Grounding Creative Giftedness in the Body

Many definitions of giftedness exist (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007; 2008). While these theories differ in important ways, such as their dimensionality, their emphasis on creativity, or their focus on developmental and environmental factors, they all emphasize the importance of conscious, deliberate, learning and the assessment of giftedness using tests that require explicit thought. This emphasis is curious, considering the advances in cognitive science over the past 25 years that suggests humans have multiple modes of thought Indeed, dual-process theories of cognition are becoming increasingly necessary for explaining a wide variety of cognitive, personality, social, developmental, and cross-cultural phenomenon (Evans & Frankish, 2009). Dual-process theories of cognition typically differentiate between Type 1 processes and Type 2 processes (Evans, 2008). Type 1 processes are faster (relative to Type 2 processes), more influenced by context, biology, and past experience, and aid humans in mapping and assimilating newly acquired information into preexisting knowledge structures. An advantage of Type 1 processes over Type 2 processes is that the former require little conscious cognitive effort and free attentional resources for computationally complex Type 2 reasoning. The advantage of Type 1 processes can also become disadvantagous under certain circumstances. When thinking is dominated by Type 1 processes, task representations are highly contextualized. This contextualization can lead erroneous judgment and rash decision making. Type 2 processes have traditionally played an important role in theories of giftedness, particularly theories that include general intelligence as a key component to intellectual giftedness. Indeed, Stanovich (2009) links Type 2 processes to psychometric intelligence. In contrast to Type 1 processes, Type 2 processes involve deliberately controlled, effortful, and intentional cognition. Theories of giftedness have most likely emphasized Type 2 processes because individual differences in Type 2 processes are more easily observed and measured (although see Kaufman et al., 2009 for the existence of individual differences in implicit learning). The hallmark of Type 2 processes is the ability to decontextualize task representations (Stanovich & West, 1997), that is to say, it enables agents to transfer and apply even specific cognitive skills to a variety of task domains. While no dual-process theory of giftedness currently exists, there are a few theories of intelligence that emphasize the dual-process nature of human cognition