The impact of human-AI co-creation on perceived creativity in generative AI art: a serial mediation mechanism of psychological ownership, perceived agency, and creative flow.

INTRODUCTION

Generative AI is shifting digital art from one-step generation toward interactive human-AI co-creation. Across two between-subject experiments (N = 600), we examined how creation mode and prespecified AI-involvement workflows related to perceived creativity.

METHODS

In Study 1, participants completed digital art tasks under human-only creation, AI-only generation, or human-AI co-creation conditions. In Study 2, three workflows differing in AI involvement (low, moderate, high) were evaluated. Psychological ownership, perceived agency, creative flow, and perceived creativity were measured.

RESULTS

In Study 1, human-AI co-creation produced higher perceived-creativity ratings than AI-only generation, with indirect effects consistent with a serial pathway through psychological ownership, perceived agency, and creative flow. In Study 2, the moderate-involvement workflow yielded higher perceived-creativity ratings and psychological states than the low- and high-involvement workflows.

DISCUSSION: Perceived creativity in generative-AI art depends on how users experience contribution, control, and engagement during creation. Within the workflows tested, balancing generative assistance with consequential user choice fosters the most favorable subjective creativity evaluations.