Bodily movements representing abstract concepts (e.g., fluidity) can affect divergent creative thinking. A recent study showed that participants who performed fluid arm movements by tracing curved line-drawings (the fluid condition) subsequently generated a larger number of more original alternative uses for newspapers than did those who traced angular linedrawings (the non-fluid condition). This suggests that fluid movements enhance fluency and originality in divergent creative thinking. To replicate these findings, we employed the same task with a larger Japanese sample. Participants in the fluid condition generated more uses for newspapers than in the non-fluid condition, regardless of confounding variables: mood, subjective difficulty of the tracing, and daily use of newspapers. In contrast to previous findings, there were no effects on originality. Our results suggest that fluidity enacted by arm movements robustly enhances creative fluency, although other factors (e.g., culture) could interfere with its effect on originality.

Errors in discriminating right from left, termed right-left confusion, reflect a failure in translating visuospatial perceptions into verbal representation of right or left (i.e., visuo-verbal process). There may also be verbo-visual process, where verbal cues are translated into visual representations of space. To quantify these two processes underlying right-left confusion, Study 1 investigated the factor structure of the Right-Left Confusability Scale, which assesses daily experiences of right-left confusion. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that these two processes and another factor reflecting mental rotation underlie right-left confusion. Study 2 examined correlations between the (sub)scale scores and performance on orientation judgment tasks reflecting visuo-verbal and verbo-visual processes. Overall, self-reported measures were not associated with the behavioral performances presumably reflecting the two processes. These results suggest that the cognitive mechanisms underlying right-left confusion can be classified into visuo-verbal and verbo-visual processes and mental rotation, although their psychometric and behavioral indices might be distinct. Further studies may develop better assessments of right-left confusion reflecting these processes.

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We visually perceive meaning from stimuli in the external world. There are interindividual variations in the perception of meaning. A candidate factor to explain this variation is positive schizotypy, which is a personality analogous to positive symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., visual hallucination). The present study investigated the relationship between positive schizotypy, and the perception of meaning derived from meaningful and meaningless visual stimuli. Positive schizotypy in Japanese female undergraduates (n = 35) was assessed by the Cognitive-Perceptual dimension of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. The participants were asked to report what they saw in noisedegraded images of meaningful objects (Experiment 1) and to respond whether the objects were meaningful (Experiment 2A) and which paired objects were meaningful (Experiment 2B). Positive schizotypy (i.e., Cognitive-Perceptual score) did not correlate with time to detect meaningful objects, and with false-alarm rates, sensitivity, and response criterion in the perception of meaning from meaningful and meaningless stimuli. These results were against our hypothesis and contradicted previous findings. The inconsistencies are discussed in terms of different methods (e.g., stimulus category) and conditions (e.g., paranormal beliefs).