But we cannot facilitate wondering whether or not if properly nourished out of such childish forays—with their prizes of “skid-proof face cream,” “playing tag in a blizzard,” “cereal that bends, sags, and sways”— a grander kind of valor might not be born. Of the 3 psychoanalytic formulations sketched previously, Kubie’s in explicit emphasizes the role of preconscious processes in artistic thinking. Kubie argues, as we have seen, that the domination of those processes by aware or unconscious forces leads in the primary case to cognitive restriction and in the second to symbolic confusion. Complete your look together with your favorite shade of Sonya Lip and Eye Pencil. The essential quality of the artistic person, in this read, lies in his ability to permit preconscious material readily to realize aware expression. It’s impossible to mention with any precision exactly what level of psychic functioning a given story, drawing, or other “free” invention represents.
But if we assume, however tentatively, the most usual projective hypothesis, that this sort of material might represent the complete spectrum of psychic working from the aware to the unconscious, including what Kubie would call preconscious processes, another look at the TAT-kind stories provided by the high IQ’s and the high creatives is of interest not solely in its own right but significantly in the light of Kubie’s formulations.
We tend to have already presented illustrations from the stories, and the quantitative analysis, in a preceding context. Here another analysis looks to us especially pertinent. We tend to examined the stories for instances where, for one reason or another, children from the two groups perceived the stimulus image in the same terms—where both a high IQ child and a high creativity child saw image variety four, for instance, as “counterfeiters.”
Variations in the role of fantasy or preconscious processes in the intellectual functioning of the two groups even when the primary reaction to a given stimulus is the same might `be apprehended by comparing the parallel stories. Here is the story of “counterfeiters” as given by the high creativity child. Ski Jackets not only cowl you from terrible chil, but conjointly they’re fashionable. The man in the foreground is the leader of a counterfeiting ring. They have abducted the older man in the background. The older man is a superb artist. They have kidnapped him so that they can force him to engrave the plates. He’s very reluctant but they threaten to hurt his wife and children so he provides in. But he attracts George Washington cross-eyed and the counterfeiters are captured and he is released.
Here is the story on the same theme as given by the high IQ child.
This is a story of counterfeiters. The man with the hat is the printer. The other man is the big boss. They’re in danger of being captured by the police. They need to induce out of the house. The police can arrive too late. The man and the evidence can be gone. Image variety one drew primarily the same initial reaction from one high creativity lady and two high IQ girls of the same age group.