Gesture Facilitates Children’s Creative Thinking

Abstract

Gestures help people think and can help problem solvers generate new ideas. We conducted two experiments exploring the self-oriented function of gesture in a novel domain: creative thinking. In Experiment 1, we explored the relationship between children's spontaneous gesture production and their ability to generate novel uses for everyday items (alternative-uses task). There was a significant correlation between children's creative fluency and their gesture production, and the majority of children's gestures depicted an action on the target object. Restricting children from gesturing did not significantly reduce their fluency, however. In Experiment 2, we encouraged children to gesture, and this significantly boosted their generation of creative ideas. These findings demonstrate that gestures serve an important self-oriented function and can assist creative thinking.

The Role of Gesture in Communication and Cognition: Implications for Understanding and Treating Neurogenic Communication Disorders

“…When encouraged to gesture while solving math problems, children produce an even wider range of strategies (Broaders et al, 2007). Similarly, when encouraged to gesture during the Alternative Uses Test, children produced more novel uses for target objects (Kirk and Lewis, 2017); gesture helped them conceptualize different features and uses for objects, some of which could then be verbalized. Thus, gesture use may facilitate creative problem solving and the exploration of ideas (Kita et al, 2017).…”

A Perspective on Implementing Movement Sonification to Influence Movement (and Eventually Cognitive) Creativity

“…This motor intervention was associated with higher letter recognition and handwriting quality compared to practicing visual recognition of letters and handwriting practice alone. Recent creativity work has also shown that moving via gesture ( Kirk and Lewis, 2017 ), and matching (functionally similar) emotional states with physical exertion in dance ( Hutton and Sundar, 2010 ) promoted divergent thinking performance. These findings offer additional credence to the purported role of functional similarity within the mind-body relationship.…”

A Review of Experimental Research on Embodied Creativity: Revisiting the Mind–Body Connection

“…Seventeen studies employed a between-subjects experimental design (Abraham et al, 2018;Fioratou & Cowley, 2009;Friedman & F€ orster, 2000;, Friedman & F€ orster, 2002;Goldstein et al, 2010;Hao et al, 2017;Hao et al, 2014;Hutton & Sundar, 2010;Khasky & Smith, 1999;Kim, 2015;Kuo & Yeh, 2016;Leung et al, 2012;Slepian & Ambady, 2012;Thomas & Lleras, 2009;Vall ee-Tourangeau et al, 2016;Weller et al, 2011;Yuan, Lu, & Hao, 2018), while one study employed a within-subjects protocol (Zhou et al, 2017). Three studies utilized a mixed-methods approach (Dansky & Silverman, 1973;Kirk & Lewis, 2017;Wang et al, 2018). Leung et al (2012) employed a mixed-methods approach for study 1 (of four) only (Leung et al, 2012).…”