In: J Cresswell, A Haye, A Larrain, M Morgan & G Sullivan (Eds.), Dialogue and Debate in the making of Theoretical Psychology (pp 25-30) Toronto: Captus Press Chapter The physiognomics of creativity Brady Wagoner Aalborg University, Denmark SUMMARY The term ‘physiognomic’ was used by the psychologist Heinz Werner to describe the perceived dynamic and expressive qualities of objects, which could not be accounted for by merely attending to an object’s objective form An exploration of these qualities and their role in psychological processes is sorely missing in contemporary psychology with its focus on the more or less accurate cognition of a world seen to be ‘out there’ In this paper, I use the notion of physiognomic to explore the phenomena of creativity, which is here understood as the making of novel linkages, combinations and syntheses across different domains of experience It is argued that physiognomic perception creates a platform on which creativity becomes possible at both micro- and onto-genetic levels Creative insight often occurs when we let our minds move to more ‘primitive’ levels of consciousness, such as daydreaming, the dim consciousness before sleep and pretend play, etc., where physiognomic qualities come to the fore Through a number of illustrative examples, I demonstrate how physiognomic qualities enable us to make surprising linkages in our experience and thereby learn to see the world anew INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOGNOMICS The notion of physiognomic perception can best be introduced with an example Figure is a depiction of Rubin’s famous reversible face-vase figure, which he used to demonstrate that a figure is always perceived against a background Like other Gestalt psychologists, he emphasized objectivity in perception The two faces constitute a gestalt, in which each has a nose, mouth and chin of a particular shape Seen from another perspective, these contours create the outlines of a vase What Rubin’s approach misses is the dynamic and expressive qualities of the figures We not simply perceive two faces with objectively describable features of different shapes and sizes, but also a directionality of gaze and emotions in the faces The two faces seem to be looking at one another, perhaps approaching each other They express for some surprise and pleasure at seeing one another These features that cannot be exhausted by an objective description of the figures are called physiognomic qualities The word physiognomic itself comes from the Greek word for face; however, its use here is much more general Figures that in no way resemble a face can just as easily have physiognomic qualities Reversing Rubin’s figure, the vase also has dynamic and expressive characteristics that go beyond a description of its objective form The vase, for instance, feels grounded while simultaneously reaching upward, like a flower towards the sky The objective form is not what speaks to us; rather what it expresses does Another classic example of physiognomics is the expressive nature of lines (Werner and Kaplan, 1963), first observed by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer (19551957) No one has difficulty ascribing emotions to the lines in Figure 2: The line on the left tends to be seen as irritated or angry; the middle line is happy and free; and the one 25 Figure Rubin’s face-vase on the right is sad and depressed We almost feel these emotions in the movements of our bodies Our perception of the lines is individual, dynamic, expressive and multimodal Werner (1978) pointed out that it is these features that distinguish physiognomic from geometrical-technical perception (see also Cornejo, Olivares & Rojas, 2013) In relation to color perception, red is perceived physiognomically when it is seen through personal associations rather than as a category, as individual and unique rather than generic and conceptual The physiognomic perception of red will also be dynamic rather than fixed (e.g., red is excited, passionate, full of strength); expressive and not simply material (e.g red and green contrast on colour spectrum but may both express strength, cheerfulness, etc.); and finally, multimodal rather than through a specific sense modality, involving a total body experience of the object These physiognomies may operate on collective level For example, the colour red is associated with luck and happiness in China, but tends to be linked to danger, anger, energy and love in Europe and America Similarly, everyone who has travelled to another country has probably had the feeling of foreign money being without value, like Monopoly money (cf Bruner & Goodman, 1947), or that objects in a foreign countries should cost much more or less than they are priced at These are socialized physiognomic reactions to cultural objects Figure Expressive lines Returning to the lines in Figure 2, they can also be used to represent an infinite number of other things besides emotions—for instance, members of a family, academic chapters in a book, or previous romantic relationships In order to represent one thing as another we spin the two together, drawing out physiognomic qualities in the medium that 26 matches the object represented If the lines represented academic chapters, the first might be ‘all over the place,’ the second might be exuberant (full of exclamation points!) and the third might have started well but failed to deliver Again, these linkages could be said to be at least partially cultural in nature, in that they rely on group practices Even though the forms of the lines as well as our cultural framework constrain our interpretation, there is still openness to our constructions It is precisely the ambiguity and flexibility of the material that invites creativity If a thing simply were what it was called there would be no creativity; creativity arises from ambiguity This was aptly demonstrated in the second Leipzig school of psychology (Ganzheitspsychologie) with the method of Aktualgenese, in which a figure is first presented in suboptimal conditions (e.g., at a distance, small, for a fraction of a second, or at the periphery of ones visual field) and then gradually improved in steps (see Diriwächter, 2009) They found that the intermediate forms (Vorgestalten), where stimulus ambiguity was high, were often much richer and elaborate than the final form (Endgestalt) Similarly, in Heider and Simmel’s (1944) classic study, where they showed participants an animated film of simple geometric shapes that seemed to be interacting with one another as animate beings, participants spontaneously generated a range of different narratives to make sense of the movements In short, the ambiguity of the figures is highly generative of different meanings CREATIVITY THROUGH PHYSIOGNOMY Physiognomic perception by itself is constructive but not yet creative Creativity requires that there be distance between the object and medium used to represent it; the person must represent one thing as another, as we did in relation to the expressive lines above Vygotsky (1990, 1994) has argued that creativity and imagination develop out of children’s pretend play, where one object stands in for another For example, the child might use a broom to stand in for a horse The broom is approached as if it were a horse by selecting the physiognomic qualities that make it horse-like It is precisely because the broom is not a horse that the construction is creative Vygotsky said that this external activity was then internalized, so that the child could creatively imagine without the material support The child begins to manipulate mental images, which are also pregnant with physiognomic qualities accumulated through interaction with physical objects At this point, imagination has become a higher mental function, aiding in the child’s thinking We need not, however, think of external objects as merely redundant at this stage History is replete with environments constructed to fuel the imagination, from Chinese gardens to Memory theaters such as Shakespeare’s Globe (Yates, 1966) Again it is precisely the ambiguity and openness of these environments that affords creativity and imagination For example, in Chinese gardens the visitor is invited to contemplate the intricate shapes of the rocks as if they were inkblots, letting their imagination take them beyond the immediate environment (Casey, 2000) These spaces were designed as microcosms of the world (with miniatures of great natural wonders), such that we might imaginatively come in contact with the whole macrocosm Environments guiding imagination are necessary because under normal conditions we tend to relate to the world pragmatically through habitual connections between objects and what they stand for, as if objects had their names written on them from the start This realist ontology of objects reminds me of a Far Side cartoon in which a person has painted the category name of every object directly on to it todisambiguate the world: a tree is “the tree,” a dog is “the dog,” the house is “the house,” a shirt is “shirt,” pants are “pants,” etc Everything has its place within an objective and unchanging framework By contrast, creativity makes the opposite 27 movement; it operates precisely through the free play between object and medium of representation, through the physiognomics of the latter In this spirit, literary critic Kenneth Burke (1935) encourages us to take new perspectives on familiar objects by representing them in an incongruent context—for example, taking the lion out of the conventional category of cats and placing it into the context of dogs with the statement, “that big dog the lion” In so doing, we see lions in a new light according to their doglike physiognomic qualities This effectively transforms a dead metaphor (which is no longer seen as metaphorical) into a living metaphor (which has the capacity to revive our creativity and seeing the world anew—see Ricoeur, 1977) Thus, creative thinking privileges imagination over rational thinking, and dynamic and flexible forms over clear and distinct ideas—a perspective going back all the way back to Vico’s critique of Descartes We should also not assume that the former is strictly the realm of the arts and the latter that of the sciences Breakthroughs in the sciences often come from creative use of metaphors to construct new models of some phenomenon—for example, the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom used the solar system as a metaphorical source The more separate two things are kept from each other within a cultural landscape, the more novel their combinations often are—for example, Burke’s “that big dog the lion” I often ask my students what animal they would use to represent “freedom” They respond a “bird” with a prototypical bird, such as an eagle, in mind But I provocatively ask them if they mean a chicken, which they reject Then I ask, “What would chicken freedom be?” Different new meanings abound Freedom might be taken in an ironic way by, for example, thinking of humans living in modern democracies as free-range chickens, who are free only in comparison to battery farm chickens Or maybe freedom comes from living as chickens without being plagued by the past or concerned for the future In our everyday lives we are constantly constructing new meaning through novel connections between different domains of experience We make the sacred profane and the profane sacred, we combine refinement and coarseness, and we mix seriousness with lightness, truth with fiction We this whenever we make a new metaphor to describe some event, object or phenomenon Humor is another good example of everyday creativity, where two domains are skillfully combined with surprising results For instance, “the ballerine extended one slender leg en pointe… like a dog at a fire hydrant” A context of refinement is brought into one of basic animal physiology These images are creative because they construct new ways of relating to familiar cultural objects by foregrounding new physiognomies Our world is not simply one that is composed of clearly and distinctly perceived objects, but rather a process of meaning-making involving a free-play of objects and mediums CONCLUSIONS The notion of physiognomics sensitizes us to the fringe qualities of objects, which can be used to re-present them in a new light It is precisely the dynamic, expressive and ambiguous aspects of objects that makes creativity possible If things simply were what we conventionally call them, we would simply act upon them in canonical ways Fortunately, anything can be represented as anything else, though there are constraints The more unusual the combination is within a cultural framework, the more work it takes to draw out meanings but at the same time the result is often more novel People of all professions and backgrounds are involved in this activity on an everyday basis, in their humor, storytelling, problem solving, etc but are also successful to different degrees As Aristotle said in his Poetics, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor” 28 REFERENCES Bruner, J S & Goodman, C C (1947) Value and need as organizing factors in perception Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 33-44 Burke, K (1935) Permanence and change: An anatomy of purpose Berkeley: University of California Press Casey, E (2000) Remembering: A Phenomenological Study Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press Cassirer, E (1955-1957) Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol 1-3 New Haven: Yale University Press (Original work published 1923-9) Cornejo, C., Olivares, H., & Rojas, P (2013) The physiognomic and the geometrical apprehensions of metaphor Culture & Psychology, 19, 484-505 Diriwächter, R (2009) Idiographic Microgenesis: Re-visiting the experimental tradition of Aktualgenese In: J Valsiner, P Molenaar, N Chaudhary, and M Lyra (Eds.) Handbook of Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and Developmental Sciences (pp 319-353) New York: Springer Heider, F., & Simmel, M (1944) An experimental study of apparent behavior American Journal of Psychology 57: 243-259 Ricoeur, P (1977) The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language Toronto: University of Toronto Press Vygotsky, L.S (1990) Imagination and Creativity during Childhood Soviet Psychology, 28(1), 84-96 (Originally written in 1930) Vygotsky, L.S (1994) Imagination and creativity of the adolescent In R van der Veer & J Valsiner (Eds.), Vygotsky Reader (pp 266-288) Oxford: Blackwell Werner, H (1978) On physiognomic modes of perception and their experimental investigation In S.S Barten & M.B Franklin (Eds.), Developmental Processes: Heinz Werner’s Selected Writings, Volume (pp 149-152) New York: International Universities Press Werner, H & Kaplan, B (1963) Symbol Formation: A Developmental Organismic Approach to Language and the Expression of Thought Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Yates, F (1966) The Art of Memory Chicago: Chicago University Press 29 ... all the way back to Vico’s critique of Descartes We should also not assume that the former is strictly the realm of the arts and the latter that of the sciences Breakthroughs in the sciences often... representing them in an incongruent context—for example, taking the lion out of the conventional category of cats and placing it into the context of dogs with the statement, “that big dog the lion”... gardens the visitor is invited to contemplate the intricate shapes of the rocks as if they were inkblots, letting their imagination take them beyond the immediate environment (Casey, 2000) These