change or transformation of one or both of the elements

entering into the compromise, the homospatial process

operating with these same name elements would instead

involve mental images of the full names Grinstein and

Lipschutz as neither combined nor modified nor adjusted but

visualized unchanged within exactly the same mentally

depicted space.

Although the homospatial process involves sensory

images and the alteration of ordinary perceptual experience,

it is a conscious, deliberate, and reality-oriented mode of

cognition. Ordinary perceptual experience is consciously

manipulated and mentally transcended in order to create new

and valuable entities. The homospatial process is a type of

logic transcending operation I have called a "translogical

process (Rothenberg, 1978-9)." Such a process deals with

reality by improving upon it. It is an adaptive, healthy

mode of cognition.

Experimental assessment of the creative effect of

the homospatial process has been carried out by means of an

externalized concrete representation of the mental

conception consisting of transilluminated superimposed slide

images (Rothenberg, 1988). In one experiment the function

of the process in literary creativity was assessed

(Rothenberg & Sobel, 1980). Ten pairs of slide images,

specially constructed to represent literary themes of love,

animals, war, aging etc., were projected superimposed and

side-by-side respectively to an experimental and matched

control group of creative writers. For example, one of the

test image pairs consisted of 5 nuns walking together in

front of St. Peter's superimposed with 5 racing jockeys on

horses. Subjects in both groups were instructed to produce

short literary metaphors inspired by each of the projected

images. Results were that metaphors produced in response to

the superimposed images, representing externalizations of

the homospatial conception, were blindly rated significantly

more highly creative by independent writer judges than the

metaphors produced in response to the side-by-side images

(z=4.65, p<0.0003). By shortening time of exposure of the

projected images and encouraging mental imaging in another

identically designed experiment with other creative writer

groups (Rothenberg & Sobel, 1981), resulting metaphors

produced in the superimposed condition were rated

significantly higher in creativity than those of the

controls (p<.05), supporting a conclusion that creative

effects were due to mental superimposition of imagery.

In order to trace connections between the visually

stimulated homospatial conception and a visual creative

result, and to replicate the findings in artistic

creativity, another experiment was carried out with visual

artists (Sobel & Rothenberg, 1980). Subjects were asked to

create pastel drawings in response to either superimposed or

side-by-side slide images under the same experimental

conditions as in the literary experiment. Independent

artist and art critic judges rated the products and the

result was a highly significant condition by composition

interaction (F=6.99 p <.001), the superimposed image

presentation producing significantly more highly creative

drawings (p<.05). Also, ratings of specific features of

line, color, etc. of the drawings themselves gave evidence

that they were produced from superimposed mental

representations.

Another experiment was carried out with highly talented

award winning artists to assess whether the results of all

the previous experiments could have been due to stimulus

presentation effects (Rothenberg, 1986). Single images were

constructed to represent composite foreground-background

displays of the same slide pairs used in transilluminated

superimposition. This experiment also showed significantly

higher rated created products in response to the

superimposed images (z=2.27, p<.01). All the experiments

together indicate a distinct connection between consciously

constructed superimposed images representing the homospatial

conception and the production of creative effects.

Rothenberg, A.(1971). The process of janusian

thinking in creativity. Archives of General Psychiatry, 24,

195-205.

Rothenberg, A. (1973a). Word association and creativity.

Psychological Reports, 33, 3-12.

Rothenberg, A. (1973b). Opposite responding as a measure of

creativity. Psychological Reports, 33, 15-18.

Rothenberg, A. (1976). Homospatial thinking in creativity.

Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 17-26.

Rothenberg, A. (1978-79). Translogical secondary process

cognition in creativity. Journal of Altered States of

Consciousness, 4, 171-187.

Rothenberg, A. (1979). The emerging goddess: The creative

process in art, science and other fields. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Rothenberg, A. (1983). Psychopathology and creative

cognition. A comparison of hospitalized patients, Nobel

laureates, and controls. Archives General Psychiatry, 40,

937-942.

Rothenberg, A. (1986). Artistic creation as stimulated by

superimposed versus combined-composite visual images.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 370-381.

Rothenberg, A. (1988). Creativity and the homospatial

process: Experimental studies. Psychiatric Clinics of North

America, 11, 443-459.

Rothenberg, A. (1990). Creativity and madness: New

findings and old stereotypes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press.

Rothenberg, A. (1994). Studies in the creative process: An

empirical investigation. In: J.M. Masling, & R.R.

Bornstein, (Eds.), Empirical perspectives on object

relations theory (195-245). Washington: American

Psychological Association Press.

Rothenberg, A. (1996). The janusian process in scientific

creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 9, 207-232.

Rothenberg A. (2000) [Biographical works on Nobel

laureates].

Unpublished raw data.

Rothenberg, A., & Sobel, R.S. (1980). Creation of literary

metaphors as stimulated by superimposed versus separated

visual images. Journal of Mental Imagery, 4, 77-91.

Rothenberg, A., & Sobel R.S. (1981). Effects of shortened

exposure time on the creation of literary metaphors as

stimulated by superimposed versus separated visual images.

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 53, 1007-1009.

Sobel, R.S., & Rothenberg, A. (1980). Artistic creation as

stimulated by superimposed versus separated images. Journal

of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 953-961.

FROM BIPOLAR ILLNESS AND CREATIVITY

Janusian and Homospatial Processes

In previous investigations based on structured

intensive interview series, documentary analyses, and

experimentation, I have found evidence for specific forms

of creative cognition, namely the janusian (Rothenberg 1971,

1973a, 1973b, 1979, 1990, 1994, 1996) and homospatial

(Rothenberg 1976, 1979, 1988, 1990, 1994) processes. The

janusian process consists of actively conceiving multiple

opposites or antitheses simultaneously. During the course

of the creative process, opposite or antithetical ideas,

concepts or propositions are deliberately and consciously

conceptualized side-by-side and/or as co-existing

simultaneously. Although seemingly illogical and self-

contradictory, these formulations are constructed in clearly

logical and rational states of mind in order to produce

creative effects. They occur as early conceptions in the

development of artworks and scientific theories and at

critical junctures at middle and later stages as well.

Because they serve generative functions during both

formative and critical stages of the creative process, these

conceptions usually undergo transformation and modification

and are seldom directly discernible in final created

products. They are formulated by the creative thinker as

central ideas for a plot, character, artistic composition,

or as solutions in working out practical and scientific

tasks.

Simultaneity of the multiple opposites or antitheses is

a cardinal feature. Opposite or antithetical ideas,

beliefs, concepts or propositions are formulated as

simultaneously operating, valid or true. Firmly held

propositions, for example, about the laws of nature, the

functioning of individuals and groups, and the aesthetic

properties of visual and sound patterns are conceived as

simultaneously true and not-true. Or, opposite or

antithetical propositions are entertained as concomitantly

operative. A person running is both in motion and not in

motion at the same time, a chemical is both boiling and

freezing, or kindness and sadism operate simultaneously.

Previously held beliefs or laws are still considered valid

but opposite or antithetical beliefs and laws are formulated

as equally operative or valid as well.

These formulations within the janusian process are

waystations to creative effects and outcomes. They interact

and join with other cognitive and affective developments to

produce new and valuable products. One of these developments

may be a later interaction with unifying homospatial process

effects. Others may be the use of analogic, dialectic,

inductive and deductive reasoning to develop theories,

inventions, and artworks. The phases of janusian process,

sometimes overlapping and sometimes occurring in very rapid

succession, consist of the following: 1) separation from

existing knowledge or aesthetic canons; 2) the recognition

and choice of salient and conflicting opposites and

antitheses in a scientific, cultural or aesthetic field; 3)

the formulation of the opposites or antitheses operating

simultaneously; 4) integration into elaborated creations

(Rothenberg, 1996).

Because such thinking is unusual and seemingly

illogical on the surface, it has been confused with the

thinking in psychosis or in what in psychoanalysis is

described as primary process cognition. One of the

characteristics of primary process is an absence of

contradictions and, for the purpose of disguise of

unconscious contents, substitution of opposites for each

other. Characteristic of an early childhood period prior to

the development of reality oriented secondary process

cognition, primary process structures are also identified in

the delusions and hallucinations of persons suffering from

psychosis. An example of this is when a schizophrenic

patient says to a doctor, "I am a human like yourself but I

am not a human." This delusional statement is superficially

similar to janusian formulations but, in distinction, it is

truly illogical. Psychotic patients do not appear to be

aware of the contradiction when making such assertions and

they therefore may be considered to manifest the primitive

primary process mode rather than a creative one.

The janusian process is distinct from psychosis and

from other forms of mental illness as well. An assessment of

this distinction was carried out in an experiment performed

with Nobel Prize laureates in the physical sciences,

psychiatric patients, and Yale University undergraduates

(Rothenberg, 1983). Among the Nobel laureates were Allan

Cormack, developer of the principle of the CAT scan type of

X-ray, Arthur Kornberg, first to synthesize DNA, Donald

Glaser, inventor of the Bubble Chamber, David Baltimore,

discoverer of the reverse transcriptase enzyme and its role

in genetic change. A word association test consisting of 99

Kent-Rosanoff stimulus words and one chaff stimulus word was

individually administered to each subject. Responses were

electronically recorded, with speed of responding measured

in the time span of one-hundredth of a second. The purpose

of the experiment was to find out whether the 12 Nobel

laureates and an independently designated high creative

group of 63 Yale undergraduates showed a tendency to

janusian process--manifested by extremely fast opposite-word

responses to the stimuli--in comparison with two types of

control groups: 18 psychiatric patients with a wide range of

diagnoses (schizophrenic disorder=2; borderline personality

disorder=9; brief reactive psychosis=1; major depressive

disorder=2; anorexia nervosa=1; opioid substance abuse=1;

alcohol dependence=1; narcissistic personality disorder=1),

and 53 Yale undergraduates independently designated as low

creative who were drawn from the same population as the high

creative students. The clearcut result was that rapid

opposite response was significantly greater in the Nobel

laureate and high creative student groups than in both the

patients and low creative students (range of p<.003-.05).

Speed of opposite responding among the creative subjects was

extremely rapid, averaging 1.1 to 1.2 seconds from the time

the experimenter spoke the stimulus word, suggesting the

formulation of simultaneous or, virtually simultaneous,

opposite associations.

The high creative and low creative student group also

gave a significantly greater number of popular responses

than the patients. This commonality response is consistent

with an assumption that the student groups were normal

controls. In addition, none of the Nobel laureates had a

history of psychiatric disorder. Results of the experiment

therefore distinguished between mental illness and

tendencies to creative thinking through the janusian

process.

The homospatial process consists of actively conceiving

two or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a

conception leading to the articulation of new identities.

In the course of creating literary characters, metaphors,

complete works of art, or scientific theories, creative

persons actively conceive images and representations of

multiple entities as superimposed within the same spatial

location. These sharply distinct and independent elements

may be represented as discrete colors, sounds, etc.,

organized objects such as knives and human faces, or more

complex organizations such as entire landscape scenes, or

else a series of sensory patterns or written words together

with their concrete or abstract meanings. This conception

is a figurative and abstract one in the sense that it

represents nothing that has ever existed in reality; it is

one of the bases for constructive and creative imagination.

One of the tenets known from universal sensory experience is

that two objects or two discrete entities can never occupy

the same space. Nor can more than two. The creative

person, however, brings multiple entities together in a

mental conception for the purpose of producing new and

valuable ideas, images, sound patterns and metaphors.

Because of the difficulty in maintaining multiple

elements in the same spatial location, the homospatial

conception is frequently a rapid, fleeting, and transitory

mental experience. Although this form of cognition often

involves the visual sensory modality, and like all

constructive imagination is probably easiest to describe in

visual terms, the superimposed entities may be derived from

any one of the sensory modalities. There may be entities

and sensations of the gustatory, olfactory, auditory,

kinesthetic or tactile type.

The homospatial process is a not a form of primary

process condensation or displacement despite the sharing of

superficial similarities such as the breaking of spatial

restrictions. Unlike condensation, the homospatial process

involves no spatial substitutions or compromise formations,

but sensory entities are consciously and intentionally

conceived as occupying an identical spatial location. This

produces a hazy and unstable mental percept rather than the

vivid images characteristically due to primary process

because consciously superimposed discrete spatial elements

cannot be held in exactly the same place. From this

unstable image, a new identity then is articulated in the

form of a metaphor or other type of aesthetic or scientific

unity. Also, whereas in primary process condensation

aspects of various entities are combined in the same spatial

area in order to represent all of those entities at once,

the homospatial process involves no combinations but rather

whole images interacting and competing for the same

location. For example, a patient's dream about man named

Lipstein is reported by Grinstein (1983, p.187) and shown to

be a clear-cut instance of a condensation of the names

Grinstein and Lipschutz. Rather than such a compromise

formation in a mental image which necessarily involves

change or transformation of one or both of the elements

entering into the compromise, the homospatial process

operating with these same name elements would instead

involve mental images of the full names Grinstein and

Lipschutz as neither combined nor modified nor adjusted but

visualized unchanged within exactly the same mentally

depicted space.

Although the homospatial process involves sensory

images and the alteration of ordinary perceptual experience,

it is a conscious, deliberate, and reality-oriented mode of

cognition. Ordinary perceptual experience is consciously

manipulated and mentally transcended in order to create new

and valuable entities. The homospatial process is a type of

logic transcending operation I have called a "translogical

process (Rothenberg, 1978-9)." Such a process deals with

reality by improving upon it. It is an adaptive, healthy

mode of cognition.

Experimental assessment of the creative effect of

the homospatial process has been carried out by means of an

externalized concrete representation of the mental

conception consisting of transilluminated superimposed slide

images (Rothenberg, 1988). In one experiment the function

of the process in literary creativity was assessed

(Rothenberg & Sobel, 1980). Ten pairs of slide images,

specially constructed to represent literary themes of love,

animals, war, aging etc., were projected superimposed and

side-by-side respectively to an experimental and matched

control group of creative writers. For example, one of the

test image pairs consisted of 5 nuns walking together in

front of St. Peter's superimposed with 5 racing jockeys on

horses. Subjects in both groups were instructed to produce

short literary metaphors inspired by each of the projected

images. Results were that metaphors produced in response to

the superimposed images, representing externalizations of

the homospatial conception, were blindly rated significantly

more highly creative by independent writer judges than the

metaphors produced in response to the side-by-side images

(z=4.65, p<0.0003). By shortening time of exposure of the

projected images and encouraging mental imaging in another

identically designed experiment with other creative writer

groups (Rothenberg & Sobel, 1981), resulting metaphors

produced in the superimposed condition were rated

significantly higher in creativity than those of the

controls (p<.05), supporting a conclusion that creative

effects were due to mental superimposition of imagery.

In order to trace connections between the visually

stimulated homospatial conception and a visual creative

result, and to replicate the findings in artistic

creativity, another experiment was carried out with visual

artists (Sobel & Rothenberg, 1980). Subjects were asked to

create pastel drawings in response to either superimposed or

side-by-side slide images under the same experimental

conditions as in the literary experiment. Independent

artist and art critic judges rated the products and the

result was a highly significant condition by composition

interaction (F=6.99 p <.001), the superimposed image

presentation producing significantly more highly creative

drawings (p<.05). Also, ratings of specific features of

line, color, etc. of the drawings themselves gave evidence

that they were produced from superimposed mental

representations.

Another experiment was carried out with highly talented

award winning artists to assess whether the results of all

the previous experiments could have been due to stimulus

presentation effects (Rothenberg, 1986). Single images were

constructed to represent composite foreground-background

displays of the same slide pairs used in transilluminated

superimposition. This experiment also showed significantly

higher rated created products in response to the

superimposed images (z=2.27, p<.01). All the experiments

together indicate a distinct connection between consciously

constructed superimposed images representing the homospatial

conception and the production of creative effects.