Creative ideas often emerge from activating a chain of concepts that are only remotely associated, rather than the closest, most obvious neighbour.
novelty ~ semantic_distance(source, target)
activation spreads probabilistically
- Concept nodes — individual concepts available in the associative idea space.
- Association density — how many other concepts each concept is linked to.
- Divergent-thinking strength — how far activation is willing to spread to semantically remote nodes.
- Idea activation threshold — activation level needed before a concept counts as a 'formed' idea.
Creativity researchers measure divergent thinking by exactly this kind of remote-association test — how far a mind travels through concept space from a starting prompt.