Association and Creativity:

"As a preliminary statement, we may consider the usual associationistic approach to creativity (Spearman, 1931), according to which a creative idea results from the novel combination of two or more ideas that have been isolated from their usual association. Mednick (1962; Mednick and Mednick, 1964) has defined the creative process as 'the forming of associative elements into new combinations which either meet specified requirements or are in some way useful. The more mutually remote the elements of the new combinations, the more creative the process or solution' (Mednick, 1962, p. 221). Creativity thus becomes a function of people's 'associative hierarchy', which can be defined as generalization gradients of differing degrees of steepness, with associations to words, percepts or problems ranging from common to unique. Individuals with steep gradients are likely to give common associations at high strength, but few or no uncommon associations; persons with less steep or even with flat gradients are more likely to make uncommon or unique responses."

Genius - H. J. Eysenck