title: Age and creative productivity: nonlinear estimation of an information-processing model.
abstract: A two-step cognitive model is outlined that explicates the key empirical findings on the relation between age and creative productivity. Two primary information-processing parameters, the ideation and elaboration rates, define a mathematical function that both describes the age curves and specifies how those curves vary across disciplines. To validate the model further, a nonlinear estimation program was applied to previously published tabulations on the longitudinal fluctuations in creative output. The resulting parameter estimates also yield the expected peak age and the creative half-life for each domain of achievement. Despite the prediction of a post-peak decline, the model's implications for creativity over the life span are optimistic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Simonton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003405:Creativity; D004526:Efficiency; D006801:Humans; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological