# creativity

As the training set grows, diffusion models move from memorizing training samples to generalizing, and between these phases an intermediate kind of attractor appears that matches no training image yet recurs in generated samples. Reading generation as retrieval in a dense associative memory predicts such spurious states once storage capacity is exceeded; on MNIST, FASHION-MNIST, CIFAR-10 and LSUN-CHURCH the spurious fraction rises and then falls at the memorization-to-generalization boundary, with basin volumes between those of memorized and generalized samples.

As the training set grows, diffusion models move from memorizing training samples to generalizing, and between these phases an intermediate kind of attractor appears that matches no training image yet recurs in generated samples. Reading generation as retrieval in a dense associative memory predicts such spurious states once storage capacity is exceeded; on MNIST, FASHION-MNIST, CIFAR-10 and LSUN-CHURCH the spurious fraction rises and then falls at the memorization-to-generalization boundary, with basin volumes between those of memorized and generalized samples.

In this Perspective in Frontiers in Cognition, Neroni integrates biopsychosocial, systemic, sociocultural, and interactionist approaches to reconceptualize creativity as a multilevel, developmentally situated, sociotechnically mediated phenomenon emerging from interactions among biological, psychological, developmental, sociocultural, and technological processes, arguing that no single factor is inherently creative and that its contribution depends on how it combines with other factors under particular conditions, and proposing four cross-level mechanisms—constraint, affordance, regulation, and feedback/selection—along with four testable propositions: configurational dependence, temporal specificity, cross-level divergence, and developmental reconfiguration.

In this Perspective in Frontiers in Cognition, Neroni integrates biopsychosocial, systemic, sociocultural, and interactionist approaches to reconceptualize creativity as a multilevel, developmentally situated, sociotechnically mediated phenomenon emerging from interactions among biological, psychological, developmental, sociocultural, and technological processes, arguing that no single factor is inherently creative and that its contribution depends on how it combines with other factors under particular conditions, and proposing four cross-level mechanisms—constraint, affordance, regulation, and feedback/selection—along with four testable propositions: configurational dependence, temporal specificity, cross-level divergence, and developmental reconfiguration.