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.