If you're writing a story and trying to flesh out a character, someone who leases an olive drab Jeep is likely (a) someone who has money and (b) someone who likes to go off-roading, or at least give the appearance of being rough-and-tumble. Olive drab is also a color commonly associated with military usage, so that plays into it.
On the other hand, you could have a character who owns a lime Honda Insight. That is an old, unstylish hybrid, so that character is likely frugal, square, and perhaps more environmentally conscious.
And yet both characters could be said to have a green car. But the more detailed word choices can help give the story more life.
Is exposition-by-possessions really that powerful though? I would not infer all of the military off-roading stuff from a car, even if it was a camouflage painted Humvee.
I'd argue the creative writer would put this person in a situation where they make choices in a way that reveals their affluence and fondness of terrain driving.
Unless maybe this part of their personality is a shallow veneer and not really who they are at their core, in which case I guess possessions might work because it's also not as critical that the reader understand it.
> And yet both characters could be said to have a green car. But the more detailed word choices can help give the story more life.
Given that 'green' encompasses _all_ of the scenarios you describe, whereas olive/lime narrows the scenario, that would then seemingly be an argument that more specific words actually inhibit creativity by limiting the potential scenarios you can imagine with just a 'green' car.
I believe one of the ideas behind the evaluation is being creative enough to be able to imagine the scenario with those details, and then being able to select the words that best fit the scenario you've created. If you know words that encompass more disparate concepts, then the "cognitive distance" between them is greater. If you haven't told us which shade of green the car is, how do we know that you're not imagining everything to be the same shade?
If you're the most creative person in the world, but are incapable of expressing yourself, are you actually creative? It could be the same logic as "I've never played this game, therefore I have never lost, therefore I am the best in the world "
All this being said, I'm not trying to necessarily defend the usefulness of this survey. By their nature, none of these tests for "creativity", "intelligence", or "personality" will ever be able to perfectly capture or categorize or numerically label what is at heart a subjective quality.
On the other hand, you could have a character who owns a lime Honda Insight. That is an old, unstylish hybrid, so that character is likely frugal, square, and perhaps more environmentally conscious.
And yet both characters could be said to have a green car. But the more detailed word choices can help give the story more life.