Creativity has been separately related to differences in foraging search styles and semantic memory structure. Here, we converge computational methods to examine the relation of creative foraging styles, semantic memory structure, and creative thinking. A large sample of participants was divided into groups based on their exploration and exploitation strategies in a novel creative foraging game. Their semantic memory networks were estimated and compared, based on an animal category semantic fluency task. We find differential relations between the properties of semantic memory structure and foraging styles and link such differences to performance in a standard creative thinking task. Our results highlight the interaction of semantic memory structure and foraging strategies in creativity.

What is creativity and how does it develop? Intuitively, it seems that children are often especially creative, but it isdifficult to find measures that are precise and comparable across development. In this study we use a creative foragingtask that involves the exploration of a high-dimensional space. This task precisely measures elements of creativity, whichwe compare between 4- to 8-year-olds and adults. We find that children show exploration-exploitation behavior in theircreative search resembling adults search. However, children are more exploratory in nature - compared to adults, theyspend a higher percentage of their search in exploration mode, and their exploitation phases are less optimal comparedto adults. Moreover, the products of childrens creative search are more often unique, compared to those of adults; andyounger children create more unique shapes than older children. Together, these results support the hypothesis that creativesearch may change across development, both in how the space of possibilities is navigated and what ideas are ultimatelygenerated. These findings inform not only our understanding of why childrens learning may sometimes be superior thanthat of adults, but also may inform our understanding of creativity and the creative process across development.

Throughout the lifespan and across cultures, all human behavior happens in space. By early childhood, people are capable of navigating complex 3D environments, executing sophisticated motor plans, and coordinating action with others. They also use their representations of space to structure a variety of non-spatial concepts, including time, number, similarity, and emotion. How do people perform these cognitive feats? One source of insight comes from studying the diversity of spatial cognition: Although the physical properties of space are invariant, the way people typically conceptualize space varies radically across groups, between individuals, and over development. By studying this variation in spatial cognition, we can better understand the universal set of cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie it, with implications for the cognitive sciences, education, and design.