Alternative Uses Task

Background

The Alternative Uses Task (AUT), also known as the Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task, is a classic psychological test used to measure divergent thinking, a key component of creativity. Designed by J.P. Guilford in 1967, it challenges participants to generate as many non-traditional uses as possible for a common, everyday object.

Participants are typically given a simple item, such as a brick, paperclip, or newspaper, and a set amount of time (e.g. 3 Minutes). They must list as many alternative functions for that object beyond its intended purpose as they can within the given time limit.

The traditional AUT is a paper-pencil test. The Millisecond AUT adapts the procedure for a computerized administration but responses still require manual scoring.

Task Procedure

The default setup of the Millisecond AUT runs three 3 trials. Each trial presents one object (a brick, a shoe or a newspaper) and 30 empty textboxes. The order of the items is decided randomly. Participants have 3 minutes to enter as many uses as they can think of for the given item. A visual timer is optional.

At the end, the script the computer lists all provided uses for each object and participants are asked to select the top 2 uses for each. Responses are stored in the data file but need to be evaluated manually.

What it Measures

The Alternative Uses Task (AUT) is a measure of divergent thinking

Psychological domains

• Divergent Thinking: a creative thought process used to generate multiple possible solutions or ideas in a spontaneous manner
• Fluency: the speed of generating new uses

Main Performance Metrics

• Solution count: a total number of entered responses for each item as a crude measure of fluency
• Storage variable: a storage variable for each item that stores all the responses

Psychiatric Conditions

AUT performance tends to be better or worse in patients with the following conditions.

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• *Autism Spectrum Disorder (ADS)
• Dementia
• Schizophrenia

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Alternative Uses Task.

---

Guilford,J.P.(1967). Creativity: yesterday, today and tomorrow. J. Creat.Behav. 1, 3–14.

Dewhurst, Thorley, Hammond, & Ormerod. (2011). Convergent, but not divergent, thinking predicts susceptibility to associative memory illusions. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(1), 73-76.

Storm, Benjamin C., & Patel, Trisha N. (2014). Forgetting as a Consequence and Enabler of Creative Thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(6), 1594-1609.

Claire E Stevenson, & Carsten De Dreu. (2014). Training creative cognition: Adolescence as a flexible period for improving creativity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8(NA), NA.

Kleibeuker, S., Stevenson, C., Van der Aar, L., Overgaauw, S., Van Duijvenvoorde, A., & Crone, E. (2016). Training in the Adolescent Brain: An fMRI Training Study on Divergent Thinking. Developmental Psychology, Developmental Psychology, 2016.

Hao, Ku, Liu, Hu, Bodner, Grabner, & Fink. (2016). Reflection enhances creativity: Beneficial effects of idea evaluation on idea generation. Brain and Cognition, 103, 30-37.