Accounting for Creativity Within a Psychologically Realistic Cognitive Architecture - Computational Creativity Research: Towards Creative Machines - page 150

8.3.4 Principle #4: The Integration of the Results
of Explicit and Implicit Processing
Although explicit and implicit knowledge are often re-descriptions of one another,
they involve different forms of representation and processing, which may produce
similar or different conclusions; the integration of these conclusions is necessary,
which may lead to synergy, that is, overall better performance [ 33 ].
8.3.5 Principle #5: The Iterative (and Possibly Bidirectional)
Processing
According to CLARION, processing may be iterative and potentially bidirectional. If
the integrated outcome of explicit and implicit processing does not yield a definitive
result (i.e., a result inwhich one is sufficiently confident), another round of processing
may occur, which may often use the integrated outcome as a new starting point.
Reversing the direction of reasoning may sometimes happen (e.g., using abductive
reasoning; [ 16 ]). Alternating between forward and backward processing has been
argued to happen in everyday human reasoning [ 23 ]. Of course, time constraints
may limit the number of iterations.
8.4 The EII Theory of Creative Problem Solving
CLARION led to an integrative theory of creative problem solving. The theory has
been termed the EII (Explicit and Implicit Interaction) theory [ 15 ].
The EII theory, in part, attempts to integrate and thus unify existing theories of cre-
ative problem solving in two senses. First, most theories of creative problem solving
have focused on either a high-level stage decomposition (e.g., [ 38 ]) or on a process
explanation of only one of the stages [ 18 ]. Second, the process theories of incuba-
tion (e.g., [ 24 ]) and insight (e.g., [ 22 ]) are usually incomplete and often mutually
incompatible. EII attempts to integrate the existing theories, each of which tends to
describe only a part of creative problem solving, to provide a detailed description
of the processes involved in the key stages of creative problem solving. EII starts
from Wallas' [ 38 ] stage decomposition of creative problem solving and provides a
detailed process-based explanation that is ready for a coherent computational imple-
mentation. However, EII is not just an integration and implementation of previously
existing theories, but it is a new theory, which emphasizes the importance of implicit
processing and implicit-explicit integration in problem solving.
The EII theory relies mainly on the five basic principles of CLARION, as
explained above, plus a few (relatively minor) auxiliary principles. In addition to the
five basic principles presented so far, three auxiliary principles should be mentioned