Bisociation

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Bisociation refers to the creative process of linking concepts, images or ideas from different conceptual frames of reference. The term was introduced by Arthur Koestler in his work The Act of Creation (1964; German: Der götlichen Funke , 1966) based on the word "association" and is now considered a basic term in creativity and humor research.

As a creative basic term, bisociation describes the breaking of mental routines. While the association describes conceptual connections on one level, the bisociation goes beyond that by connecting terms from two levels that are usually not assigned to one another.

This creative connection can lead to three different discoveries:

  1. Joke : Coming out of things that don't belong together can result in comedy .
  2. Knowledge / discovery : The meeting of two elements that were not previously thought together can lead to a surprising insight.
  3. Understanding : The meeting can lead to a deeper understanding of connections.

In humor research, the focus is primarily on the first aspect: humor and comedy arise from the clash of different levels and worlds.

Koestler's considerations have also led to direct suggestions for application in creativity research. Bisociation becomes a method that consciously connects terms and things that, according to the usual, routine thinking, do not belong together. The Semantic Intuition is an example of such a method.

Exemplary application in creativity technology:

  1. A group looks at five pictures that have nothing to do with the actual problem (or the actual topic). For example, representational or abstract pictures by a well-known painter are viewed.
  2. Each participant tries to associate the aforementioned question with aspects / excerpts of the pictures and writes down their ideas stimulated by the pictures.
  3. The ideas are then collected and discussed.

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