A Visual Remote Associates Test and Its Validation

Abstract

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a widely used test for measuring creativity, specifically the ability to make associations. The Remote Associates Test normally takes a linguistic form: given three words, the participant is asked to come up with a fourth word associated with all three of them. While visual creativity tests do exist, no creativity test to date can be given in both a visual and linguistic form. Such a test would allow the study of differences between various modalities, in the context of the same creative process. In this paper, a visual version of the well-known Remote Associates Test is constructed. This visual RAT is validated in relation to its linguistic counterpart.