Wall Street Journal talks about "Embodied Metaphors and Creative 'Acts,'" a forth coming book on Psychological Science by Angela Leung and six other authors.
"Just how potent is the metaphor "thinking outside the box"? Researchers built a 5-by-5-by-5-foot box to find out.
"People pondering creative puzzles while being allowed to depart whenever they wished from a rectangular path had more creative answers than those hewing to the path or seated."
Test subjects were given a 10-question word-association test often used to measure one kind of creativity (sample item: What one word links "measure," "worm," "video"?). As they answered, participants sat inside or outside the box or sat in a room sans box.
People sitting outside the box answered more questions correctly than either of the other two groups (and the difference couldn't be explained by claustrophobia or confusion, both of which were measured). Creativity seemed to be spurred by acting out a familiar figure of speech, the researchers said.
In a variation, people pondering creative puzzles while being allowed to depart whenever they wished from a rectangular path had more creative answers than those hewing to the path or seated."
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