Creative Sense-Making and Observable Creative Sense-Making Are Not the Same Framework

Introduction

As the Creative Sense-Making (CSM) framework has gained visibility and been applied in new domains, a distinction has become increasingly necessary. Observable Creative Sense-Making (OCSM), introduced by Deshpande et al. (2023), emerged from prior work on Creative Sense-Making but represents a fundamentally different theoretical and methodological framework.

While OCSM is often described as building upon CSM, the two approaches make different assumptions about cognition, interaction, measurement, and interpretation. Confusion arises because both frameworks use similar terminology and both investigate co-creative interaction. However, treating OCSM as equivalent to CSM obscures the central contribution of the original Creative Sense-Making framework.

The purpose of this essay is not to reject OCSM as a research method. Rather, it is to clarify that OCSM should not be treated as a continuation of Creative Sense-Making in its original form. The frameworks quantify different phenomena and therefore produce fundamentally different kinds of data.

Creative Sense-Making as a Cognitive Framework

Creative Sense-Making was originally introduced as a cognitive framework for quantifying interaction dynamics during open-ended co-creation. It emerged from theories of enaction, participatory sense-making, embodied cognition, improvisation, and distributed creativity.

The central claim of CSM is that creative interaction unfolds through shifting cognitive modes of engagement with the environment. Participants are not merely producing observable behaviors. They are continuously regulating how they engage with possibilities, actions, constraints, and emerging meaning.

The coding scheme therefore represents cognitive participation modes rather than surface behavioral descriptions. In the original framework:

These values are not arbitrary numerical labels. They represent directional cognitive tendencies. Exploratory states correspond to outward inspection of the environment, possibility generation, experimentation, and openness to emerging affordances. Clamped states correspond to commitment, execution, stabilization, and action upon selected possibilities. The coding values therefore possess directional meaning. The positive and negative values indicate movement between distinct modes of sense-making.

Why the Cumulative Sum Is Essential

A critical component of Creative Sense-Making is the cumulative sum procedure. The original framework does not primarily analyze individual coded moments. Instead, it examines how cognitive participation evolves through time. The cumulative curve transforms moment-to-moment coding into a dynamic trajectory of sense-making. When exploratory activity accumulates, the curve rises. When action-oriented stabilization accumulates, the curve falls. The resulting trajectory provides information that cannot be observed from individual codes alone. The shape of the curve reveals:

In other words, the curve is not simply a visualization technique. It is a theoretical component of the framework itself. Without the cumulative trajectory, the framework loses its ability to model the temporal organization of cognition during co-creation. The cumulative curve is therefore not an optional analytic step. It is a foundational mechanism through which Creative Sense-Making generates meaning.

The Shift Introduced by OCSM

Observable Creative Sense-Making (OCSM) explicitly moves away from cognitive interpretation. The OCSM framework states that it avoids attributing observed behaviors to hidden cognitive states and instead focuses on observable interaction markers. OCSM introduces dimensions such as participation, newness, and appropriateness that are coded using discrete rating scales.

This shift represents a significant theoretical departure from Creative Sense-Making. In OCSM, coding values function primarily as categorical assessments. In CSM, coding values function as directional cognitive indicators. This difference has major consequences for interpretation.

A rating scale measuring degrees of novelty or appropriateness does not inherently contain directional cognitive meaning. The difference between a score of 1 and a score of 4 is not analogous to the difference between exploratory and clamped participation. One reflects magnitude. The other reflects direction. These are fundamentally different measurement logics.

Why Cumulative Curves Become Problematic in OCSM

Because OCSM employs ordinal rating scales, the cumulative sum procedure no longer possesses the same theoretical justification. In Creative Sense-Making: +1 and -1 represent opposing cognitive orientations. Accumulating these values through time reveals shifts between exploration and action. The resulting curve possesses interpretable structure because the coding scheme itself encodes directional cognitive movement.

In OCSM, however, values often represent subjective judgments of novelty, appropriateness, or participation on arbitrary scales. A score of 4 is not the opposite of a score of 1. The numerical differences do not represent movement between opposing cognitive states. As a result, accumulating these values through time can generate visually compelling curves without providing theoretically meaningful trajectories.

The cumulative curve no longer tracks movement between cognitive modes. Instead, it simply accumulates subjective ratings. This distinction is crucial. A rising OCSM curve does not necessarily indicate increasing exploration. A falling OCSM curve does not necessarily indicate increasing commitment or stabilization. The interpretive foundation that gives the original CSM trajectory its meaning is absent.

Observable Coding Versus Cognitive Modeling

At its core, the difference between the frameworks is a difference in what is being modeled. Creative Sense-Making attempts to model cognitive participation dynamics. Observable Creative Sense-Making attempts to model observable interaction characteristics.

These are not identical goals.

A framework focused on observable behavior may be valuable for studying dance, improvisation, embodiment, or social interaction. However, it should not be confused with a framework intended to model cognitive regulation through interaction. The original CSM framework was explicitly designed to investigate how participants move between exploratory and action-oriented modes of sense-making across time. The cumulative trajectory was created specifically to reveal those dynamics. Removing the cognitive foundation while preserving the terminology fundamentally changes what the framework measures.

The Creative Sense-Making curve is not merely a visualization of coded interaction. It is a cognitive trajectory generated from directional participation states.

Conclusion

Observable Creative Sense-Making and Creative Sense-Making should be understood as distinct frameworks rather than interchangeable versions of the same method. Creative Sense-Making is a cognitively grounded framework built around directional coding states and cumulative trajectory analysis. The cumulative sum procedure is central because the coding values represent opposing modes of cognitive engagement.

Observable Creative Sense-Making deliberately abandons this cognitive interpretation in favor of observable behavioral coding. While this may provide useful information about interaction characteristics, it changes the meaning of both the coding process and the resulting curves.

The distinction matters because the original CSM framework was never intended to produce arbitrary accumulations of subjective ratings. Its purpose was to model the temporal dynamics of cognitive participation during co-creation. Understanding this difference is essential for preserving the theoretical integrity of Creative Sense-Making and for ensuring that future researchers accurately interpret what each framework is actually measuring.