Generating ideas is central to creativity. To improve understanding of the idea generation process, measurements are needed that go beyond the typical indices of fluency, originality, elaboration, and flexibility. Faceted classification, which puts each idea into several conceptually orthogonal hierarchies, is suggested as an alternative. A distance metric over faceted classifications is defined. When applied to adjacent ideas on alternate uses tests, it correlates highly with time between

more »

... nses. This demonstrates faceted classification's promise as a high-resolution (though also time intensive) way to characterize ideation.